Universal Studios 1933

Directed by James Whale

Written by H. G. Wells

Screenplay byR.C.Sherriff & Phillip Wylie

Special Effects by John.P.Fluton

Staring Claude Rains & Gloria Stuart

Well here we go with one of the great Wellsian classics, the Invisible Man, the story of a scientist who turns himself invisible with a drug that also drives him mad. In his first screen performance Claude Rains plays Griffin, who takes refuge in a small English village while he tries to discover the antidote to the drug that has made him invisible. Hounded by curious villagers, he succumbs to the madness and forces his ex-colleague to help inaugurate a vengeful reign of terror.Now this is where the action really begins, murders, train-wrecks, and mental harassment are his weapons, and not even the love of his sweetheart (Gloria Stuart) can save him. The police are powerless to stop him as they cant see him, and he gives them a merry chase. Eventually he is traced to a hay-filled barn in a snow covered farmyard, and the police who he has made complete fools of through out the movie set fire to his refuge. He runs out of the barn on to the snow covered ground, as he flees for his life you can see his footprints giving the police some kind of fix where he is. They start shooting and the invisible man finally falls, they rush him to hospital where his sweetheart is waiting to see him again....or should I say touch him again...hes invisible remember, the final scene show Griffin dying in a hospital bed, as he passes away he becomes visible again.This film is Directed by Whale in superb fashion and with an excellent script, Claude Rains also put on the performance of his movie career, but with out a doubt the movies greatest feat was the special effects. Some of the most believable and ingenious scenes, one in which Rain's unbandages his head, bit by bit, to reveal nothingness, is unforgettable and makes this film on of the finest contributions to both the Sci-Fi and horror film genres.

The success of The Invisible Man spawned a host of not so well made sequels, such as the Invisible Man Returns (Universal 1939)...kind of hard to return if your already dead, but this film co-written by Curt Siodmak and staring Vincent Price as the invisible brother of the original invisible man.(it must run in the family..:); from here it went to what else but The Invisible Mans Revenge (Universal 1944) in which Jon Hall is forced to give the original formula he had rediscovered to an criminal bent on revenge. Then we went to the comedy duo of Abbott and Costello in the classic Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (Universal 1951); there are various little known Mexican, Turkish, and German versions ; and an ill fated Television version staring David McCallum. In between these fine and not so fine films other invisible persons also appeared on the screen : The Invisible Woman (Universal 1940) in which John Barrymore's machine made Virginia Bruce invisible so she could hunt spies; and Invisible Agent (Universal 1942), another Curt Siodmak story, again staring Jon Hall, this time pitted against Nazi agents Cedric Hardwicke and Peter Lorre. Although these films never delt with Well's original characters, most of them retained the credit line "suggested by the novel of H.G.Wells." By now he must have washed his hands of the whole thing.

As a matter of fact invisibility in films was nothing new in 1933: more than 35 films have been listed with the word "Invisible" in the title, most of them dealing with some process for the making a human being vanish. It was used as a favourite device in the early comedies and serials. The earliest known invisibility film is Les Invisibles (also known as Invisible Thief), a French film directed for Pathe by Gaston Velle and Gabrial Moreau in 1905. The self doomed Invisible Man remains the most popular single character created by Wells, and one of the most memorable in Sci-Fi cinema.