The Last Invisible Man

Read/Watch ‘em in Order: #9

The previous movie in this series—The Invisible Man’s Revenge—was too different from the other films to be considered a part of the same continuity, but that’s not the case with this film.

Despite a heavy dose of both verbal and slapstick humor, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) ties squarely in with the original film. Bud and Lou are newly licensed private eyes. When boxer Tommy Nelson is accused of murder, he hires the boys to help him catch the real killers.

But Tommy has another advantage. His girlfriend’s dad has inherited Jack Griffith’s original formula (heck, there’s a picture of Claude Rains hanging in his lab) and Tommy injects himself with it. But there’s still the danger of the formula driving Tommy insane and there’s no guarantee he can be cured even if he does clear his name.

Of course, that last bit does represent a continuity glitch---it had already been established in the second film that a complete blood transfusion would work as a cure. Also, Tommy is able to eat without the undigested food being visible inside him. But we can forgive this last one, since it helps set up a great visual gag later in the film when Lou and Tommy are sharing a plate of spaghetti.

The film was one of several that followed up on the commercial success of 1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.  The boys had shown us that it was possible to incorporate great comedy with a serious and respectful treatment of Universal’s classic monsters, so that formula was repeated several times. In this case, the plot involved Tommy and the boys getting evidence against mobsters who framed the boxer and arranged for fights to be thrown. This part of the film is played relatively straight and progresses in a logical manner as they identify the chief mobster and set him up for a fall.

But the gags mixed in with this are hilarious without distracting from the “rational” part of the plot. The dialogue highlights Bud and Lou’s verbal wit, while several bits of physical comedy are amongst the best in any of their films. The funniest moment, I think, might possibly be the punch line (or rather the punch sight gag) involving Lou accidently putting a number of people to sleep via hypnotism.

And an extended sequence with Lou in a boxing ring, being secretly helped by Tommy during a fight, is truly classic. In fact, the entire film was consciously built around this routine.

Even the short throwaway gags (such as Lou trying to pick up a gun while wearing boxing gloves) are funny. The special effects are great and the supporting cast holds up their end of the film nicely. Sheldon Leonard plays the head mobster—a standard role for him but one he always did well both in serious films and in comedies. William Frawley gets several terrific scenes as the long-suffering police detective trying to catch Tommy.

It’s a worthwhile finale for a classic and enjoyable series of horror films.

And that does indeed bring us to the end of the Invisible Man films. We’ve still one more Shadow novel in “The Hand” series to cover, then we’ll be ready to move on to something else. Right now, I’m leaning towards examining Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellicidar novels—if only because I haven’t revisited them in awhile. But we’ll see. It’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to… um, I mean I’ll read what I want to. 

Actually, I’m open to suggestions. Any film or book series you all would like me to cover?

"I can stand there amongst them in the day and night and laugh at them. "

Read/Watch 'em in order: Entry #3 (The Invisible Man films)

I do this blog for several reasons. Obviously, it's in large part for self-promotion--done with the hopes that some of you will click on the links for my books and buy them. Or request your local library get copies.

Second, I feel it my duty to share my brilliant observations about all things geeky and thus bring an occasional glimmer of light to all your sad and dreary lives.

But yet another reason is that it serves as a reminder to me of books, stories or films I haven't revisited in years.

For instance, I haven't seen the classic version of The Invisible Man in a long, long time. So opting to discuss the films in that series gave me reason to watch it again.

And, gee whiz, it's a great movie. John P. Fulton is responsible for the often remarkable special effects. James Whale does a great job as directer, injecting the film with his usual sardonic and sometimes campy humor. This is really apparent early on, as reflected in the wonderfully colorful characters that the Invisible Man encounters in a village pub.



But the movie really belongs to Claude Rains. This was his American film debut and (despite never seeing him other than when swathed in bandages) he dominates every scene he's in.

The plot of the movie has him going mad--a side effect of the drug that makes him invisible--and launching a reign of terror across England. He drafts his former lab assistant--a sniveling coward named Kemp--to help him deal with several drawbacks of being invisible.

But Kemp betrays him and the police begin coming up with some reasonably effective tactics to stop him. The plot is very well constructed--with most events building out of the logical consequences of someone becoming invisible.

Still, it's Claude Rains' vocal performance that makes this a classic. His insane rants are intermingled with occasional attempts at trying to remain calm--giving the whole performance a feeling of pathos. My favorite scene might be when he confronts his lady love and struggles to regain his sanity, only to tumble over the edge into Crazy Town once more. With the important exception of Casablanca, I'd rate this as Rains' best movie performance.

The film is reasonably faithful to H.G. Wells' original novel, though it ramps up the title character's insanity and leaves out the social and political themes that Wells included in most of his novels. This was why Wells himself disliked the film, but I think he was wrong in this. Taken for what it is, it's one of the horror movie high points of all time.

Poor H.G. He was a brilliant man, but his science fiction ideas were so inherently awesome by themselves that no one ever noticed (or simply didn't care about) any larger socio-political themes he might have been trying to discuss. The coolness of invisible men, time machines, and Martian fighting tripods simply overwhelmed any deeper points.

The Invisible Man had several sequels made during the 1940s: The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Invisible Agent (1942) and The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944).  We'll be getting to all these films eventually. (We'll be leaving out 1940's The Invisible Woman because it's not a part of the same continuity.) Though none of these are the classic that the original clearly is, all are worthwhile and enjoyable B-Movies. All are worth a look.