This is Rudy Behlmer speaking. For the next 71 minutes,
I'll be talking about the background and making of
the 1933 film version of HG Wells's novel The Invisible Man,
a film that still plays remarkably well.
Various outlines, treatments and scripts were submitted by 12 writers,
before RC Sherriffs approach was accepted by all involved,
including author HG Wells.
Four different directors were slated at various times to handle the production,
before James Whale was set.
Boris Karloff was definitely the studio's choice for the title role
until late in preproduction.
The amazing special effects of 1933 by John Fulton
are still amazing in this day of seemingly boundless effects technology,
but details on all this and much more will follow as we go along.
No, the music you are hearing is not Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake,
which was used under the main title for four Universal horror films,
beginning with Dracula in 1931,
but this is an original score by Heinz Roemheld.
It's a sparse score, to say the least.
After the opening, you won't hear any more of it
until the last seven minutes of the film.
The film and HG Wells' novel open in the exact same way.
I quote from the beginning of chapter one in the book:
"The stranger came early in February one wintry day,
through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year,
over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station."
"He was wrapped up from head to foot,
and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face
but the shiny tip of his nose;
the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest,
and added a white crest to the burden he carried."
Wells's story took place in the West Sussex village of lping in England,
but British director James Whale drew upon his memories
of growing up in the town of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England,
in order to cast and direct character types.
Whale said "I do not doubt that when Dudley people see this film,
they will recognise some of these types."
The village inn, in the film called "The Lion's Head",
has a cross section of types engaging in characteristic activity.
Typical inn and pub. Conversation, laughter, a few pints of ale, and darts.
Enter the mysterious stranger.
He is dramatically pointed up by a series of three successively closer shots,
similar to Whale's introduction of Frankenstein's monster,
played by Boris Karloff in the 1931 production of Frankenstein.
But the voice you're going to hear is certainly not Karloffs.
Rather, the unmistakable and unique vocal delivery of Claude Rains,
who was making his first sound film.
What happened regarding the planned casting of Boris Karloff in the title role?
After his success in Frankenstein,
and to a lesser extent, The Mask of Fu Manchu, on loan to MGM,
and The Mummy, back at his home studio,
Universal regarded him as a full-fledged star,
and all along had planned for him to do The Invisible Man.
But the Great Depression had taken its toll on Universal,
as well as most of the other studios, and they were in dire straits.
In May 1933, when Karloff returned from England,
where he had been on loan to Gaumont-British for The Ghoul,
he was still set for the starring role in The Invisible Man.
Then, in June, he encountered contract problems with Universal.
As the trade paper Variety reported,
"Universal is continuing its policy of dumping contract players
as soon as they reach the big-money class,
and substituting them with new people at less money."
"The latest Universal star to go off the list is Boris Karloff."
"At the studio 18 months, Karloff had been drawing $750 per week
and was scheduled to get $1250 on his coming option jump."
"The sum represented a jump of $500, or $250 each for two option periods."
"Karloff waived the previous option increase,
which would have boosted his salary to $1000,
on condition that he would get the full amount on the next option."
"Universal refused to meet the figure, which came due Thursday,
and Karloff walked."
Whale offered the role to fellow Britisher Colin Clive,
who had been the director's leading man in both the stage and screen versions
of the well-received Journey's End,
and who played the leading role of Dr Frankenstein, who creates the monster,
in Whale's 1931 film of Frankenstein.
But Clive, who had a marvellous voice and delivery,
had just completed two additional film roles in Hollywood,
and wanted to get back to England, although the part did appeal to him.
In the British magazine Picturegoer, in July 1933:
"Colin Clive gets a kick out of playing parts like his grim role in Frankenstein."
"He certainly does not see himself as a leading man or romantic lover."
"He wants the strong stuff."
Now what? Whale remembered Claude Rains,
and discovered that he had made a screen test for RKO Radio Pictures
for the leading male role in A Bill of Divorcement in 1932.
Apparently it was not good. In fact, it was, in the actor's own words,
"the worst screen test in the history of movie-making".
He said that when Whale saw it, he howled with laughter.
Incidentally, the part in A Bill of Divorcement
went to luminary John Barrymore.
But Whale wanted Rains and his special presence.
A test was made, and Rains, who had been appearing in Broadway plays,
was signed at virtually the last moment.
Unless one had seen him on the stage in his native England, or in New York,
the unique and commanding texture of his vocal delivery
would be a new experience for movie-goers at that time.
That's why Whale wanted him, for his voice.
Whale knew Rains and his work and he knew the voice had to be a distinctive one
because of the unusual nature of the role.
He also wanted a highly-trained and consummate actor,
who would be able to give extra dimensions to what might be regarded
as merely a highly-charged, melodramatic role.
Rains had played a vast range of roles in his many years in the theatre,
and was never typecast.
So far, the film has been following the HG Wells novel very closely,
but RC Sherriff quite rightly felt that some changes in Wells's novel were necessary
in order to present a more unified structure for a 70-minute film
and to give the mysterious stranger certain sympathetic qualities for contrast.
Sherriffs modifications were thoughtful and not capricious.
A change of scene.
We are introduced in this sequence to two characters not in the novel at all,
but very much a strong presence in the screenplay.
Dr Cranley, played by Henry Travers,
is obviously a scientist or medical man,
and we shortly find out that the mysterious man at the inn
is probably Jack Griffin, a scientist employed by Dr Cranley
who has been gone for a month, working on a private experiment.
But his whereabouts are unknown.
Flora, played by Gloria Stuart, is Dr Cranley's distressed daughter,
who, we can tell, is very much in love with Jack Griffin, the stranger at the inn.
To get maximum mileage from this character introduction and exposition,
we learn a bit about Griffin's secretive experiments,
which, combined with what we've seen of his actions previously at the inn,
and the film's title, The Invisible Man,
leaves little doubt about what he's been up to.
The gradual revealment is a necessary dramatic setup
for the events that will follow.
This exposition of character relationships is expanded
by the introduction of Dr Kemp, played by William Harrigan, a character in the novel
whose role is greatly enlarged for dramatic purposes in the film.
He obviously is in the employ of Flora's father,
as is Jack Griffin, the Rains character.
It's necessary to get Flora and Kemp to another area,
via Whale's use of the lateral camera move,
which, as in the theatre, breaks away walls and leads us to another room.
Now Kemp is able to have a more intimate discussion with Flora.
He's presented here as a romantic rival for Flora,
and as a not particularly charming suitor.
While under contract to Universal Pictures for four years,
Gloria Stuart, who plays Flora, did two other films for director James Whale:
The Old Dark House in 1932 and The Kiss Before the Mirror in 1933.
Stuart has said that Whale was an exceptionally well prepared
and enthusiastic director.
On his script, he had each camera setup for the day's shooting
noted in his own handwriting opposite the dialogue.
Many other performers and technicians have noted Whale's meticulous approach.
William Harrigan had been an actor on the stage since the age of five.
In 1929, he went to Hollywood with the advent of talking pictures,
and the mass exodus of many Broadway players.
Now, Dr Kemp is declaring, quite emphatically, his feelings for Flora,
who, not too subtly, is surrounded by flowers in the photographic compositions.
Flora, flowers.
Anyway, Flora amply demonstrates a definitive example
of the attraction/repulsion theory
by her reaction to Kemp's romantic overture.
In this instance, repulsion wins hands down.
Meanwhile, back at the inn,
the mysterious stranger is trying desperately
to find a solution to an aspect of his experiment, one of many,
that we're not too clear about as yet.
We wonder about his intense frustration.
Una O'Connor, whose real name was Agnes McGlade,
was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1880.
She attended convent school,
and joined the school of the Abbey Players in Dublin.
She made her official debut in 1911.
Una acted with the Abbey Players, the Irish Repertory Company,
and the Irish Literary Theatre,
in plays by Shakespeare, O'Casey, Yeats, lbsen, Shaw and Galsworthy.
In 1913, she made her London debut at Court Theatre,
and she acted in various London plays.
In 1931, there was that great success Cavalcade,
which featured Una as the cockney charwoman.
When Fox planned to film the Noël Coward play,
they sent for Una, and Merle Tottenham,
who had played the maid of Cavalcade, and reprises that role in this film.
In 1933, James Whale, who had known Una from the London stage,
invited her and Merle to act in his Invisible Man.
For many years, she appeared in many memorable Hollywood films,
including James Whale's sequel to Frankenstein,
the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein.
Some of her other supporting roles include The Barretts of Wimpole Street,
David Copperfield, The Informer, The Adventures of Robin Hood,
The Sea Hawk, How Green Was my Valley, Random Harvest,
The Bells of St Mary's, and Adventures of Don Juan.
There are many British players in this film,
most from theatre, both in England and America,
and some who arrived in Hollywood after the introduction of sound.
Whale had worked with or knew them,
and naturally felt comfortable when he personally cast them in the film.
This gentleman is Forrester Harvey,
who was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1884.
He moved to London at a very young age,
and before coming to America in 1924
Harvey had been featured in English film comedies for ten years.
He then appeared in New York plays.
Returning to London, he accepted the role of Lieutenant Trotter
in the Whale-directed hit play Journey's End,
and then again came to America, this time to stay.
His film roles include Tarzan the Ape Man, Red Dust,
Tarzan and his Mate, Captain Blood,
Rebecca, The Invisible Man Returns,
the 1941 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,
The Wolf Man, Mrs Miniver and many others.
We now see that the stranger is capable of a furious outburst,
and we'll see extreme violence,
a portent of his obviously unstable and dangerous state.
Una O'Connor is capable of bursting forth
with an incredible volley of high-decibel cackles, screams, shrieks
that seem rather over the top, to say the least.
There's another scene a little later where she reprises her full complement of these.
Fair warning. Obviously, director James Whale didn't think it was too rich.
In fact, two years later, he had her going through her screech repertoire again
for Bride of Frankenstein.
But interestingly, you don't hear her going anywhere near that level
in her many other fine characterisations through the decades.
HG Wells's novel The Invisible Man was first serialised in England
in Pearson's Weekly, in 1897,
and then published in book form that same year.
Universal had a synopsis in the late 1920s,
when Wells's agent was offering motion picture rights.
MGM apparently turned it down in 1931 because of potential technical obstacles.
But Universal, by late 1931, was seriously considering the title
as one of the follow-ups to their Dracula and Frankenstein.
The studio executives turned to John Fulton,
the head of what was then referred to as the "trick department",
to see if it was possible to create and execute acceptable effects for the subject.
Fulton said yes, so Universal bought the story rights
on September 22nd 1931 for $10,000,
with author HG Wells granted script approval as part of the deal.
The studio also bought, about that same time,
a new 1931 novel by Philip Wylie called The Murderer Invisible.
But more about that anon.
John Fulton, nicknamed "The Doctor" around the lot,
knew that the travelling-matte technique
would be the way to approach the most dazzling of the effects.
Before coming to work at Universal,
Fulton worked for the Frank Williams Laboratory in Hollywood.
Where the travelling-matte system had evolved.
Fulton wrote an article on The Invisible Man for the June 1934 issue
of American Cinematographer, and I quote:
"Pulling off a nose. This scene was made by using a dummy,
an exact replica of the player's make-up."
"And then the unwrapping action was handled in the same fashion
as the other half-clad scenes,
that is, by multiple printing with travelling mattes."
"We had considerable trouble in getting the actor to move naturally,
yet without ever passing his hands in front of himself."
This is only a warm-up, of course, for the multiplicity of effects that follow.
We are now about 17 minutes into the film,
and the build-up to this moment has been just right.
We were allowed one brief profile shot of an invisible mouth, chin and jaw
several minutes ago, and now with the unwrapping shots
we wait with fascinating anticipation
to see what lengths the invisibility presentation will take us next.
For the undressing scenes, RC Sherriff wrote a note in his screenplay...
Wait a minute. I guess the invisible man doesn't wear underwear.
Anyway, his note says:
"I suggest that trick photography be employed here, as far as possible,
with the aid of invisible wire frames manipulated by the marionette method."
But, as Fulton explained, "the wire technique could not be used,
for the clothes would look empty and would hardly move naturally".
"So we had recourse to multiple printing with variations."
"Most of these scenes involve other, normal characters,
so we shot these scenes in the normal manner
but without any trace of the invisible man."
"All of the action, of course, had to be carefully timed,
as in any sort of double-exposure work."
"The negative was then developed in the normal manner."
"The scenes in which he is totally invisible are, of course, very simple."
"Anything he may move about, such as furniture, books, a bicycle and so on,
could be moved by fine wires invisible to the camera,
and thereby give exactly the right effect."
Actor EE Clive, playing the police constable,
made his film debut in The Invisible Man.
Incidentally, his first name was Edward.
Born in Wales, Clive was a master of the various dialects of the British Isles,
and toured extensively in the provinces
after taking up a stage career at the age of 22.
He moved to the United States in 1912.
He only spent seven years in Hollywood films before dying from a heart attack,
but in that short span, racked up over 80 movies.
We've now moved from melodrama into knockabout comedy,
with the invisible man leading us through a parade
of Whale's expertly choreographed physical wire effects,
all carefully rigged and executed by Al Johnson and Bob Laslow.
Of course, the actors had to move and react convincingly
to make these quick cuts work.
A bicycle riding away by itself is on a concealed track,
and wires above kept the bike upright.
The invisible man's patter during this collage was not in the script,
but was probably post-recorded by Rains.
Much of Rains' dialogue throughout the film was either pre- or post-recorded.
Most of the exteriors made were shot on the back lot at Universal.
EE Clive worked for director James Whale in five additional films.
One More River, Bride of Frankenstein, Remember Last Night?
Show Boat, and The Great Garrick.
Some of his other credits include A Tale of Two Cities, Captain Blood,
Libeled Lady, Camille, The Charge of the Light Brigade,
The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,
and his last film, Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent in 1940.
Not only a change of scene, but a total change in mood.
More developments regarding Jack Griffin's experiments,
and one major discovery coming up, regarding a dangerous drug.
We are so accustomed to the wonderful character actor Henry Travers
being cast as a whimsical, bemused benign person, often slightly eccentric,
that it's curious here to see him playing seemingly straight and sombre.
This was only his fourth film.
Although born of Irish parents in England on the Scottish border in 1874,
he had been in America since the beginning of the 20th century,
and appeared for years on Broadway in major works,
including seven plays by George Bernard Shaw,
in addition to Liliom, Volpone and Reunion in Vienna, et cetera.
He made his film debut in the latter in 1933.
Travers, whose real name was Travers Heagerty,
had appeared in two plays with Claude Rains,
Camel Through the Needle's Eye in 1929
and the stage version of The Good Earth in 1932.
Dr Cranley tells Kemp about the drug monocane.
The doctor has discovered this on a list of chemicals
which had been left behind by Griffin.
Cranley refers to monocane as "a terrible drug"
that "draws colour from everything it touches".
He also says that the drug gradually induces madness.
The fictional monocane was an invention by screenwriter RC Sherriff.
In the book, Griffin, a university student, has damaged his mind with strychnine.
But by having monocane be part of the invisibility formula
as well as a mind-altering drug,
which presumably was not known by Griffin, per the dialogue in this scene,
gives an acceptable motive for his various acts in the film,
versus the book's one-note monomania.
In the 1940 Universal sequel The Invisible Man Returns,
the name of the drug is changed to duocane,
presumably marketed underground as "New, improved and double-strength".
A few of Henry Travers' 52 films include Ball of Fire, High Sierra,
Mrs Miniver, Random Harvest, Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt,
and that hardy perennial, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life in 1946
as the memorable Clarence, the angel.
He died in 1965.
A quiet evening at home, reading and listening to the radio.
A sidebar, if I may: The tune being played on the radio
is that apotheosis of maudlin sentimentality "Hearts and Flowers",
performed in an old-fashioned manner even for 1933,
on what sounds like an upright piano with all the frills and trills.
Presumably, this is an inside joke, put in by a music editor some years later,
to replace the music used for the initial release of the film.
That music was "La Rosita",
a 1923 composition that became a semi-standard.
The substitution probably stemmed from a music clearance situation.
The invisible man has decided to pay a visit to his old colleague.
The radio announcer begins the news with a report
about an invisible man in the village of lping.
Kemp is interested. Then the radio, of course, is turned off by you know who.
Both writer RC Sherriff and director Whale did not want
to rely on just the invisible man's voice to indicate his presence
during scenes when he's totally invisible, as in this situation.
They wanted the audience to be drawn to the character,
so everything was set up, staged and photographed to this end.
Whale told Film Weekly "It was all very well to film the scenes without the actor,
but I knew that I had in some way to let the audience know clearly
that the actor was there all the time, although he was invisible."
"Therefore, in nearly every one of the 'invisible' scenes,
I had to devise bits of business so the audience should know where he was,
what he was doing and so on."
"In one scene, I made him sit in a rocking chair,
so by the movements of the chair, the audience would realise he was there,
although there was no sign of his presence."
"He's sitting in a chair talking to another person."
"I showed the seat of the chair sagging slightly as he sat down."
"Then, when his voice became more confidential,
I had the chair moved a few inches toward the other person,
as though the invisible man had drawn it closer for more intimate conversation."
Although we have been seeing strictly wire effects here,
Sherriff and Whale mix it with intriguing travelling-matte work you've just seen,
for the cigarette lighter, the handling of the cigarette and smoking effect.
William Harrigan, the actor playing Kemp, was a last-minute substitute
for Chester Morris, who had been scheduled for the role.
Morris was a leading player, who had come from the theatre to Hollywood.
He had starred in The Big House, The Bat Whispers
and The Red-Headed Woman opposite Jean Harlow,
just before being slated for The Invisible Man.
But, when newcomer to American films Claude Rains
was signed and given top billing,
Morris, who already was unhappy with his unsympathetic and colourless role,
after finally reading the script, bowed out around mid-June,
shortly before the start of filming.
