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The Appropriate Tune: "Invisible Man", by The Breeders
This is something of a weird confession, but I don’t think I’ve ever read “The Invisible Man”. No, not the book by Ralph Ellison, although I should probably read that one too, but the work by British novelist and science fiction pioneer H.G. Wells. I was a pretty big fan of Wells’ work when I was a kid, readily absorbing works like “War of the Worlds” and “The Time Machine”, but I’m fairly certain I’ve only touched the first paragraph, first chapter at most, of his third most famous work. “The Stolen Bacillus” got in before “The Invisible Man”, to give some idea to those three people who get that reference, and to give some clarification to how weird one’s priorities can be at times. Does that work as an opening paragraph? I dunno.
I say that partially to undercut my own credibility and also to lead into the remark that it seems like I’m not the only one who hasn’t read it. “The Invisible Man” is certainly known, but it seems like pop culture is more infatuated with the concept rather than the story. The Hollow Man franchise, Memoirs of an Invisible Man starring Chevy Chase, that one TV show in the 90s with the liquid metal effect, even Alan Moore uses an original character in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as a serial rapist who is himself brutally raped to death (because how could you take him seriously as a writer if he didn’t sprinkle rape into every story he could). Not much at all in the way of proper adaptations compared to The Time Machine or Island of Dr. Moreau, although calling Marlon Brando’s interpretation of Moreau ‘proper’ might be doing a disservice to everyone’s favorite vivisectionist. So why not throw Herbert’s baby boy a bone and completely avoid the Invisible Man movie that’s supposed to be out this year to instead talk about a movie that’s almost 90 years old instead? If this blog is anything, it’s timely and relevant with its content.
Released in 1933, with a screenplay by R.C. Sheriff and directed by blog patriarch James Whale, The Invisible Man was one of the earlier additions to Universal’s catalogue of genre-defining horror films. On a dark and snowy night in the sleepy town of Iping, a mysterious man enters the Lion-Head inn and tavern and rents a room, sparking a flurry of rumours from the townsfolk. This man, played/voiced by Claude Rains, is revealed in a roundabout way to be Jack Griffin, your average chemist’s assistant who disappeared under mysterious circumstances a few weeks prior. ‘Disappeared’ being the choice word here, as through the wonders of 1930s science Griffin has rendered himself completely invisible, and he’s having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to make himself un-invisible. It’s enough to drive someone absolutely insane, and as they always say, it’s the naked crazy guys that you can’t see that are the problem.
The Invisible Man is a film of two minds. On one hand scenes like the ones in Iping, or where people are throwing around questions about how Griffin’s invisibility works, a lot of the more comedic moments feels in line with what you’d expect from the Wells story, but the rest feels like Universal trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. Flora’s entire character feels like the most blatant example of a studio mandate I’ve seen lately, for example, that movies like this need some eye-candy to flaunt around so Invisible Man must have it too damn it. Except the women in those films were generally relevant to the plot, if only as cliche ‘damsels in distress’, and Flora isn’t even that. I have to assume that she was supposed to be this humanizing moment for Griffin, to show the man he once was and how far he’d fallen, but it never really feels legitimate because she has one conversation with the fucker in the whole movie. They even have the possibility of setting up a love triangle between her, Griffin and other assistant Kemp, but they completely sidestep that angle to make sure that you could completely excise those characters and that attempt at backstory and nothing would change. Considering that Dracula and Frankenstein weren’t 1:1 adaptations either, there’s really no excuse.
There’s also some things on the technical side that are just weird. For example, there’s a scene early on in the film where a distraught Flora walks into another to moan about Griffin, and the Kemp comes in to be a creep. Rather than do something like have Flora rush offscreen, you hear a door slam, and then cut to the room with Kemp coming in, instead they do this one shot where they show Flora move into the room and Kemp follows her, but the camera is pulled back so far that you can see where the wall ends. I don’t know if that was supposed to be the architectural style of the time or if it’s something that came out in the transfer of the film to different aspect ratios, like how in the ‘remastered’ editions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer you can see the cameras and such, but for whatever reason it’s so distracting to me. Then later on in that same scene, we’re focused on Kemp and in your head your head you think it’s going to do a closeup on his face, maybe in frame with a flower for symbolic reasons, but instead the camera backs away until the scene ends with Kemp’s head peeking out of a large bush. It’s so weird looking! The rest of the movie is fine, so I don’t know if James Whale was sick that day or what, but man did they hit hard and heavy.
Ultimately though, Universal movies live or die by their monster, and Claude Rains does not disappoint. He doesn’t have the iconic accent like Lugosi and Karloff, but he makes up for it with this overwhelming presence that makes you sit up and take notice. Doesn’t matter if he’s singing nursery rhymes or making megalomaniacal speeches, you believe in him completely. Honestly he’s almost too good for the part, like he should be running SPECTRE or fighting Superman, not berating middle-aged Irish women over unpaid rent. Not much else to say, it’s just a damn good voice.
So Claude Rains, the small-town Brit silliness, and seeing the novel ways in which James Whale and crew tackle the ‘invisible man’ problem… I’d say that’s enough to warrant a recommendation. I wouldn’t say it’s a priority, if you’re only passing familiar with the Universal horror there are films you’ll want to check out first, but if you’re intrigued it’s barely over an hour long so no worries about a big time investment. Throw in Erle C. Kenton’s Island of Lost Souls and this year the H in H.G. Wells might just stand for Halloween.
