The Invisible Man
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Movie Reviews of The Invisible Man
Movie Review: Seeing Is Believing in this Claude Rains' Debut!
Summary: 5 Stars
The Universal Pictures horror film that put Universal Pictures back in black during the worse years of the Great Depression.
The comedy was fun without being slapstick silly (as in later sequels); the characters actors were great in conveying mood; and the megalomaniac vocal abilities of Claude Rains was fantastic. I picked up the Classic Monster Collection (1990) and it kept much of the original film's dusty, poppy stuff that you usually see in old Black & White films.
The DVD goes over the whole effects process of making a man invisible, expertly done by James Fulton.
James Whale, the man who directed Frankenstein and Dracula, took the H.G. Wells novel and its adaptation was near perfect, even approved by Wells himself.
The opening scene at the bar, the mad scientist who has achieved invisibility needs to find a place of quiet, working on an antidote. And as he works on it, he gets the idea that the chemicals have cleared his brain to where he can cause panic in the streets, kill a few people, great or small, cause a train wreck or so, and have the world grovel at his feet. Ya Ha Ha Ha Ha!! Oops!
As in Frankenstein, Whale has the worried fiance, the secluded mad scientist, the "other guy" who wants the fiance for himself and a desire to be famous.
After much police hyjinx, a bit of it slapstick and silly, the burning of a barn and a well-placed bullet puts an end to the mad scientist's invisibility and his formula.
John Carradine makes a brief appearance talking to police on a telephone. Henry Travers as the father of the fiance, who was later seen as Clarence the Angel in Its' a Wonderful Life. Gloria Stuart is the well-made-up fiance, Flora. Interestingly she gave up acting only to pick it up again in the 1980s. She was the old woman who was the last survivor in Cameron's Titanic.
So many facts and figures, great "making of" and a bit of a drawn-out commentary track by film historian Rudy Behlmer.
Great DVD, though I'm sure the newest Universal Legacy edition recently out is much better.
Movie Review: Insanity Is the True Horror
Summary: 5 Stars
I actually enjoyed this movie a little more than the book. What makes this movie so interesting is that it gives us an invisible man for show, but we see that it is insanity which is the true horror.
The movie starts with Dr. Griffin (the invisible man) coming to a tavern/hotel. Many patrons are uneasy about him, but some feel there is no real reason to dislike him despite his oddness. Later, he wreaks some havoc as he tries to find a way to make himself visible again. (He almost kills the owner of the tavern.) This is when the chase starts; at this point, the movie looks more like a comedy than anything, as the townspeople try hopelessly to catch an invisible man.
Dr. Griffin reunites with his friend Dr. Kemp, and Griffin reveals to some extent why he did this experiment. Now the movie stops being funny and becomes quite disturbing as Griffin reveals his intentions: "We'll begin with a few murders. Murders of big men, murders of little men. Just to show we make no distinction. We might even wreck a train or two." It turns out that the drugs that made Griffin invisible had an ugly side effect. (They gradually drove him insane.) The invisibility is not so bad. That could have been cured. But the insanity is very frightening, and very plausible I may add. Griffin even rebukes the man who may be able to help him. ("He has the brain of a tape worm, a maggot compared to mine.")
People start getting killed, and Kemp fears for his life because he can not play along with these killings. The townsmen and police try harder to catch the invisible man and start finding methods that might make more sense, but Griffin becomes more insane, and more brutal. And perhaps the most scary thing about this movie is that we can see (possibly through Claude Rains's great acting) that Griffin was at one time a good person.
Overall, this is a phenomenal movie that shows us that insanity is the true (and lost) meaning of horror.
Movie Review: Still Amazing After Seventy+ Years
Summary: 5 Stars
Many reviewers say the film's special effects look "dated". Well, DUH! What do you expect?? The movie is almost 80 freakin' years old, people! And you know what? Like all of the Whale films, it holds up better than 99% of the films made back then. Believe it or not folks, just because a movie is in black and white and doesn't have blood/gore does not automatically make it boring or bad. For example: there was a great, unbelievably frightening little film made in the early '60's called The Haunting. It was a b/w haunted house drama with Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn and Richard Johnson, and it relied on atmosphere, suspense, and psychological horror. They remade the movie in about 2000, thinking that they could really work wonders with today's state-of-the-art special effects and technical wizardry. The result was an awful and overblown mess of a movie which no one cared about.
But hey--I'm not revewing The Haunting, am I? My point is that a great film can be made using old equipment and methods, as long as the director and photographer really know their stuff. And that there is a real danger in assuming that more money, bigger names and modern equipment will automatically yield a better product.
This movie is still fabulously entertaining. Like all of Whale's work, it contains moments of laugh-out-loud humor, tender emotions, tragedy and horror. It's beautifully photographed, and the lighting is wonderfully artful (black and white at its best). We can't see Rains, but at least we can hear that splendid voice. We get to see Gloria Stuart, an incredibly beautiful young thing in the early '30's, who also appeared in another Whale masterpiece, The Old Dark House.
One of my all-time favorites.
Movie Review: Another Classic from James Whale
Summary: 5 Stars
James Whale was one of Universal's best directors in the 1930s; hell, let's just say he was one of Hollywood's best directors. Besides "Frankenstein" and "The Bride of Frankenstein," he also directed this first sound adaptation of H.G. Wells's thriller. And in it he provided a Hollywood debut for English actor Claude Rains. Rains is marvelous as the Invisible One (as he's identified in the opening credits), a fabulously over-the-top performance reveling in the character's madness and wit. Rains is aptly partnered by a young Gloria Stuart (who went on to play the old lady in James Cameron's "Titanic" about 60 years later, as well as lead an extraordinarily interesting life as an artist and a friend to the wonderful writer MFK Fisher, but I digress!) and Henry Travers (aka the angel wannabe Clarence in Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life.") But the real scene stealer in this thoroughly entertaining, masterfully paced film is the great Una O'Connor as the Inn-keeper's wife. Just watching this woman's face is one of the great delights of going to the movies, even at home. Good screen adaptation from the writers and excellent camera work, but it's Whale's show and the direction displays all his trademark creepy atmospherics and sly wit. A real gem, and with marvelous DVD bonus features to boot!Movie Review: The Invisible Man
Summary: 5 Stars
Claude Rains stars as Doctor Jack Griffin, a brilliant chemist who is driven mad by an experimental serum that has turned him into THE INVISIBLE MAN! Director James Whale unwraps H.G.Wells' classic novel in the 1933 film following his successes with FRANKENSTEIN and THE OLD DARK HOUSE. For a character that never shows his face, Rains has an immense screen presence that exudes through his many coverings. His bandaged face, fake nose, and sunglasses give him a distinct look despite being completely unseen. It is not a tragic accident or twist of fate that transforms Griffin into his alter ego, but rather his own arrogant narcissism. The result is that he becomes a ruthless murderer that is more of a monster than Dracula and The Wolf Man combined! THE INVISIBLE MAN introduces some of the earliest forms of chroma key compositing, a groundbreaking technique that allowed Rains to be removed from the frame in place of a matte background. Like in FRANKENSTEIN, Whale explores the danger of man's trespasses against nature, and the frightening results. THE INVISIBLE MAN is every bit the classic that it has been made out to be thanks to an all-star performance by Claude Rains and the inventive special effects!
-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies