The Invisible Man

A man with his face wrapped in bandages arrives at an English village inn. The scientist Jack Griffin has discovered invisibility, and the same compound has taken his mind. James Whale directed, from H. G. Wells's 1897 novel, with a screenplay by R. C. Sherriff. The project was first intended for Boris Karloff and passed through several directors and writers before returning to Whale. It was Claude Rains's first film. He had been a stage actor, and his face appears only in the final scene as he dies. When Rains asked Whale whether he could express something with his eyes, the answer entered film history: but Claude, old fellow, what are you going to do it with? You haven't any face. John P. Fulton created the invisibility effects with black velvet sets and optical compositing. The process required roughly 4,000 feet of film to be retouched by hand frame by frame, around 63,000 individual frames. It was a major commercial success, breaking theatre records in New York. It entered the National Film Registry in 2008. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 95 percent. Kim Newman called it the first truly great American science fiction film. Who it is for: viewers interested in classic Universal horror and the history of practical effects. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a sympathetic lead. From halfway on Griffin is a mass murderer, and the film does not rescue him.