The Invisible Man

Director James Whale’s Invisible Man isn’t messing around.

The film opens in a country pub. The door swings open and an unrecognizable Claude Rains steps inside clutching a bag, face bandaged, sporting a hat, overcoat and dark sunglasses. Wet with snow, and a roaring wind behind him, he demands a room, a fire, and food. As he follows the owner upstairs, the locals begin speculating that he’s a fugitive, or horribly disfigured.

In short order, we learn the backstory. The man is Dr. Griffin. A scientist, he’s turned himself invisible and has retreated to this isolated pub to find a cure. No one knows about his condition or where he’s gone, including his colleague, Dr. Kemp, and love interest, Flora. We also learn he’s quick to anger, and that his landlady doesn’t understand the meaning of “I want to be left alone.”

Soon, Griffin’s facing eviction, forcing him to reveal his secret and terrorize the local village. More backstory and we learn Griffin’s serum contained a chemical that will drive him mad. Indeed, Griffin soon shows up at Kemp’s home and forces Kemp to aid him in a planned reign of terror, starting with “a few murders here and there.”

But the police are after Griffin, leading to elaborate cat-and-mouse games Griffin always seems to outsmart, but how long can his luck hold out?

This breakneck narrative is perhaps too efficient. While I applaud the film for starting as late into the narrative as possible, the decision to never show Griffin before his accident robs his character of any arc. He’s mad at the start and only gets crazier as the film unfolds. A shame, as Claude Rains can charm with the best of them.

The film’s other glaring issue lies in its special effects. In terms of technical execution, they’ve aged fine, but they often feel shoehorned into the narrative. Consider a scene where Griffin escapes a group of police and flees with one of their trousers. Why would he do this? So Whale can proffer a subsequent scene of the disembodied pants running down a country road, frightening a passer-by. This scene doesn’t advance or deepen the story, it just shows off the optical effect.

The film includes many such moments. While these effects may have been novel in 1933, they’re matter-of-fact now, rendering them less thrilling when devoid of narrative stakes. Dropping one or two and investing more in having Rains’ voice match each scene’s acoustics would have helped.

But the film almost compensates for these missteps with its ruthlessness. When Griffin says, “a few murders here and there,” he’s not joking. He kills almost everyone who gets in his way or annoys him. At one point, he makes a detour to derail a train, murdering hundreds for nothing more than laughs.

And laugh he does, maniacally as he descends into madness. Rains delivers the kind of manic insanity modern audiences might attribute to Batman’s nemesis The Joker. It’s a terrific performance, even without an arc. It also helps that Kemp, the nominal protagonist, proves an effective coward, pushing us to root for Griffin, if only because he has near-unlimited agency.

Renfield himself, Dwight Frye, even shows up in something of an in-joke as a reporter who suggests the police use bloodhounds. Frye’s delivery, emphasizing the “blood” in bloodhounds, will have Universal Horror fans grinning.

The rest of the cast fares less well. Una O’Connor’s shrieking turn as Griffin’s landlady grated, as did Gloria Stuart’s overemoting as Griffin’s love-interest. Whale’s cranking these performances to eleven had to have been intentional, and the film suffers for it. Then again, without these borderline comic turns, the film might have been too bleak for a 1933 audience.

As a contemporary science-fiction thriller, The Invisible Man stands out amongst Universal’s early features. To that end, it may disappoint viewers looking for gothic horrors. But fans of Whale should appreciate its place between Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, with Whale taking the mad scientist trope to gleeful extremes. Rains fans should love his performance. And if you’re wowed by empty pants running, then trust me, you’re in for a treat.