Harrigan and Claude Rains had recently appeared
in the well-received Theatre Guild production on Broadway
of the Irish drama, The Moon in the Yellow River.
It's possible that Rains recommended him to Whale after Morris pulled out.
Harrigan had become a leading man on the Broadway stage by his 21st birthday.
His family was one of the oldest in theatre history,
having been on the stage uninterruptedly since 1660.
Some of Harrigan's films include 'G' Men with James Cagney,
The Farmer's Daughter, with Loretta Young, Desert Fury with Burt Lancaster
and Flying Leathernecks with John Wayne.
He created the role of the Captain in the stage production
of the extremely popular Mister Roberts in 1948,
and stayed with it during its original three-year run.
His sister was film and stage actress Nedda Harrigan.
The actor died in 1966 at age 79.
I would like to talk about the person who wrote The Invisible Man novel in 1897,
HG Wells.
Herbert George Wells.
An English novelist and journalist, who was known for his science fiction,
his satirical novels and his popular books on history and science.
He was a vigorous advocate of socialism, feminism,
evolutionism, nationalism and the advancement of science.
Often called the first great writer of science fiction,
Wells wrote The Time Machine, The Island of Dr Moreau, The Invisible Man,
The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon, among many others.
They were all published at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.
Wells was not the first to write about a person becoming invisible.
In 1833, James Dalton composed an ambitious cautionary tale
in a three-decker novel called The Invisible Gentleman.
Later, Edward Page Mitchell dealt with the subject
in a story called The Crystal Man in 1881.
And CH Hinton wrote a tale of invisibility titled Stella in 1895.
These are just a few examples.
In The Invisible Man novel, Wells writes about Griffin's experiments
that involve a fourth dimension, in this case, light.
Refraction, reflection. He goes into pigment research
and optical density, which determines the degree of visibility of things.
There is a two-phase process using a drug and a mechanical device.
By an ingenious use of scientific patter it all seems perfectly logical and feasible,
especially since Wells wrote in a very straightforward style.
Of course, his books contain highly imaginative ideas
that have been the basis for many films over the past 100 years.
In the film, the invisibility experiments are reduced to
Griffin talking about trying "a thousand experiments, a thousand failures",
and mentioning "a mixture of drugs".
Add to this Dr Cranley discussing monocane in an earlier scene,
and that takes care of what the audience is allowed to know.
The scene between Griffin and Kemp was used for Claude Rains' test.
He had been appearing in the play Peace Palace in New York in early June 1933,
so the test probably was made in New York and was not directed by Whale.
Also, Rains was not done up in bandages and goggles for the test.
The actor said that he had never read the novel,
and he had no idea that his face would not be seen during the film.
Rains said "For five years - five years, mind -
I was prating to the Theatre Guild about my artistic integrity. My artistic integrity!"
"Then, the first day at the studio, James brought over some bandages."
"I asked about them and he said I was to be bandaged during most of the picture."
"And I had been fighting with the Theatre Guild about my artistic integrity!"
"It served me right."
Rains recalled also that "James kept talking about this and that in pictures,
about actors of whom I'd never heard."
"When he learned I'd only seen six films or so in my life,
he told me to go right out and see pictures,
to see three a day until I knew something about them."
Now, listen to Griffin's plan.
I... You mean...?
I must have a partner, Kemp,
a visible partner, to help me in the little things.
You're my partner, Kemp.
We'll begin with a reign of terror.
A few murders here and there.
Murders of great men and murders of little men,
just to show we make no distinction.
We might even wreck a train or two.
Just these fingers round a signalman's throat, that's all.
We think of Claude Rains' very distinctive and dramatically appealing voice,
but it was not always thus.
William Claude Rains was born in 1889 in London. The family was poor.
Hating school and teased by classmates because of a serious speech impediment,
he ran away at a very young age.
After appearing in a crowd scene on the stage of London's Haymarket Theatre,
Rains, at age 10 in 1900, made the monumental decision
to devote his life to the theatre.
But in addition to a broad cockney accent and a stutter,
Rains had other speech problems.
Over 50 years later, when Rains received
the Medal for Good Speech on the Stage, in New York, he recalled:
"Almost my first occupation in the theatre was a callboy."
"I had to summon actors from their dressing rooms to the stage."
"It was difficult to be taken seriously because I had a speech impediment."
"I had no Rs. If anyone asked my name, my answer came out as 'Willy Wains'."
I had ideas that someday I would become an actor,
so the all-important thing was to get rid of the impediment."
"I discovered I had a 'lazy tongue',
the muscle of which had never properly been used,
because my mother thought I talked 'pwettily'."
But Rains worked hard to overcome his problem.
He took elocution lessons, did voice and speech exercises,
and worked on them with great intensity.
He also listened, and observed everything in the theatrical atmosphere around him.
He made his adult acting debut as Claude Rains in 1911,
again at the Haymarket Theatre,
his voice and speech problems conquered.
Walter Brennan, before he became a major character actor.
In the British Army in France during World War I,
Rains was subjected to heavy artillery bombardment and poison gas.
As a result, while in the infirmary
he discovered that his vocal chords had been paralysed,
and that his right eye was almost completely blind.
Eventually he was able to speak again,
and Rains later would say that the unique, husky quality of his voice
was due to the effects of the poison gas.
But his near-blindness in his right eye was another matter.
Only his family and some very close friends were aware of it.
That lasted through the rest of his life.
Rains had a distinguished career on the London stage,
playing in some very important productions,
including a series of George Bernard Shaw plays.
He also became an acting teacher at the famous Royal Academy of Dramatic Art,
where he worked with such students and later luminaries
as Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.
In late 1926, he moved to the Broadway stage
in American touring companies of hit plays.
Rains went on to become, in the late 1920s,
the Theatre Guild's outstanding character actor.
Now we're going to see more physical effects - mostly wire effects - coming up
to get material out of his room and down to the street.
None of this involved travelling mattes,
but it involved heavy-wire work that you couldn't see
because of the thinness of the wires.
