Written by R.C. Sheriff
Directed by James Whale
The Invisible Man: "An invisible man can rule the world. Nobody will see him come, nobody will see him go. He can hear every secret. He can rob, rape and kill!"
Late last year I watched and reviewed the 2020 version of this classic but I had to go and find the original. Oh my God, what a delight of a movie.
Our villainous protagonist, Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) started the film being invisible and holding up in a tavern to work on a cure for his condition. However his antics managed to piss off the proprietors - Herbert (Forrester Harvey) and Jenny Hall (Una O'Connor). Griffin didn't take being thrown out very well.
In fact he took the utmost delight in terrorising the couples as well as the villagers in the town. His antics spread but the police didn't believe in the idea of The Invisible Man until Griffin killed one out of spite. The movie made a point of telling that Griffin's invisibility has driven him to madness.
The very people who could help Griffin were also people that he had very different relationships with. He particularly loathed fellow doctor, Arthur Kemp (William Harrigan) and vowed to kill him. Despite the police's best efforts to protect Kemp, the latter still died brutally at the hands of a vengeful Griffin.
Griffin's relationships with father and daughter duo, Dr Cranley (Henry Travers) and Flora (Gloria Stuart) also was a contrast. He saw the former as intellectually inferior to him but the romance he had with the latter were the few moments in the movie where Griffin showed any humanity.
When he wasn't playing pranks and murdering people, Griffin's luck eventually ran out when he was smoked out of a burning barn and shot to death. The deathbed scene at the hospital had Griffin reflect on the folly of his actions, ending the movie on a suitably tragic note.
- The 2020 reboot aside, there were sequel and spin-off movies that came out in 1940.
- It took Jack over a thousand experiments during five years to become invisible. Food is visible when he eats until it's digested.
- Standout music: Claude Rains's versions of Here We Go Gathering Nuts In May and Pop Goes The Weasel are used to creepy effect.
- Chronology: It's set in Iping, Sussex during Winter.
The Invisible Man really is a sublime piece of science fiction and horror. A chilling but hammy performance from Claude Rains really cemented this for me, along with that rather tragic ending.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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