The Invisible Man (1934) Director: James Whale
“An invisible man can rule the world.
Nobody will see him come, nobody will see him go.
He can hear every secret. He can rob, and wreck, and kill!”
★★★★★
The Invisible Man surprised me –these old Universal horror flicks are truly the stuff of legend! The Invisible Man is based on H.G. Wells’s 1897 novel of the same name, though there are some notable differences between the film and the novel. For example, in the book Griffin is mostly a-moral and insane from the get-go, whereas in the film he consumes his concoction of chemicals (a rare drug called “monocane”) which makes him both crazy and invisible. H.G. Wells later commented at a dinner party in honor of the film that he was disappointed in the way his “brilliant scientist” was portrayed (he famously rejected early draft scripts for the film, including a draft written by James Whale which apparently had religious undertones, but Wells’s rejection led Whale to briefly depart the project before later returning after Wells finally approved of R.C. Sherriff’s script). The success of the film would later launch a number of sequels in the Universal Monster canon. The Invisible Man stars Claude Rains as the invisible man, though his role is mostly just as a disembodied voice, and initially Boris Karloff was set to play the lead, as he did in other famous James Whale films, but he left the film after Carl Laemmle Jr. cut his salary one too many times.
In a beautiful, snowy stage-set, a man completely wrapped in bandages appears at “The Lion’s Head,” an inn in England to stay for the night. He frightens the staff and guests who soon discover his horrible secret, that he is somehow completely invisible under his heavy bandages. He hides away in his room in an effort to find an antidote, far from his fiancée Flora Cranley (Gloria Stuart) and her father Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers). However his experiments are interrupted as he begins terrorizing the innkeeper as well as the police before fleeing. He travels to the home of an associate, Dr. Arthur Kemp (William Harrigan), whom he intimidates into being his partner in crime, party to his “reign of terror” in a maniacal bid to take over the world by killing prominent people. He has gone insane. When his associate contacts the authorities, the invisible man goes into a rage and threatens to kill him, which he eventually does by driving him off a cliff in a car. However, soon an old farmer alerts the police that the invisible man has fallen asleep in his barn so the police arrive and burn down the barn and watch his footsteps in the snow on the ground. One of the policemen shoots the invisible man. With his dying breath, he expresses regret to Flora. At the end he dies and his body becomes visible again.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Invisible Man. The “invisibility” special effects are incredible for a film released in the 1930s and though the plot is simple –even goofy– it is nevertheless satisfying to watch an invisible man covertly attack his doubters before he promptly goes insane and becomes ensnared in his own ploy.
Credits:
- Directed by: James Whale
- Screenplay by: R. C. Sherriff
- Based on: The Invisible Man, an 1897 novel by H. G. Wells
- Produced by: Carl Laemmle Jr.
- Starring:
- Claude Rains…..Dr. Jack Griffin, The Invisible Man
- William Claude Rains (1889-1967) was one of the great British and American actors whose career spanned almost seven decades. He was the recipient of numerous accolades, including four Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor. He began as a successful stage actor in London before making his American film debut in James Whale’s The Invisible Man (1933). He went on to play prominent roles in many classic big screen productions such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Wolf Man (1941), Casablanca (1942), Kings Row (1942), Phantom of the Opera (1943), Notorious (1946), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). He was married six times and divorced five times, he had one daughter. A chronic alcoholic, Rains died from cirrhosis of the liver, having an abdomen abdominal hemorrhage in Laconia on 30 May 1967, aged 77.
- Gloria Stuart…..Flora Cranley
- Born Gloria Frances Stewart, “Gloria Stuart” (1910-2010) was known for her many roles in pre-code Hollywood films. Some of her early notable appearances included: The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), as well as roles in Shirley Temple musicals like Poor Little Rich Girl (1936) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938). She garnered renewed fame late in life for her portrayal of Rose Dawson Calvert in James Cameron’s Titanic (1997). She was married twice and had one daughter. Stuart died from respiratory failure at her home in Los Angeles on in 2010 at the age of 100
- William Harrigan…..Dr. Arthur Kemp
- Henry Travers…..Dr. Cranley
- Dudley Digges…..Chief Detective
- Holmes Herbert…..Chief of Police
- E.E. Clive…..Constable Jaffers
- Una O’Connor…..Jenny Hall
- James Whale reportedly found Una O’Connor hilarious and struggled to contain his laughter during her scenes.