The actor playing Inspector Bird is Britisher Harry Stubbs,
who had been in American films since 1929.
Horror film buffs will recognise him from later appearances in Werewolf of London,
The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Wolf Man
and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
For those who wanted yet another round of Una's shrieks, this is the moment.
It is also her grand finale for this film.
In 1954, Una was a very frail and weak 74 years old,
but she couldn't resist taking the part of the deaf Scottish maid
whose testimony provides comic relief
in Agatha Christie's play Witness for the Prosecution.
A major hit, it ran for 645 performances in New York.
Una's portrayal delighted audiences.
Billy Wilder directed the film version,
starring Tyrone Power, Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich in 1957,
and Una went to Hollywood for her last screen appearance, recreating her role.
She died in 1959 at the age of 78.
Two years earlier, James Whale, when he died, had left a bequest to the actress.
Now the invisible man has started to put into practice his "reign of terror".
Remember that speech about beginning with a few murders, here and there?
Inspector Bird was his first murder victim, but we know there are more to come,
perhaps on a big scale.
Here's actor John Carradine, then known as John Peter Richmond,
when he was playing small roles around Hollywood.
Coming up very soon is one of the most ingenious but complicated
travelling-matte shots in the film.
Special-effects technician John Fulton will explain in his own words
his working methods for the matte shots.
As stated earlier, the scenes involving the invisible man partially clothed
or totally invisible but with props such as cigarettes or lighters visible,
along with other characters on the set, were photographed as normal,
but without any evidence of the invisible man and/or the handled props.
The negative was then developed. After the entire film was finished shooting,
Fulton and his crew, along with director James Whale,
began the special process work.
Said Fulton "We used a completely black set, walled and floored with black velvet,
to be as nearly non-reflective as possible."
"Our actor was garbed from head to foot in black velvet tights,
with black gloves and a black headpiece rather like a diver's helmet."
"Over this, he wore whatever clothes might be required."
"This gave us a picture of unsupported clothes moving 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 made our composite."
Now here's that scene I was talking about.
John Fulton says "This shot had to show
the man himself from the rear, and his reflection in the mirror."
"Ordinarily this would be simple enough, but when you add the difficulties
of showing the unwrapping of an invisible head,
you have some complicated problems to solve."
"This required the making of four separate takes,
combined by the travelling-matte printing system into one picture."
"First, there was the shot of the wall and the mirror,
with the mirror itself masked out by black velvet."
"Next, a separate shot of the opposite wall of the room, as reflected in the mirror."
"Thirdly, the shot of the invisible man from the rear, unwrapping his bandages,
and lastly, the reflection of him from the front doing the same act."
"All of these had to be perfectly coordinated,
matched in viewpoint, perspective and action to a fraction of an inch."
"Several of the negatives required hand retouching."
"And last, but far from least, the action had to be figured out
so that the hands of the actor did not pass between himself and the camera
or between the reflection and the camera."
"It was as difficult a shot as I have ever made."
In some scenes it was possible to leave small eyeholes
in the black headpiece the person in the all-black outfit had on.
But for other shots, such as the close shots of the head unwrapping,
this was not possible, and the actor had to work blind.
Sometimes the actor was Claude Rains, but often it was a double.
Air was supplied through tubes, as in a diving suit.
The tubes were mostly concealed, running up a trouser leg.
Fulton recalled that on at least one occasion
either the air supply developed a problem,
or the summer heat along with the units lighting the set...
In any case, something. The double was overcome and he fainted mid-scene.
Fulton recalled "In nearly all of these scenes, though they were made silent,
it was difficult, sometimes impossible, to direct the actor."
"The helmet muffled the sound from outside,
and the air tubes made a roaring rumble in his ears,
which drowned out any sounds which might filter through the padding."
"When I used a large megaphone, and shouted at the top of my voice,
he could just barely hear a faint murmur."
"Accordingly, we had to rehearse, and rehearse, and then make many takes."
"As a rule, by take 20 of any such scene,
we felt ourselves merely well started toward getting our shot."
Also, care had to be taken to get the actor to move naturally,
yet in a way that did not present,
for example, an open sleeve-end to the camera,
which would destroy the illusion.
Also, the actor couldn't pass his hands in front of himself.
Of course, there were small imperfections that were not detected until those involved
viewed the developed and printed film the next day.
Fixing these slight problem areas was accomplished
by individuals who carefully retouched the film, frame by frame,
with a very small brush and opaque dye.
According to Fulton, approximately 64,000 frames were retouched in this way.
Until Universal's The Invisible Man Returns in 1940,
there was no attempt to deal with such spectacular invisibility effects in films.
But, on a somewhat less spectacular level,
in 1937 producer Hal Roach made his first of three Topper features.
The story related the humorous adventures of two ghosts,
husband and wife, played by Cary Grant and Constance Bennett.
They sometimes appeared in a transparent mode,
other times they were invisible, and they often appeared to be completely visible.
Roy Seawright's effects weren't as elaborate as those in The Invisible Man,
but they were well done.
One of the challenges for John Fulton,
when he was doing his special invisible shots against a black velvet background,
was matching the lighting on the visible part of the shots
with the general lighting used by the cinematographer, Arthur Edeson,
on the normal parts of the production.
The Invisible Man was the last of five pictures
Arthur Edeson photographed with James Whale.
The two apparently got along well.
There were never any arguments or disagreements.
Whale learned a lot from Edeson, beginning with their first film together,
Waterloo Bridge in 1931,
and then Frankenstein that same year.
But Edeson moved elsewhere after The Invisible Man.
One of his major productions soon after
was the 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty at MGM.
Then there was the classic 1941 Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart,
and he just happened to photograph a picture called Casablanca in 1942.
Here's John Carradine again. He was born Richmond Reed Carradine,
but his name was changed to John Carradine
when he went under contract to Twentieth Century Fox in 1935.
Arthur Edeson went way back as a cinematographer, way back to 1914.
He shot some of Douglas Fairbanks Senior's big productions in the 1920s,
including Robin Hood and The Thief of Bagdad.
