L'incroyable homme invisible

Some aspects of Ulmer's Amazing Transparent Man are, in retrospect, pretty funny. James Griffith's poorly mimed fight with an invisible man, the occasional continuity disasters, and the infrequent technobabble are examples. This is not, however, quite funny enough or cheesy enough to have been good MST3K fodder. Underlying the mediocre special effects, the occasionally overblown dialog, and the uneven performances, the story line presents an interesting take on the invisible man theme.

The heavy, played without much verve by James Griffith, is an ex-Nazi spy who looks and speaks like Mr. Rogers. His plan, involving all manners of extortion, involves forcing refugee German scientist (Ivan Triesault) to use radiation to turn an escaped convict safe-cracker (Douglas Kennedy) invisible. His goal is ostensibly to steal money and radioactive materials to further his experiments. In the role of his co-conspirator and femme fatale we find Marguerite Chapman.

Chapman and Kennedy have some on-screen chemistry which is used to good advantage in the film, but Chapman's performance is below par. Kennedy does well in a role which used his experience well. Griffith's performance, given his credentials, is surprisingly poor. The ancient and experienced Triesault, the class of the acting talent in this film, steals the show to an extent, but is also the only really sympathetic character in the lot.

The movie has a somewhat plodding pace at first, but the character development is good enough to draw the audience in. The Amazing Transparent Man is no action film, but once the action begins, it doesn't really let up until the nicely climactic end. Despite all of the bad press this film has received here on IMDb, this film really isn't a bomb, and I recommend it to sci-fi and low budget b movie buffs.

A title like "The Amazing Transparent Man" does have you seriously wondering on how poor the movie you are about to watch will be - - for a start, he can't even achieve invisibility (only transparency), so what is 'amazing' about that?

But the opening titles suggest you might get something a bit better than you were bracing yourself for. It's quite a good mood setting, with the music involving a cello grinding 4 repeating notes ominously. The other give away is that in the opening credits, the directors and producers names are shown in running-writing style - clearly both artists. And the opening prison escape bit is good, as well as the police checkpoint scene, and they involve some nicely framed external shots.

In fact its all looking like this might be a surprisingly enjoyable film, until the escaped safe-cracking crim Faust (played by Douglas Kennedy) has his first real indoor talking scene. And then you realize that for some reason only known to him, Mr Kennedy plays Faust like some "John Wayne" cowboy. Why a safe cracker would also be a swaggering tough guy who looks like he is ready to say "Ok Pilgrim" is a constant annoyance which does tend to cripple the film.

Anyway - - I don't think I'm giving much away to point out the early setup in the film when Krenner (the Bad Guy) says something like "Dr, make sure the radioactive material is kept away from the beam, or else we will all blow up", and then Dr Ulof repeating something similar back to Krenner five minutes later - - clearly, something is eventually going to go wrong along these lines much later in the film, and they really don't want you to miss it.

The other annoying thing about this movie is how quickly the characters (Faust, Krenner, Dr Ulof, Laura (the bad guys girl), and Julian (the bad guys hired help)) seems to keep swapping alliances and personality, all as a result of some simple statement that would even make a daytime soap opera blush.(eg: a "But your son is dead" has Julian swapping sides without a thought that "Hey, maybe she is lying because I have a gun pointed at her?").

So, the film is not too strong on the logic of how and why the characters act and respond. When combined with its over-earnestness, the final sentence uttered in the film, instead of being the deep and meaningful thought provoker the director and producer obviously intended, resulted in me chuckling for quite a while after the closing credits finished.

Ultimately - The Amazing Transparent Man is better than its title suggests, but not something to recommend.

Why are people so down on this modest but enjoyable movie? Beats me. Joey Faust (what a name!), safecracker, is busted out of the pokey and made an offer - turn invisible and steal radium for a mad scientist/soldier planning on setting up an invisible army to conquer the world. Joey goes along with it but quickly decides to use his powers for what comes naturally - stealing lots of do re mi. This causes conflict as you can imagine, and then his invisibility goes on the fritz. Faust is played by Douglas Kennedy who played one of the cops in 'Invaders From Mars', the baddie is James Griffith who had a bit part in Kubrick's 'The Killing', and the movie was directed by Edward G. Ulmer who made the strange Lugosi/Karloff classic 'The Black Cat' back in the 1930s. 'The Amazing Transparent Man' won't change your life, but it's entertaining enough. Worth a look for fans of 1960s/60s b-grade thrillers.

Another early black and white sci-fi film with some promise........at least in the beginning. Mad dictator "wanna be" springs bank robber from prison to use him in his plan for taking over the world with an invisible army. Sound outrageous? You bet! The sets are cheesy, the story is pretty stupid, the actors either overact or can't act at all, the ending is over the top.......these are all part of the elements that make low budget films fun to watch. Besides, it was directed by Edgar Ulmer, who did some fascinating work. But for some reason, this one is disagreeable.

There are holes in the plot as big as Rhode Island and there is something very sleazy about all the actors, even though a couple of them are mainstays of "B" films, and in the case of Ivan Treisault, "A" list big productions ("Notorious", for example.)And there is that constant bickering........it seems that 75% of the dialogue is shouted. The special effects......well, I've seen worse, much worse, even though you can see the wires. We've seen wires in films before. So what is it that makes this little programmer unpleasant? It just doesn't seem to gel but I don't know why. Maybe it was that Wurlitzer organ in the middle of the living room! So catch it on MST3K with Mike and the 'bots.....without them, it is pretty damn dismal.

Extremely compact (57 minutes) yet entertaining story of ruthless safe-cracker (Kennedy), sprung from gaol by a demented former military agent (Griffith) and his cheap-wine associate (Chapman), forced to endure radiation experiments that make him invisible in order to steal guarded uranium deposits so Griffith can build an invisible army to take-over the world. Street-wise Kennedy decides to turn his transparency into an opportunity to pull a bank heist, but things go awry when the invisibility wears off mid-way through the crime.

Griffith is an impeccably dressed, meek-looking but sadistic villain, keeping his associates subservient via various forms of duress, Chapman plays the life-of-crime broad, mistreated by Griffith (there's a great scene in which Griffith slaps her twice the second he calls "the dot on the i") seeing an opportunity to make it big with Kennedy's safe-cracking skills. Kennedy is the cornerstone, delivering an economical performance of a career criminal with no pride or patriotism, only a loyalty to his young daughter from whom he's forcibly estranged.

You won't get much in your special effects on this budget, nevertheless it's not a bad variation on the "invisible man" theme like an "Outer Limits" or "Twilight Zone" episode with real exteriors and a capable and reasonably distinguished cast. Look out for craggy-faced Pat Cranshaw ("Old School") as an inept security guard in an early film role.