- Forrester Harvey…..Herbert Hall
- Harry Stubbs…..Inspector Bird
- Donald Stuart…..Inspector Lane
- Merle Tottenham…..Millie
- Robert Adair…..Detective Thompson (uncredited)
- Edgar Barrier…..Radio Announcer (uncredited)
- Ted Billings…..Villager Playing Darts (uncredited)
- Walter Bonn…..Townsman (uncredited)
- Walter Brennan…..Bicycle Owner (uncredited)
- Robert Brower…..Farmer (uncredited)
- Mae Bruce…..Mary Purdy (uncredited)
- Rita Carlyle…..Townswoman at Pub (uncredited)
- John Carradine…..Informer Suggesting Ink (uncredited)
- Born Richmond Reed Carradine, “John Carradine” (1906-1988) was one of the great character actors. He was an early member of Cecil B. DeMille’s stock company and later John Ford’s company, and was known for his roles in horror films, Westerns, and Shakespearean theater. He most notably portrayed Count Dracula in House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966), and Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula (1979). Among his other notable roles was “Preacher Casy” in John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath and in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Stagecoach (1939). He played Aaron in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), and a variety of television roles on Lost in Space, Bonanza, The Munsters, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, Night Gallery, and as Brother Jerome in the classic Twilight Zone episode “The Howling Man.” His final role on television was in 1986 as Professor Alex Stottel alongside his son in the revival series of The Twilight Zone. He was married four times and had five children. Semi-retired by the late 1980s, Carradine suffered from painful and crippling rheumatoid arthritis in the years before he died from heart and kidney failure in Milan in 1988 at the age of 82.
- D’Arcy Corrigan…..Villager (uncredited)
- D’Arcy Corrigan (1870-1945) was an Irish lawyer and American film character actor. He appeared as the odd morgue-keeper alongside Bela Lugosi in the Universal horror picture Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) and as a blind man in John Ford’s The Informer (1935).
- Jack Deery…..Officer in Charge of Barn Capture (uncredited)
- Dwight Frye…..Reporter (uncredited)
- Dwight Frye (1899-1943) was best known for his portrayals of neurotic, jittery, murderous, unbalanced villains in the Universal Monster films, in roles like Renfield in Dracula (1931) and Fritz in Frankenstein (1931). He also appeared as a reporter in The Invisible Man (1933), as Karl in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and in minor roles in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), and Son of Frankenstein (1939), the latter of which was a deleted scene. Frye died of a heart attack at the age of 44 in 1943 while traveling by bus in Hollywood, a few days before he was scheduled to begin filming the biopic Wilson.
- Mary Gordon…..Screaming Woman (uncredited)
- Bobbie Hale…..Townsman at Pub (uncredited)
- Stuart Hall…..Constable (uncredited)
- Tiny Jones…..Townswoman at Pub (uncredited)
- Violet Kemble Cooper…..Woman (uncredited)
- Crauford Kent…..Doctor (uncredited)
- Paul Kruger…..Constable (uncredited)
- Margaret Mann…..Old Woman Listening to Radio (uncredited)
- Scotty Mattraw…..Fatman at Pub (uncredited)
- John Merivale…..Newsboy (uncredited)
- Monte Montague…..Cop (uncredited)
- Jack Montgomery…..Constable(uncredited)
- Charles Morton…..Party Guest (uncredited)
- Bob Reeves…..Detective Hogan (uncredited)
- Jack Richardson…..Official (uncredited)
- Tom Ricketts…..Old Farmer with Barn (uncredited)
- Kathryn Sheldon…..Orphanage Worker (uncredited)
- Jameson Thomas…..Hospital Doctor (uncredited)
- Leo White…..2nd Man Calling Police (‘Frost’) (uncredited)
- Bert Young…..Railroad Switchman (uncredited)
- Claude Rains…..Dr. Jack Griffin, The Invisible Man
- Cinematography: Arthur Edeson
- Edited by: Ted Kent
- Music by: Heinz Roemheld
- Production Company: Universal Pictures Corp.
Film Notes:
- On the Blu-Ray documentary, Claude Rains’ daughter Jessica Rains (who was born in 1938, five years after this film was released) recounts a time when her father brought her to see a re-release of this movie in a Pennsylvania theater in 1950. It was bitterly cold and his face was completely covered by a hat and scarf. When he spoke to ask for the tickets, the attendant immediately recognized his voice and wanted to let them in for free. Rains was quite upset at this and demanded that he pay full price.
- In order to achieve the effect of Claude Rains being invisible when he removes his took bandages, James Whale had Rains dressed completely in black velvet and filmed him in front of a black velvet background.
- Boris Karloff had a falling out with James Whale so Whale selected Claude Rains for the lead role.
- Gloria Stuart was frustrated working with Claude Rains in this film.
- Claude Rains’ performance in this film inspired Mark Hamill’s iconic portrayal of the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series (1992) and related projects.
- “We do our part!” is a slogan that pops up a couple times in the film. This was the motto of the National Recovery Administration (NRA), one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs designed to help get America out of the Great Depression.
- Robert Florey, Cyril Gardner, and Ewald André Dupont were all considered as director before James Whale was finally assigned.
- The cash and coins thrown to passersby (about an hour into the film) was taken from a branch of Lloyds Bank (incorrectly spelled Lloyd’s). Founded in 1765, it still does financial business, one of the big four banks of Great Britain.
- In the opening scene at The Lion’s Head Inn, the tune being played on the piano is “Annie Laurie,” an old Scottish song based on a poem written by William Douglas of Dumfriesshire about his romance with a woman named Annie Laurie. The words were modified and the tune was written by Lady John Scott in 1834 or 1835.
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