He did the first version of The Lost World in 1925.
Edeson and director Lewis Milestone for All Quiet on the Western Front, in 1930,
liberated the camera from the cumbersome booths
that had been used to muffle noise when sound was introduced in the late 1920s.
Believe it or not, there were motion pictures dealing with invisibility
as far back as 1904.
A little number called The Invisible Siva, a Georges Mélics French production.
Mélics was famous for doing trick films with the magic executed in the camera.
Another French production, The Invisible Thief, was done in 1905.
The Invisible Fluid in 1908
bestowed temporary invisibility on men and inanimate objects.
Then came the British Invisible Dog in 1910.
The Light Unseen in 1914 featured an invisible scientist.
A 1923 feature picture directed by Roland West called The Unknown Purple
has an inventor, played by Henry B Walthall,
discovering a purple light that renders the user invisible.
He utilises the light to revenge himself against those who framed him for theft.
And in 1933, the same year The Invisible Man was made,
there was a German film called The Invisible Man Goes Through the City.
Even animated cartoons tried the invisible man theme.
One example is a 1939 Warner Brothers Looney Tunes
called Porky's Movie Mystery, featuring Porky Pig as Mr Motto.
No, not Mr Moto. He's a detective trying to track down the invisible man,
who is creating problems at the film studio.
Finally, the character becomes visible,
and is revealed to be the caricatured image
of Warner comedian of the time, Hugh Herbert.
The above rundown of films constitutes only some examples,
not a definitive and complete listing.
Before and after the 1933 Invisible Man film,
there were various features, serials, TV versions, even commercials.
Whale's biographer, James Curtis,
many years ago interviewed Ted Kent, the film editor on nine of the director's films,
including The Invisible Man.
Recalling Whale's working methods, Kent talked about
Whale wanting to maintain control over all aspects of the productions.
In scripts, for example, he would point out where close-ups were to be used.
Then at the back of his scripts he would make suggested illustrations
for the art and costume departments.
Apparently, in creative areas, it was difficult for Whale to delegate.
This is the first of only two scenes in the entire film
between the invisible man and his beloved Flora.
In part, it is a very poignant scene.
Griffin displays genuine tenderness toward his inamorata.
You have the feeling that his love for Flora
has temporarily held in check his maniacal behaviour
from the effects of the monocane drug.
Griffin's vocal delivery reflects his momentary change
back to what was surely his personality prior to the nefarious experiment.
After some devoted, touching comments by Griffin, Flora asks:
- Why did you do this? - For you, Flora.
- For me? - Yes, for you, my darling.
I wanted to do something tremendous,
to achieve what men of science have dreamt of since the world began,
to gain wealth and fame and honour,
to write my name above the greatest scientists of all time.
I was so pitifully poor. I had nothing to offer you, Flora.
I was just a poor, struggling chemist.
I shall come back to you, Flora, very soon now.
The secret of invisibility lies there in my books.
I shall work in Kemp's laboratory till I find the way back.
There is a way back, Flora. And then I shall come to you.
I shall offer my secret to the world, with all its terrible power!
The nations of the world will bid for it - thousands, millions.
The nation that wins my secret can sweep the world with invisible armies!
Obviously the monocane is fighting to regain its power,
and it succeeds.
Gloria Stuart has given many interviews regarding her reactions
to playing scenes in this film with Claude Rains.
She found him rather distant, self-absorbed
and prone to upstaging her in front of the camera.
But Whale intervened.
All in all, she did not find working with Claude to be an enjoyable experience.
Actor Peter Lorre told an amusing story about a joke played on Claude
that took place when they were filming Casablanca.
"Claude was constantly studying, making sure he had each line letter-perfect."
"One day we wrote a scene which had nothing to do with the script,
and asked all the actors to memorise it, except Claude, of course."
"When he came in the next day and saw us rehearsing the scene, he was frantic."
"He called me aside and said 'Peter, something terrible has happened to me."'
"'I can't remember a single line.' We all broke up, and he wasn't even mad,
just relieved that his memory wasn't failing."
Gloria Stuart was playing in The Seagull at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1932
when Phil Friedman, then Universal's casting director,
saw her and asked her to make a test.
A contract followed. In addition to her films at Universal,
including three with James Whale,
she was loaned for various pictures,
including Here Comes the Navy with James Cagney and Pat O'Brien,
and Gold Diggers of 1935 with Dick Powell.
One day Universal's production chief, Carl Laemmle Junior, asked to see her.
Gloria recalled "Junior was sitting behind his desk."
"'Sit down, Gloria. We have a wonderful idea for you."'
"'We're going to make you a female Tarzan!"'
"I guess it was a count of one, two, three, then I really started screaming!"
She then went under contract to Twentieth Century Fox,
and was featured in such films as The Prisoner of Shark Island,
and two films with Shirley Temple, Poor Little Rich Girl
and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
When she tried to make the move from screen to Broadway in the 1940s,
"I never made it. It was years and years of disappointment."
Her second husband, screenwriter Arthur Sheekman, convinced her to stop trying.
In 1983 she learned printing from Ward Ritchie,
a master printer and book designer she had met back in 1930.
Both were widowed. Soon she was creating artists' books in limited editions.
Ritchie was her companion until his death in 1996.
When director James Cameron selected the 86-year-old Gloria
for a leading role in Titanic in 1996, yet another phase of her careers began.
Since Titanic, she has appeared in other films and is still going strong aged 90.
Clearly, RC Sherriffs screenplay stayed reasonably close to HG Wells' novel.
But what about those various treatments
and 11 scripts prepared by 12 different writers that preceded Sherriffs version?
Garrett Fort, who had worked on the scripts for both Dracula and Frankenstein,
started the parade with a screenplay dated April 9, 1932.
He worked with Robert Florey, who at that time
was slated to direct The Invisible Man.
But the script was not based on Wells's book,
but rather on Philip Wylie's 1931 novel, The Murderer Invisible,
that Universal had recently purchased.
Wylie's novel was set in contemporary times in New York and New Jersey.
