Stream On! Where is ‘The Invisible Man?’ And how did they do it in 1933?
Special-effects guru John P. Fulton had his work cut out for him.
James Whale, the great director behind Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Showboat, undertook a film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1897 science-fiction novel about a scientist who makes himself invisible—with dire consequences. Special-effects guru John P. Fulton had his work cut out for him!
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“Excuse me, sir, but there’s breathing in my barn!”
James Whale’s audacious film opens with a tinny-but-charming “Universal Monster” musical flourish mixed with the sound effects of a bitter wind: “Pheeew!” We see a path from the horizon, down which a bundled-up figure approaches a pub through driving snow.
The pub goes quiet as he steps inside, all hat, scarf, dark glasses—and bandages. He cocks his wrapped face like a fist.
Claude Rains, in only his second screen test, was chosen to play the antagonist/protagonist of The Invisible Man, scientist Dr. Jack Griffin, who succeeds, alas!, in making himself invisible. Be careful what you wish for. In a role in which his face is seen only for a few seconds at the end of the film, stage-actor Rains showed off his mellifluous voice (complete with rolled ‘R’s) and physical acting chops.
Jack Griffin, the title character, is only seen either completely clothed, with his head swathed in bandages and dark glasses, or partially clothed. This is the way we (the audience and the other characters) first see Griffin déshabillé, and the special effects still hit. The clothes are standing and moving, but there’s no one inside! This was done by shooting the scene first with all present except Rains; then covering the set with black velvet. Rains then put on a black velvet bodysuit and those of Griffin’s clothes that are meant to be seen, and acted the scene alone on the velvet set. After some old-fashioned darkroom magic, the black velvet was masked out and the takes combined with the results we see.
When Griffin is completely invisible (no clothes on) he is present only in the reactions of the other characters (a very talented group of actors by the way), or the movement of ordinarily inanimate objects: a chair, a flying bank-teller’s drawer. Floating objects were attached to wires, and a stagehand off-camera with a broomstick could move a chair. At one point, ‘Griffin,’ on a nude rampage, steals an old man’s bicycle and pedals away. That was done by having the bike hung by invisible wires from a moving crane, its wheels connected to a track on the ground (parts of which can be seen—if we look).
We see the invisible Griffin’s footprints appear as he walks in snow: that was filmed with foot-shaped holes in the soundstage floor holding platforms that are held up with pins, under an inch of rock salt (the “snow”). The crew pulls the pins in sequence and the platforms drop, leaving indentations that look like footprints appearing.
But The Invisible Man is about much more than special effects—the direction, black-and-white cinematography, and writing are all expert. The suspense really works, probably in part due to the special effects, which look real. Griffin puts a clock on one character, threatening to murder him “at ten o’clock,” and it is chilling.
The New York Times placed the film at number nine on its 1933 ‘Ten Best’ list. Not ten best sci-fi, or ten-best horror—ten best films.
Sources include Wikipedia (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License); FX Making Of; The Stop Button
Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon's prices. This column originally appeared on The Outer Banks Voice.