#22 - The Invisible Man (1933)



Even though this film is typically lumped in with the great Universal monster movies from this era, it's really more of a science fiction story.  Of course, despite all the test tubes and such that are laying around, nothing very scientific actually happens.  Griffin turns invisible by basically injecting random chemicals into his skin until he comes across a magic combination that works (involving a completely fictional drug, of course).

I can't say I really liked this one.  It has some okay moments, and Claude Rains has a great voice, but nothing particularly scary or even interesting happens.  He isn't really a monster, just more of an invisible jerk.  I guess that when this film came out, the special effects were really spectacular, but today they look extremely dated, and it's hard to feel threatened by a floating pair of pajamas.  There are so many different ways they could have man an invisible man scary, but having him just randomly knock stuff over and steal people's hats are not on that list.

Also, I like how Gloria Stuart has top billing on the poster, even though she does absolutely nothing in the movie and is clearly only there because they needed a female lead to help sell tickets.  

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