You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
Wednesday December 27th | 6 movies
Ever since director James Whale’s The Invisible Man was released to the public in 1933, the invisibility trope has become a frequently used plot device in film and television. The fictitious ability to become invisible often tapped into a deeply rooted fear that scientific advancements could threaten the fabric of society. The invisible person gained an advantage over their fellow mortals, giving them an opportunity to do what they wanted without being caught.
Long before CGI and green screens, an amalgamation of special effects techniques—which varied from film to film—gave the appearance of an invisible being lurking in the background and causing chaos among the seen. In many instances, the invisibility made for amusing visual gags in which objects seem to float in the air to great comedic effect.
TCM’s prime time lineup You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet showcases six movies that utilize invisibility in a variety of ways.
The Invisible Man (1933)
Upon the success of Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), Universal was eager for another box office hit that would help them stay afloat during the financially trying times of the Great Depression. Studio executive Carl Laemmle, Jr., who always had an eye out for the mysterious and the macabre, purchased the rights for H.G. Wells’ 1897 novella “The Invisible Man” for $10,000. According to Claude Rains biographer David J. Skal, a good chunk of that money went to French producer Louis Nalpas who had acquired the rights for a silent film adaptation that never came to fruition.
Several screenwriters, including Preston Sturges, tackled the script. Director James Whale’s contribution to the story was to have the protagonist, Dr. Jack Griffin, AKA The Invisible Man, go insane because \"in the minds of rational people only a lunatic would want to make himself invisible anyway.” It was screenwriter R.C. Sherriff who delivered the final story. Skal writes “Sherriff incorporated Whale’s insanity conceit, added a romantic subplot, broadened the humor… added a melodramatic revenge twist. The Invisible Man’s ascending megalomaniacal tirades enhance the story, offering the actor playing the part an especially rich opportunity absent in the Wells original…”
Laemmle originally wanted Colin Clive to star in the film. However, James Whale had his eye on his old friend Claude Rains. The Invisible Man was Rains’ first Hollywood movie. His agent Harold Freedman had negotiated a contract with Universal which gave Rains top billing and the option for a second film. Any enthusiasm Rains had for his first foray in Hollywood was quickly diminished when reality set in. Rains realized that his performance would be primarily under the guise of bandages. Or he would appear as a disembodied voice as his stunt double performed the more elaborate sequences. The audience would only see Rains in the flesh in the movie’s final scene.
John P. Fulton, the head of Universal’s special effects department, was tasked with making Dr. Jack Griffin disappear. Rains and his stunt double wore black velvet underneath the character’s disguise of bandages and clothing. Invisibility sequences were shot against a dark background lined in the same black velvet creating the desired illusion. About the special effects Fulton wrote “this gave us a picture of the unsupported clothes moving around on a dead black field. From this negative, we made a print and a duplicate negative which we intensified to serve as mattes for printing. Then, with an ordinary printer, we proceeded to make our composite: first we printed the positive of the background and the normal action, using the intensified, negative matte to mask off the area where our invisible man’s clothing was to move.” Almost all of the special effects footage was retouched by hand using a dark dye to obscure any imperfections.
All of that attention to detail as well as the moody and dynamic story of a scientist gone mad by his own invention, resulted in a fantastic horror movie filled with moments of awe as well as a touch of humor.
The Invisible Man was released in November 1933 and it was one of the top-grossing films of the year. Seven years later, Universal turned The Invisible Man into a makeshift series with only varying degrees of connections to the original. What followed were the films The Invisible Man Returns (1940), The Invisible Woman (1940), The Invisible Agent (1942) and The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944).
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)
In 1948, a sixth film in the series titled “The Invisible Man Strikes Back” was in development at Universal with writers Hugh Wedlock, Jr. and Howard Snyder tasked to write the screenplay. The project caught the eye of producer Robert Arthur who thought the story had potential as a comedy starring on-screen duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. It would be a follow-up to the wildly successful spoofs they had worked on together previously: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949). Wedlock and Snyder’s screenplay was scrapped and screenwriting partners Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene replaced it with an original story custom fit for the two stars.
Abbott and Costello play bumbling private detectives who help a wrongly accused prizefighter escape a murder rap. The story deviates from horror to crime as the invisibility trope is used to hide a character from the authorities as the duo solve the mystery in time to exonerate their client. The movie pays homage to The Invisible Man when a framed portrait of Claude Rains appears and is identified as Dr. Jack Griffin, the inventor of the invisibility serum.
David Horsely was in charge of the special effects for Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man after having worked on previous films in the series. The invisibility of prizefighter Tommy Nelson, played by Arthur Franz, is played to great effect. He is seen eating spaghetti, finishing other people’s drinks, lighting and smoking a cigarette, driving a car and getting in and out of various pieces of clothing. The central gag revolves around the invisible prizefighter helping Lou Costello win a boxing match. The production was an exercise in frugality with several shots from The Invisible Man Returns being recycled for the more advanced scientific sequences.
All of the efforts paid off when the film premiered in March 1951 at a benefit for the Wounded Veterans of the Korean War. The movie would become a big hit in the Abbott and Costello series and would lead to more Universal spoofs in which the duo meet Captain Kidd, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Mummy.
The Body Disappears (1941)
Warner Bros. took a crack at the invisibility trope with the low-budget B-movie The Body Disappears. Directed by D. Ross Lederman, this eccentric comedy follows the exploits of college student Peter DeHaven who becomes invisible on the eve of his wedding in a prank gone wrong. Warner Bros contract players Jeffrey Lynn and Jane Wyman star in the film but are overshadowed by the hilarious hijinks of actors Edward Everett Horton and Willie Best.