It dealt with a research scientist, prior to disappearing himself,
experimenting and making an octopus invisible in his laboratory tank.
With his own invisibility comes megalomania.
He wreaks havoc on New York City by blowing up Grand Central station,
among other major acts.
His plans are thwarted as he is about to place invisible cholera bacteria
into New York's water supply that no microscope would be able to detect.
Then the heroine crashes a bottle of ink on his skull.
The bottle breaks, and the ink deluges him,
making him visible and an easy target for the police.
The early scripts were quite faithful to Wylie's novel,
except that Garrett Fort modified the invisible cholera
to invisible rats carrying bubonic plague.
But the invisible one is killed, along with the rats,
by the police showering his refuge with chlorine gas.
John I Balderston, who had worked on the play versions
of Dracula and Frankenstein,
as well as the screenplay of Universal's The Mummy,
wrote several drafts of the script based on Garrett Fort's adaptation
of The Murderer Invisible.
A later draft of Balderston's was done with the collaboration of Cyril Gardner,
who for a while was going to direct the film.
Through the long gestation period,
various directors were announced by Universal to do The Invisible Man.
In addition to Gardner and Florey,
James Whale was to be on the project at different times.
Even EA Dupont, the German director.
Since HG Wells supposedly had script approval,
it seems unlikely that Universal would send versions based on another novel
but still titled The Invisible Man, not The Murderer Invisible.
Perhaps these were considered experimental drafts and not sent to Wells.
A puzzlement.
The train setting is a miniature on a three-quarter-inch scale,
created for this film by Charlie Baker and his miniature unit at Universal.
John Fulton and Baker worked as a team at the studio.
The crash coming up is very well executed in all respects.
Universal got a lot of mileage out of this scene,
as it was recycled for other features and serials,
one example being the 1942 feature Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror,
with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.
Philip Wylie, author of The Murderer Invisible novel,
was a prolific writer who worked in various genres.
Science fiction buffs know such books as his When Worlds Collide
and After Worlds Collide, among many others.
At the time The Invisible Man was being prepared and filmed,
Wylie was at Paramount working on the screenplay of another HG Wells book,
The Island of Dr Moreau.
The title was changed to The Island of Lost Souls.
In addition, he contributed to the scripts of Murders in the Zoo
and King of the Jungle at Paramount during 1933.
The reporter asking the questions is played by Dwight Frye.
We think of such characterisations as the crazed Renfield in Dracula,
as the hunchback Fritz, Frankenstein's loony assistant in the 1931 Frankenstein
and a similar role in Bride of Frankenstein.
But here, his brief appearance is one of complete normality.
Before coming to Hollywood in 1930, he had an impressive career in the theatre.
Frye was in six of James Whale's films.
Moving on with the saga of the evolving Invisible Man screenplays...
New approaches included a treatment by Richard Schayer,
which has a scientist render his mutilated assistant invisible
and later stand trial for a murder committed by the assistant.
Preston Sturges contributed a script
that had a doctor treating his maniacal assistant with an invisibility drug,
following which the two journey to Russia
to avenge the killing of the scientist's relatives during the revolution.
James Whale decided to do a six-page treatment of his own.
The approach presents the invisible man as a scientist
who was able to make himself invisible to obliterate a ghastly disfigurement.
But he too has a mind alteration afterwards and goes on a killing spree.
Gouverneur Morris wrote a screenplay based on Whale's six-page treatment.
For this version, Philip Wylie's invisible octopus had a return engagement.
Apparently, Laird Doyle did a script and John Weld, we are told,
wrote a treatment and screenplay that were actually based on HG Wells' novel.
He was replaced by British playwright RC Sherriff,
whose very successful play Journey's End
had been directed by James Whale on the stage and screen.
The actor playing the chief of detectives is Dudley Digges,
another Irish-born actor who made his stage debut
with the Abbey Theatre Players in Dublin,
and first performed in the US in New York in 1904.
In 1911, he became stage manager
for the distinguished actor George Arliss, for seven years.
And from 1919 to 1930, Digges appeared in many Theatre Guild productions,
and staged or produced several plays.
In 1923 he produced George Bernard Shaw's The Doctor's Dilemma,
which featured Claude Rains.
Later, Rains relieved Digges the actor in two plays with extended runs and tours.
Digges, starting in 1929, appeared in many films,
including the first version of The Maltese Falcon in 1931,
as Casper Gutman, Sydney Greenstreet's role in the 1941 Bogart version.
Other notable screen credits include
the 1935 Clark Gable, Charles Laughton Mutiny on the Bounty,
The General Died at Dawn, The Light That Failed, Son of Fury, et cetera.
He died in 1947.
RC Sherriff, in his 1968 autobiography,
described some of the rejected adaptations he had read
prior to starting his own.
He mentioned that one turned the invisible man "into a man from Mars,
who threatened to flood the world with invisible Martians".
That particular approach has not shown up as of now.
Perhaps this was the elusive John Huston treatment,
written in the summer of 1932
when he was under contract to Universal as a writer.
Or, perhaps Sherriff, in retrospect, was confusing this with a project
that he and Whale were working on at the time for Universal
called A Trip to Mars, which was never made.
Sherriff reread HG Wells' novel after many years,
and wondered why so many writers of the previous scripts
had chosen to ignore what Universal had purchased.
With Whale in agreement, Sherriff did a dramatically sound adaptation.
Said Sherriff in his autobiography
"To give reality to a fantastic story, HG Wells knew
it had to be told through the eyes of ordinary, plain-spoken people."
"A screenplay, to my way of thinking,
lay about halfway between a stage play and a novel."
"You were free from the narrow boundaries of the stage,
but you had to keep from wandering down the bylanes open to the novelist."
"I had to add ingredients here and there to tighten up the drama."
Historian Paul Jensen was the first to research and write
an in-depth study of The Invisible Man, many years ago.
He pointed out that some of the changes Sherriff made,
such as adding Flora and her father, expanding Kemp's role,
and making him a romantic rival,
presented an interesting parallel.
Jensen wrote "The model for these added aspects was probably Frankenstein."
