The Invisible Man (1933) on Netflix
Dr. Jack Griffin, a chemist, tests an obscure drug on himself and turns invisible. The substance also unbalances his mind, and he hunts for a way to undo the experiment.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Chemist Jack Griffin makes himself invisible while testing an obscure drug called monocaine, which also unbalances his mind. He takes a room at the Lion's Head Inn in Iping, Sussex, his head wrapped in bandages and dark goggles over his eyes, and orders the staff to leave him alone. His fiancée, Flora Cranley, daughter of his employer Dr. Cranley, is distraught at his long absence. Cranley and his assistant Dr. Arthur Kemp look through Griffin's empty laboratory and find one note in a cupboard. It lists chemicals, among them monocaine, which Cranley knows once drove a dog mad in Germany.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Invisible Man (1933)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- John P. Fulton revealed in the September 1934 issue of American Cinematographer that the invisibility effects were shot against a black set with walls and floors covered in black velvet, and the actor wore black velvet tights under his clothes.
- Preston Sturges wrote a draft in which a Russian chemist makes a madman invisible to take vengeance on the Bolsheviks who destroyed his family. After eight weeks' work he handed in the screenplay and Universal fired him the next day.
- Boris Karloff was set to star in The Invisible Man, but trade papers announced on June 1 that he was leaving the picture, and Variety said he had left by June 1 citing salary issues.
- James Whale considered Colin Clive for the title role but turned to Claude Rains, a stage actor he had met at a 1923 London performance of The Insect Play; Universal discouraged him, not wanting an unknown in the lead.
- Special effects man John P. Fulton said that about 4,000 feet of film, some 63,000 frames, received individual hand-work treatment in the invisibility effects.
- Heinz Roemheld returned to Universal in 1933 to score The Invisible Man; the score is heard only in the opening, the last seven minutes and the closing credits, and was recycled in Werewolf of London (1935), The Black Cat and the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials.
- An early draft by Robert Florey and Garrett Fort, based mostly on Philip Wylie's The Murderer Invisible, included an invisible octopus, invisible rats and the blowing up of Grand Central Station.
- While filming, Claude Rains asked James Whale to let him act more emotionally and express something with his eyes. Whale replied: "But Claude, old fellow, what are you going to do it with? You haven't any face!"
