Welcome readers, to a spooky chapter of Hollywood history. For the next few weeks, we will be looking at the works of master filmmakers, who knew how to scare the living daylights out of filmgoers. They are the movies that made Universal Studios, literally. They are the Universal Monsters. While the series began with Tod Browning's Dracula in 1931, the auteur behind the best of them was James Whale, the filmmaker who helmed the three best movies in the series - Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
To start off, I'll look at the middle film and my personal favorite from the series, The Invisible Man. Based on the H.G. Welles novel of the same name and surprisingly faithful to that story, the film is much more darkly serious than the others. Whale was able to convince Universal on holding off on a Frankenstein sequel for a few years and they allowed him to work on other projects, including Invisible Man. His plan was to show that he wasn't a one-monster director and it worked out beautifully.
Universal's initial plan was to actually reject all of Welles' story, but Whale turned down that idea. Sure, he would make some changes to fit the novel into a 70-minute movie, but Whale, R.C. Sherriff and a number of other writers managed to save the majority of Welles' plot. That makes Invisible Man the most faithful adaptation in the Monsters series.
Claude Rains made his American film debut as Jack Griffin, the Invisible Man. Griffin is a scientist who concocted a formula using a dangerous drug called monocane to make himself invisible. Unfortunately, he still needs to find an antidote, but he stands in his own way. It turns out that one of the side-effects of monocane is insanity. At the start of the film, he's already losing his mind, becoming uncontrollably violent.
After terrorizing an entire village, Griffin captures the attention of the police and his employer, Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers of It's A Wonderful Life fame), and his fiancee, Flora Cranley (Gloria Stewart, known to most as Old Rose in Titanic [1997]). As he goes completely mad, he creates a plan to take over the world (he might as well be useful while trying to find an antidote) and enlists Cranley's assistant, the hapless coward Dr. Kemp (William Karrigan).
One of the biggest changes Whale made was the addition of the fiancee and Cranley characters. In the book, Griffin is on his own, but if he has no sympathetic associates, a movie audience would see him as a completely villainous character. While we know, based on the trajectory, that there can be no way Griffin lives, there is always that hope he will come to his senses with the help of Flora. There's nothing like that in the book.
There are two major reasons why The Invisible Man holds up so well, even when compared to the other Universal Monster movies. Despite being made in 1933, John P. Fulton created incredible special effects that made the Invisible Man come to life. He was a genius, coming up with ways to make clothes appear to walk without anyone in them. He made bandages float in thin air. There are only a few shots where a string might be visible. The shot of Griffin taking his bandage off while looking at a mirror is just remarkably well done.
The next point is the most obvious. Without Rains, this movie would stink. His performance is nothing short of miraculous, though we don't see his face until the last second. This role just had to go to a then-unknown, because what Hollywood star would take a role where you never see his face? Even as Frankenstein or The Mummy, Boris Karloff's face was visible, so people knew it. But most filmgoers in 1933 would not have even heard of Rains before going in, never mind having an idea of what he looked like. Therefore, he had to leave an impression with just his voice... and it works. Rains' performance under the bandages should also be praised. You can just feel the building frustration in his movements. Rains is truly one of the underrated figures of Hollywood cinema, a man almost taken for granted because he did everything so well.
Sadly, there is one issue with The Invisible Man: it's too short. Who wouldn't want to hang out more with an invisible Claude Rains? On the other side of the coin, though, the movie is exactly as long as it needs to be. There is not one iota of wasted celluloid in this film. Whale keeps the action constantly moving – even scenes with exposition move at a breathless pace. Yes, the Invisible Man is a masterpiece of science fiction literature in Welles' hands, but he is an unforgettable character in film history thanks to Whale, Rains and the special effects wizards at Universal.
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