"The two films share the situation of a passionate young scientist
who has disappeared in order to experiment alone,
leaving behind a worried fiancée, a fatherly associate -
Dr Cranley here becomes Dr Waldman, and Baron Frankenstein -
and a friend who is fond of the fiancée."
"By increasing Kemp's importance,
Sherriff and Whale provide Griffin with a specific antagonist,
thereby creating a more precise conflict than exists in the novel."
"Such a conflict is dramatically necessary in The Invisible Man,
because there is no overt struggle between the scientist and a monster,
as in Frankenstein."
"Here, the scientist himself becomes the monster."
RC Sherriff, Robert Cedric Sherriff,
was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, England, in 1896.
He worked with Whale on two other films at Universal,
One More River and The Road Back.
He also wrote the unproduced version of Dracula's Daughter
that Whale was originally set to direct.
In 1939 he wrote the excellent script
for Korda's Technicolor production of The Four Feathers.
Other credits include the Robert Donat Goodbye, Mr Chips,
That Hamilton Woman with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh,
and Odd Man Out with James Mason.
He died in 1975.
Kemp's car going over the cliff was another of Charlie Baker's,
and his Universal miniature department's efforts.
As usual, a first-rate one.
This scene was also reprised in other Universal films,
including Jungle Woman in 1944
and a 1945 Sherlock Holmes entry, The House of Fear.
The British actor playing the chief of police is Holmes Herbert.
This policeman is played by Monte Montague, an American,
who speaks here with a British accent.
He was an actor and stunt man for decades.
After a long absence, since the main title, actually,
music returns as underscoring for the last seven minutes of the film.
Composer Heinz Roemheld also did original scores
for two other Universal horror films at the time,
The Black Cat in 1934 and Dracula's Daughter in 1936.
In case the score sounds somewhat familiar,
but you can't quite place where else you heard it,
how about trying Universal's 1930s Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials
with Buster Crabbe?
The music you're hearing provided a perfect accompaniment
to the intrepid interplanetary adventures of Flash, Dale and Dr Zarkov.
And The Invisible Man main title music was put into service
whenever a rocket ship in those serials raced here and there.
The farmer is Robert Browner,
who goes back to 1909 as a film actor.
Although The Invisible Man was always thought to be Claude Rains' first film,
it was confirmed recently that he had a supporting role
in a silent British feature production of 1920 called Build Thy House,
which apparently is a lost film.
But based on items in the files of the British Film Institute
Rains was eighth billed
and played a drunken loafer who, while applying for a job,
gives some revealing and dramatic information about the leading character.
After his success in The Invisible Man, Rains did two more pictures for Universal:
The Man Who Reclaimed his Head, which he had done earlier on the stage,
and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, based on Charles Dickens's unfinished novel.
And Whale thought of him for the role of Dr Pretorius in Bride of Frankenstein,
but we know that Ernest Thesiger played that part.
In 1936 he signed with Warner Brothers.
It was unusual in that he was paid only when actually working on a picture.
When Rains finished shooting, he would head immediately
for his beloved farm in Pennsylvania.
Also, his deal was non-exclusive.
He played the villainous Prince John in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood,
photographed in Technicolor.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance
as the suave but corrupt senator in Frank Capra's Mr Smith Goes to Washington.
Then he returned to Universal to be top billed in The Wolf Man.
No, he wasn't the wolf man, but his father.
Rains played the title role in Universal's opulent 1943 Technicolor remake
of The Phantom of the Opera.
There followed Now, Voyager,
Casablanca, for which he won his second best supporting actor nomination,
and Mr Skeffington, yet another Oscar nomination.
Rains gave one of his finest performances in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious,
for which he was Academy-nominated for the fourth time.
The eminent George Bernard Shaw personally chose him
to star opposite Vivien Leigh
in the British production of Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, released in 1946.
He also did another HG Wells story, The Passionate Friends,
released in America as One Woman's Story in 1949.
It was directed by David Lean.
John Fulton described how the footprints in the snow coming up were done.
"We dug a trench along the line where we wanted the footprints,
and covered the trench with a board in which the footprints had been cut."
"The footprint openings were filled with wooden outlines,
which had been cut to make the footprints."
"These were supported by pegs extended to the bottom of the trench,
and a rope was looped around the pegs
so that pulling upon it would pull out the pegs,
causing the snow to drop down through the holes, giving us perfect footprints."
Those footprints look like shoe prints to me,
but if he had shoes on, the shoes, of course, would be visible.
What do you think? Dramatic licence?
The doctor here is British actor Jameson Thomas.
Film buffs may recall his role as Claudette Colbert's fiancé,
until she ran off with Clark Gable, in It Happened One Night.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s,
Claude Rains appeared in many prestige TV productions,
including several Alfred Hitchcock shows.
He had a role in the epic big-screen Lawrence of Arabia in 1962,
and his final film was The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965.
Rains died in 1967 at the age of 77.
In all, Universal made seven films
in which an invisible man or woman appeared.
Invisibility-effects highlights from the group
appear as part of the video documentary included on this special-edition DVD.
Check your menu.
Once again, John Fulton describes how he accomplished
the gradual revealment of Jack Griffin in peace in death.
"This was done directly in the camera."
"The pillow, the indentation and all, was made of plaster,
and the blankets and sheets of papier-mâché."
"A long, slow lap dissolve revealed the skeleton" - a real one, by the way.
"Another lap dissolve replaced the skeleton with a roughly-sculpted dummy,
which suggested the contours of the actor."
"A further series of dissolves, each time using a slightly more finished dummy,
brought us to the real actor himself."
Audiences finally get to see what Claude Rains looks like.
In marketing, Universal decided to emphasise the novelty aspect of the film,
rather than sell it as a horror film.
The studio also stressed what was called at the time "feminine interest".
My favourite catch line is "Though he was invisible, she loved him."
The Invisible Man was a big success, critically and commercially,
and a major factor in putting Universal in the black for the first time in two years.
Remember, this was the worst of times for the Great Depression.
This is Rudy Behlmer speaking.