Die unglaubliche Geschichte des Mr. C

What a fantastic film this is: Richard Matheson's finest feature-length script is like the best of his Twilight Zone episodes, both wonderfully imaginative and thoughtfully philosophical at once.

It begins in bland, generic, white picket fenced 1950s America and ends in deep contemplation of the infinite, and along the way becomes unmoored from all reference points from the age in which it was made, as the protagonist himself has every thing familiar to him progressively stripped away and he is reduced to the most raw, primal, archetypal battle for survival.

The actor Grant Williams never did anything of any real note again, but here, in his continually deepening suffering, he moves into a glowing, timeless space that would not look out of place in any Bergman film. It's a performance for the ages.

The Incredible Shrinking Man is a rare, unique work and by far my favourite of all those 1950s sci-fi and monster movies.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (4 outta 5 stars) Not many of those hokey-looking old sci-fi movies from the '50s are still as effective 50 years later... but this one definitely hasn't lost any of its power. Great script written by Richard Matheson, who later went on to do much good work for "The Twilight Zone" and even today is still producing scripts for such films as "Stir of Echoes" and "What Dreams May Come". The story is fairly simple- after passing through a mysterious cloud on the ocean, our hero Scott (Grant Williams) discovers that his clothes seem to start feeling looser. More time passes and he discovers that he is now shorter than his wife. Day after day, he becomes smaller and smaller until he becomes so small that an ordinary housecat becomes a terrifying threat to his very life. The special effects might seem unconvincing to modern eyes... but the otherwise high-quality of the editing and direction make the action scenes as effective and suspenseful as anything you likely to see spewed out by today's CGI factories. I was totally unprepared for the ending of this film... you'd never see a movie end this way nowadays... but you never too many of them end this way back in the '50s either! A classic!

This movie, with it's silly 1950's title, is a great work of the mind as it fathoms the universe. It's about a man, an ordinary man, who, after an astronomical event, begins to become smaller. Unlike so many cheesy films, his clothes don't get smaller along with him. Richard Matheson considered all the implications of a shrinking man along with all the forces that would work against him. Our power is often dictated by our size, so this man finds himself having to fear things that he previously took for granted. We can only imagine what was going to happen down the road. The sad fact that he must live in a doll's house, without hope, to be forsaken pretty much by the humans who have left him, is very depressing. There are the usual things, being chased by a cat, fighting with a spider, having objects like pencils and common pins become huge to him. The ending, however, is what puts this beyond anything that has been done since. It's a look at the hugeness of the universe and the relative tininess of our own earth in the scheme of things. It really has a positive side. This man has dignity and, while he doesn't know what is coming, he knows that the great order of the universe gives him a position in it.

I finally caught up with Jack Arnold's most highly-regarded piece of science fiction, and I have to say that I agree it's his most accomplished work.

True, the plot isn't terribly original (how about THE DEVIL-DOLL [1936], which I watched again right after, and DR. CYCLOPS [1940], for starters, not to mention the 'little people' of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN [1935]?) but none of the others quite touched upon the psychology of its admittedly fantastic situation, let alone treat it with such intelligence, sensitivity and, ultimately, persuasion. Legendary author Richard Matheson is to be congratulated for his truly excellent script, as should be Arnold for putting his ideas on the screen with such vividness and imagination. Special mention must go too to Grant Williams for his fine performance; Jack Arnold seemed to think it was worthy of an Oscar and I can't say I disagree!

It was interesting to see that the title character's peculiar affliction effected him gradually and not all at once; the fact that this was caused by exposure to radiation must have struck a note of panic amid contemporary anxiety-ridden audiences (this was the Cold War era, after all) and, in any case, it was inevitable that such 'monstrous' radiation effects (as seen mutating various forms of animal life on the screens of 1950s America) would not spare man himself in the long run. An episode featuring sideshow midgets, with whom The Shrinking Man seems to identify for a little while, is quite moving - as is his jealous possessiveness of his wife who he suspects wants to abandon him.

Despite the low budget, the film's special effects are terrific and the second half of the story basically resolves itself into a struggle for survival for our unfortunate hero as he has to battle various elements (the family cat, a spider, water, the re-dimension of objects around him, his own weakness due to hunger) which a normal person would more or less take for granted.

I thoroughly enjoyed THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN - though I must say that Matheson's bleak yet strangely affecting ending blew me away, giving the film an intellectual resonance lacking in most films of its type and period.

A Sci-Fi masterpiece stunningly mounted and directed . Almost beyond the imagination . . A strange adventure into the unknown ! . After being contaminated by what may or not to be radioactive mist , a good man finds himself turning smaller and steadily shedding the inches and pounds until he reaches actually minuscule proportions . A suburban husband named Scott Carey (Grant Williams) begins to shrink because of exposure to a combination of radiation and insecticide and medics (William Schallert) are powerless to help him . He becomes a media darling but starts to feel humiliated and expressing cruel anger against his wife (Randy Stuart) . In his home's basement he battles lethal threats as spiders , floods or drops of water in an endless and surreal environment . At the ending terminates in a strangely and moving religious assertion of what it really means to be alive.

Universal classic of the 50s with numerous unforgettable scenes including a rousing showdown with a giant cat and a common house spider. Good performance by Grant Williams in that a strange fog causes him to dwindle becoming into unfortunate man who forces him to view the world in a diverse light than ever before. Intelligent and brooding screenplay by Richard Matheson with many memorable dialogs and including philosophical and pantheist speeches ; furthermore based on his own novel . Joseph Gershenson's impressive score with thrilling strains. Fine special effects highlight and good Art Direction by Alexander Golitzen .

This well-edited motion picture is compellingly directed by Jack Arnold in his best foray into the Sci-Fi genre. He reigns supreme as one of the greatest filmmakers of 50s science , achieving an important cult popularity with classics as "The Creature from the Black Lagoon," and its follow-up titled "Revenge of the Creature" that was a nice sequel . "Tarantula" was likewise a lot of amusement . This "The Incredible Shrinking Man" attained his greatest enduring cult popularity , it's a thought-provoking and impressive classic that's lost none of its power throughout the years . Arnold's final two genre entries were the interesting "Monster on the Campus" and the outlandish "The Space Children¨ . It's followed by an inferior Sci-Fi comedy titled ¨Incredible shrinking woman (1981)that results to be a semi-spoof , being directed by Joel Schumacher in his first movie , with Lily Tomlin , Charles Grodin and Nead Beatty. Rating : Better than average . Well catching for amazing acting, philosophical and existential argument and really peculiar transformation .