The Body Disappears’ story has elements of The Invisible Man and Topper (1937) with a little bit of Frankenstein thrown in. Horton’s Professor Shotesbury experiments with reviving the dead also makes them invisible. The story, in true screwball fashion, pokes fun at romantic relationships and marriage with Peter using invisibility as a way to avoid his fiancée. Nudity becomes a theme throughout as Lynn and Wyman’s characters must strip off their clothing in order to remain completely invisible. There are limited special effects which the movie makes up for with its wacky humor.
“The New York Times” critic Bosley Crowther called The Body Disappears a “fitful little Warner item… only the unacquainted customers are likely to be mildly amused.” The Body Disappears was released the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Bad timing ensured that this movie would not do well at the box office.
The Invisible Boy (1957)
Invisibility as a theme would find new purpose in the 1950s with the science fiction movie. Cold War angst, advancements in science and America’s entry into the Space Race inspired a genre of film that would tackle prevailing fears in new and exciting ways.
As a follow up to the wildly successful Forbidden Planet (1956), MGM brought back Robby the Robot for a new adventure with the science fiction dramedy The Invisible Boy. Directed by Herman Hoffman, the story follows Timmie (Richard Eyer), the son of brilliant yet clueless computer scientist Dr. Tom Merrinoe (Philip Abbott), as he befriends a robot from his father’s laboratory. Robby the Robot starts off as Timmie’s companion. Together they fly a radio-controlled kite and the robot makes Timmie temporarily invisible.
The technology behind what makes Timmie invisible is explained to some extent in the film. Robby the Robot tells Timmie that a machine can reduce his index of refraction making everything within his electromagnetic field automatically invisible. This solves the issue from previous films in which clothes added visibility to the otherwise invisible character. Timmie’s invisibility is maintained with a daily spoonful of elixir. Timmie uses his newfound power of invisibility to play pranks on his bully and his father’s coworkers. However, Robby the Robot is overpowered by aliens and transforms from Timmie’s friend to a major threat to humanity. The otherwise family-friendly film takes several dark turns as it explores the possibility of artificial intelligence and outside forces weaponizing technology to control humanity.
The marketing for The Invisible Boy emphasized the suggestion of a war between machine and man and the science fiction elements that would make the “world’s imagination run riot”. Since its release, The Invisible Boy became intrinsically tied with its forbearer and appears as an extra on physical media releases of The Forbidden Planet.
Invisible Invaders (1959)
Two years after the release of The Invisible Boy, MGM picked up the distribution rights for the independently produced science fiction movie Invisible Invaders. Directed by Edward L. Cahn and written by Samuel Newman, Invisible Invaders gives the power of invisibility to aliens who reanimate dead human corpses and create an army of zombies in a war against humanity. When a scientist dies in a nuclear explosion, his corpse is inhabited by an alien who has a special message for Dr. Adam Penner (Philip Tonge), the deceased scientist’s close friend. The aliens are concerned that humans’ nuclear capabilities along with the near future potential for space travel will put extraterrestrials at risk. Dr. Penner must warn humanity about the potential threat. But when he can’t get anyone to listen, the aliens enact their plan of eliminating the human race. John Agar, Jean Byron and Robert Hutton star as the small ragtag group of exiles who hide out in an underground bunker and assist Dr. Penner in defeating “the walking dead inhabited by the invisible enemy.”
According to the AFI, producer Robert E. Kent “insisted that the alien invaders remain unseen in a cost-saving measure. Without costly special effects, extras, and additional sets, the producer's decision helped to balance the film's otherwise severe lack of funds.” Kent and his team also utilized stock footage as well as costumes and clips from It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) and Thunder Road (1958) for the film’s few special effects and action sequences.
With a runtime of just over sixty minutes, Invisible Invaders was short enough to be shown in a triple feature with Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)—which had the same zombie vs. human plot line— and The Snorkel (1958). Invisible Invaders was one of several movies that inspired George Romero’s zombie classic The Night of the Living Dead (1968).
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)
In one of his final films, director Edgar G. Ulmer takes on nuclear annihilation and invisibility in his ultra-low-budget B movie The Amazing Transparent Man. The story stars Douglas Kennedy as Joey Faust—a reference to Goethe’s Johann Faust—a felon who recently escaped from prison. Joey, with the assistance of his friends Krenner (James Griffith) and Laura (Marguerite Chapman), seeks the help of nuclear scientist Dr. Ulof (Ivan Triesault) to make him invisible so he can successfully elude the authorities.
About Ulmer, director Peter Bogdanovich once wrote \"the astonishing thing is that so many of Ulmer's movies have a clearly identifiable signature [despite being] accomplished with so little encouragement and so few means…”. Indie production company Miller Consolidated Pictures put Ulmer’s skills to the test when they tasked him with filming two movies simultaneously with a small crew, an even smaller budget and a shooting schedule of just eleven days.
According to writer Bret Wood, the other film Beyond the Barrier (1960) “consumed the lion's share of Ulmer's production budget, requiring more sets, costumes, props, actors and perhaps the most precious commodity of all: time.” What was left was given to The Amazing Transparent Man. The story of a man’s Faustian bargain with a mad scientist during the nuclear age did a lot with very little. The film included stock footage of a detonated A-bomb and reused equipment as well as scenes from previous B-movie productions. Wood goes on to write, “Ulmer was satisfied to show doors opening and closing, objects hanging from wires and, most brilliantly resourceful of all, to merely focus the camera on empty sets, as if someone were actually there.”
