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The Invisible Man Returns (1940)

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:16 am    Post subject: The Invisible Man Returns (1940) Reply with quote

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Seven years after the original, Universal gave us this entertaining sequel to "The Invisible Man". In the 1930s and 1940s, mystery movies were extremely popular, so Universal chose a script by Lester Cole and Curt Siodmak that combined the Invisible Man concept with a good old fashion murder mystery.

Vincent Price plays Geoffrey Radcliff, a man wrongfully imprisoned for murder. John Dutton plays Dr. Frank Griffin, the brother of Jack Griffin (the original Claude Rains character). Dutton visits Price in prison and uses his brother's infamous formula to make Price invisible so he can escape and search for the real killer. A wonderful race-against-time story; Price must find and deliver the killer to the police before the invisibility formula destroys his sanity.

After being shot as an escaped prisoner, Price struggles his way though the exciting climax, which takes place in a coal yard.

Great special effects by John P. Fulton. In addition to the usual hollow-shirt-and-pants effect, the invisible man is seen as an outline in a rain storm and a bubble in a cloud of smoke.

Skillfully directed by Joe May, with music by Hans Salter and Frank Skinner. One year later Universal cranked out a quick but amusing spin-off, "The Invisible Woman", played strictly for laughs.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 11:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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In the mood for a classic? Well, if not, this trailer might help.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Pow
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And how appropriate that the voice of the Invisible Man cameo for ''Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein'' would be supplied by Vincent.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production, Very Happy
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~ There were communication problems during the shooting of the film. The German director spoke no English, so Vincent Price - being fluent in German - had to translate all the instructions to the other cast members.

Note from me: "So, Mr. Price, you're hoping to star in this film. But I'm not sure you're a big enough star. One question, sir. Do you speak German?"

"Fluently."

"By God, you're hired! Very Happy

~ This film's impressive visual effects, specifically those scenes where Vincent Price transitions from invisible to visible (and vice-versa) earned it an Academy Award nomination.

Note from me: Sadly, that's often the only thing science fiction movies get from the Academy — nominations, not awards. It's puzzling.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2021 1:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Let's Create a Sequel!
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Today it occurred to me that this movie did something significantly different than the original movie did.

Claude Rains stated that it took him weeks to attain total invisibility. He said that he had to bleach out his skin and do several other things to finally be totally transparent.

In The Invisible Man Returns, Vincent Price seems to become invisible very quickly, without the long and complicated process which Claude Rains described.

I realize that the movie wanted to begin with the wonderful scene in which Vincent seems to have suddenly escape a few seconds after walking into a small side room within his cell. But even if he was supposed to have done all the preparations which Rains did prior to the moment he vanished, the guards would have noticed the gradual changes in him during the days before his "escape".

Rather than regard this as a bit of "cheating" on the part of the filmmakers to streamline the plot, I'd rather theorize that Dr. Jack Griffin's brother — Dr. Frank Griffin — managed to make some improvements in his brother's invisibility formula that sped up the process.

Unfortunately he wasn't able to eliminate the need for the drug monocane, and that meant Vincent was doomed to go insane if he didn't get a blood transfusion in time to restore his visibility and save his sanity.

Having said all that, consider this.

~ A Question for the Members: If Dr. Frank Griffin and a team of brilliant scientists (generously funded by the government) could perfect the invisibility process so that it was safe, what would the government do with this amazing ability.

~ Here's what I came up with.: The year this movie came out was 1940. Germany was working overtime to achieve world domination, and America was about a year away from a Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor!

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churhill would just love to have invisible secret agents who could lurch around Europe and find out what Hitler and all his top generals were planning to do next. And if one of those agents should happen to sneak up on old Adolf while he was asleep in his bed, he could hold a pillow over der Fuhrer's face and save a few million lives!

Doing the same thing to Japanese Emperor Hirohito might have a similar effect on the bloody carnage which took place in the Pacific theater during WWII, perhaps even making it unnecessary to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Gentlemen, I'm not suggesting that a sequel would have all these ideas in one story, but a movie about a "Manhattan Project" to develop a safe invisibility process would be interesting if it included some of the reasons the project was so important to the people working on it and the nations who could use it.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 6:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How about we add another element of suspense, Bud?

The invisibility serum has been perfected in that it no longer causes any danger of its user becoming insane.

However, it doesn't work on everyone, only a select few.

The serum also only renders its user invisible for a limited length of time. So any agents that are sent on missions must be very judicious in the serums use. They cannot carry a lot of it with them due to the time consuming process necessary to make the small dosages of the serum. And the agents cannot become invisible too early into their mission or they risk becoming visible as time goes on.

An agent can become invisible at the proper time for his mission and correctly estimate the time period for him to get in and get out safely. However, several unanticipated variables pop up as the invisible agent is on his mission which cause critical delays and could result in his exposure right in the middle of his assignment.

Another scenario is that an agent is caught or captured prior to his using the serum to go invisible. He is able to hand it off to someone who is part of an underground organization battling the enemy. He is able to tell them about the serum just before he dies. Now this individual must continue on with the mission alone.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Universal Studios HORROR Monsters: A Legacy of Horror by Michael Mallory.

Vincent Price, then at the start of his film career, brought the same natural asset to his invisible role as had Claude Rains: a mellow, distinctive voice.

Also like Rains, he is actually seen only at the very end of the film, turning visible via a series of dissolves, first depicting the blood veins, then the musculature, followed by a dissolve into Price himself.

As to that blood, which in the film's context is offered by many different donors, there is never any mention of compatible type.

German cinema pioneer Joe May co-wrote the story (with Curt Siodmak) and directed the film. May was not popular on the Universal lot.

"He really couldn't speak any English at all," Vincent Price recalled many years later.

"I had lived in Germany and been to school there, so I was able to understand him better than most. He'd try to give me direction and I'd say, 'For God's sake, Joe, tell me in German, because I can get along with you much better in German than I can in English!'

I don't think John Sutton understood a word he said, nor did Nan Grey. Cedric [Hardwicke] hated him, really hated him! There was an enmity between him and Joe, as I remember."

John P. Fulton was able to add a few enhancements to his invisibility effect toolbox for this film, including having Geoffrey appear in faint outline in the rain.

Alan Napier, who 25 years later would play Alfred the butler on the television series Batman, plays a drunken watchman in the movie.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 16, 2024 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
John P. Fulton was able to add a few enhancements to his invisibility effect toolbox for this film, including having Geoffrey appear in faint outline in the rain.

I've always been more impressed with the "invisible man in the smoke" scene than the rain scene. One minute the characters had no idea where the invisible man was, and then — Presto! — he's standing right next to them!

As for the "rain effect", it seems tp me that a wet invisible man, after entering the house, would look somewhat like a hollow figure made of thin glass, rather then an outline. Then he''d have to hastily dry himself before being spotted.

But of course, that probably was possible back when this movie was made.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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