And that binary goes a long way towards explaining why flight is so often seen in rah-rah superhero movies, and invisibility is more often present in horror cinema. Which is not to say that it\u2019s solely found there; it\u2019s a mighty pliable premise, which has appeared in everything from broad sex comedies (The Man Who Wasn\u2019t There<\/em> \u2013 no, the other one) to light rom-coms (Memoirs of an Invisible Man<\/em> \u2013 directed, oddly enough, by horror master John Carpenter). Hell, when Abbott & Costello met the Invisible Man, they used him as a plot device for a boxing movie. But the character is most effective in horror, from the original 1933 Invisible Man<\/em> to the deeply disturbing Hollow Man<\/em> to last year\u2019s Blumhouse riff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original \u2013 now streaming<\/a> as part of the Criterion Channel\u2019s \u201cUniversal Horror\u201d program<\/a>, and available in the new \u201cUniversal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror\u201d<\/a> 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray set \u2013 remains a chilling demonstration of the story\u2019s effectiveness. Adapted from H.G. Wells\u2019s 1897 novel, it was directed by the great James Whale, after Frankenstein<\/em> and The Old Dark House<\/em>, but before Bride of Frankenstein<\/em>. It begins in progress, with a strange man trudging through a blizzard, then stumbling into a small village and its earthy inn. He asks for a room, demanding absolute privacy \u2013 and for good reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is Dr. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains), and his appearance \u2013 bundled tightly and wearing sunglasses \u2013 could initially be attributed to the cold weather. But his face is covered with bandages, we discover, because he is already the invisible man, left in this condition by \u201ca difficult experiment.\u201d This eschewing of throat-clearing and set-up is something that today\u2019s filmmakers could learn a lesson from; we don\u2019t need to see his careful study, conversations about the danger of what he\u2019s doing, the experiment going haywire, or any of that nonsense, because Whale knows that this<\/em> is where the story gets interesting anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back home, his fianc\u00e9 Flora (future Titanic<\/em> co-star Gloria Stuart) is worried about his sudden disappearance, and Griffin\u2019s colleague Dr. Kemp (William Herrigan) offers little help: \u201cHe meddled in things men should leave alone!\u201d he explains to her, the first of the film\u2019s many thematic ties to Whale\u2019s earlier Frankenstein<\/em>; as with that film, this monster puts the village it inhabits on high alert, with angry mobs and authority figures proving equally ineffective at quelling its rage. Griffin initially intends only to try to undo the damage (\u201cThere must be a way back! God knows there\u2019s a way back!\u201d), but he feels like a freak, locked up in that room, and his desperation unlocks his capacity for violence. When the terrified innkeepers, police, and townfolk try to confront Griffin, he finally peels off his bandages and tosses them at the crowd, cackling, \u201cI\u2019ll show you who I am! And what I am!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that scene, and throughout the picture, the invisibility effects are still<\/em> impressive \u2013 and they hold up better in 4K than, say, most CGI-heavy movies of the \u201890s. And the model work is also convincing, as our antihero goes on a havoc-wreaking rampage, derailing a train, sending Kemp\u2019s car over a cliff, scaring people to death, and swiping money from banks (were it not a \u201830s movie, this stretch is where the nudity would be).<\/p>\n\n\n\n But none of those miraculous effects work without Raines\u2019s impeccable performance. Because of the aforementioned narrative efficiency, we don\u2019t even see the actor\u2019s face until the closing shot, so he\u2019s been robbed of one of his most important tools as an actor. Thus the characterization is mostly about his voice (the body language matters as well, but not nearly as much), and he finds all sorts of ways to deploy it: the chilling way he assures Kemp, \u201cThere\u2019s no need to be afraid, Kemp! We are partners! Bosom friends!\u201d; the creepy delivery of his \u201cHere we go gathering nuts and may\u201d sing-song; and most disturbingly, how Whale and screenwriter R.C. Sherriff turn a logistical necessity (he often has to talk to himself, in order to convey reactions to an audience that cannot see his face) into a method of making the audience his co-conspirator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As with Dracula <\/em>and Frankenstein<\/em>, it\u2019s also worth noting that these films are endlessly eerie and affecting without<\/em> the element of music that we now deem so indispensable to genre cinema. In the new 4K set, as in Universal\u2019s history, The Invisible Man<\/em> is grouped with those monster films (and the later The Wolf Man<\/em>) as one of the essential early horror films, but it didn\u2019t leave the same cultural imprint as the others. Maybe it\u2019s just that it\u2019s so much harder to dress as the Invisible Man for Halloween. But that may also be why The Invisible Man<\/em> is, to my eyes, the most effective of those \u201830s and \u201840s classics; the costuming and make-up of his Universal brethren are comparatively silly, so it\u2019s easy to chuckle and condescend to those ubiquitous monsters. But there\u2019s nothing scarier than what we cannot see, and knowing that someone could be watching us at any moment, plotting, planning, ready to strike. “The Invisible Man” is now streaming<\/a> as part of the Criterion Channel\u2019s \u201cUniversal Horror\u201d program<\/a>, and is available in the new \u201cUniversal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror\u201d<\/a><\/em> 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray box set.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/invisible-man-1024x576.jpeg\")
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