The Invisible Man is a brilliant black comedy. Directed by James Whale, who also
directed 'Frankenstein', it has some superb black and white cinematography and
edited at a tremendous pace. The photographic trickery, on the whole, stands up
well to recent computer enhanced effects. An apparently unsupported policeman
being swung round by his feet. A pair of trousers dancing down the street singing
'Nuts in May'. Books tidying themselves up and transporting themselves to a
window ledge and a bicycle riding itself up the road long before Kermit thought of
taking to the saddle. Whale enhances his characters through our observation of their
faces, the gaunt cheeks of a darts player in the Lion's Head; the bowler hatted pianist
who takes so long to acknowledge applause that the player-piano starts again without
him; five old ladies in the snug who do not allow the fracas caused by the Invisible
Man to distract them from their glasses of stout and Walter Brennan with a cockney
accent! Snow is a constant theme throughout the film, helping to bring the story to
it's inevitable end. What makes the film is the amazing acting of Claud Rains, then,
a relative newcomer to the movie industry. His performance is brilliantly menacing,
dictatorial and evil, but underlying it is the gentle, kind Dr. Griffin who his fiance
Flora new so well. Not only does he portray this through heavy bandages, but off
camera too when he is invisible. He makes the character fully believable throughout
the entire movie.

The movie starts with a heavily bandaged stranger struggling through a snowstorm
looking for somewhere to stay. He comes across an inn in a country village which
looks promising. As he enters, the entire saloon goes quiet, he walks up to the bar
and asks if they have a room he could rent, the landlady looks him up and down
suspiciously. "I've had an accident." is the Invisible Man's response to his bandages
and dark glasses, this seems to satisfy all those present and they carry on with their
previous business. He requests that no one is to go into his room, all meals are to be
left outside his door and on no account is he to be disturbed. The point of his being
there is to find a 'cure' for his invisibility. Griffin, the Invisible Man of the title, is a
scientist who has been experimenting with his mentor Kemp, on a way to acquire
invisibility. All goes well for a while until the landlady (Una O'Connor) becomes
annoyed that their bandaged guest hasn't been paying his bills. She sends her husband
up with the Invisible man's supper and instructions to find out why money has not
been forth coming. He soon returns having been told to 'leave the food outside and
go away'. The landlady now takes things into her own hands and marches upstairs.
She knocks on his door and walks straight in, Griffin is sitting at the table eating his
meal, the bandages unwrapped from around his mouth. He holds his serviette up to
hide the gaping space where his mouth should be, but not before the landlady has
seen it and rushed out of the room screaming. The rest of the clientele in the pub run
upstairs to see what the commotion is about, it includes a policeman who was on his
rounds and was making his nightly visit to the hostelry. The Invisible Man, confronted
by the crowd stands menacingly looking at them, nothing covering his mouth. They
too see the distinct lack of mandibles and back away.

"Is this what you wanted to see" Griffin says, "A few chemicals mixed together, that's
all, and flesh and blood and bone just fade away. A little of this injected under the skin
of the arm everyday for a month. An invisible man can rule the world. Nobody will see
him come, nobody will see him go. He can hear every secret. He can rob, rape and
kill." and, with mad exaltation he starts to remove his bandages and clothing, revealing, nothing.

"'E's all eaten away!" one of the locals manages to say. The policeman instructs the
crowd to stop him, this they vainly try to do and he rushes past them, out the door,
pushing them out of the way as he goes. The painful aspect of the narrative is the
thought of a man, invisible, but necessarily naked, braving the rigors of an English
winter in order to achieve his dubious ends. The policeman reports all of this to his superintendent. "Where are you calling from?" He asks "The Lions Head" the
exasperated policeman replies. "Well put more water in it next time." The audience
knows better than to ridicule the policeman, Griffins old mentor has already confided
the awful side effects of one of the drugs Griffin stumbled upon.

"Monocain. A terrible drug made from a flower that's grown in India. It draws colour
from everything it touches. Years ago they used it for bleaching cloth: they gave up
because it destroyed the material. They tried it on a dog: it turned dead white and went
raving mad."

Still naked and invisible Griffin has made his way through the snow to Kemps house.
He has let himself in and sits in a rocking chair, smoking a cigarette waiting for Kemp
to arrive. Kemp is terrified and tries to think of ways to appease and dispose of his
guest. He has heard that he is wondering abroad in a dangerous drug induced state.
Griffin speaks with Kemp for a while, gloating at Kemps comparative weakness.

"The drugs I took seem to light up my brain. Soon I realized the power I held - the
power to rule. We'll begin with a reign of terror - a few murders here and there -
murders of big men, murders of little men, just to show that we make no distinction.
We might even wreck a train or two - just these fingers round a signalman's throat -
that's all. Then sometimes I'll make you invisible, Kemp, it will give me a rest."

Believing Kemp to be his ally, Griffin requests clothing, bandages and dark glasses,
Kemp willingly gives these to him. Kemp takes the opportunity while Griffin is getting
dressed to call Griffin's fiance and her father, also a scientist. They come straight over
to the house, Kemp also alerts the police who having seen some strange goings on
themselves and give the village policeman a bit more credibility. Griffin sees his fiance
arrive and demands she is sent up to the bedroom he is in. They talk together for a
while and we see, for a moment, the real Griffin break through the drug induced evil,
but it doesn't last long. He gradually builds himself up to a creccendo of hate and megalomania.

"Power to walk into the gold vaults of of the nations - into the secrets of kings - into
the holy of holies. Power to make multitudes run screaming in terror at the touch of
my little invisible finger. Even the moon's frightened of me - frightened to death. The
whole world is frightened to death."

This is delivered in bandaged close-up with just one stretch of Griffin's white gloved
hand, it is riveting. Suddenly Griffin is aware that the house is surrounded by police,
he knows that Kemp must have told them of his where abouts. He storms downstairs
to Kemp and tells him he will kill him at ten O'clock tomorrow night.

The rest of the movie is devoted to Griffins successful stalking of Kemp and Griffins subsequent capture. He is finally located when an elderly farmer calls the police station
to report "There is breathing in my barn." The police quickly arrive and surround the
barn, holding nets to trap Griffin. Griffin , confident in his ability to allude the police
walks out of the barn towards them, presuming he will just be able to pass them as he
has done before. This time though, he has miscalculated the nature of snow. As he
walks from the barn , he leaves a trail of footprints behind him. An armed policeman
takes aim where he thinks the fugitive is and fires, hitting Griffith and fatally wounding
him. He is taken to the local hospital where his fiance arrives, she is sitting with him as
he is dying, and as he dies he gradually becomes visible again. The audience finally gets
to see their new star.