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The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Scott Carey (Grant Williams) has his world fall apart when he suddenly realizes that he seems to be losing too much weight. At first he and his wife (Randy Stuart) joke it off as he's not eating enough but then they realize that he's also getting smaller. The medical field is at a loss and before long Scott is just larger than a nail and finds himself in for the fight of his life.

Jack Arnold's THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN is an incredibly entertaining gem that manages to get better each time I revisit it. It's funny but as a kid this here really wasn't one of my favorite Universal films but the older I get the more I appreciate the story from Richard Matheson and the fact that he and Arnold weren't afraid to make it a rather bleak subject. I certainly won't ruin the ending but anyone who has seen the movie will certainly be blown away by it.

There are all sorts of great things in this movie but for me the highlight was the battle in the film, which happens when Scott gets stuck in the basement and his wife thinks that he is dead. There are several different obstacles that Scott must overcome in the basement and the adventure that he goes on is full of wonderful action scenes as well as some terrific suspense built up by the director. The score is quite riviting and adds to the tension as our shrinking man must battle one thing after another.

The special effects for 1957 are quite excellent, although they do show their age today. With that said, the story by Matheson is just so believable that the viewer has no problem getting sucked into it and the adventure. Another major plus is that Williams is so good in his role and he helps carry you along with everything that his character goes through. Throw in the wonderful cinematography, the interesting use of science and you're really got a nice little gem that continues to get better as the years go by.

When a businessman Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is infected by a mysterious cloud of mist on a boating vacation, little does he know how his life and whole way of existing are about to change. After six months of normal life he notices he has lost a little weight and height, and that this strange loss of size is continuous. He keeps growing smaller and smaller every day, to the amazement of doctors and to the chagrin of his wife (Randy Stuart). Soon everyday things become grave dangers to him and he has to completely let go of his old way of comprehending his place in life.

The over-sized props and the creative trick photography that is used to create the illusion of shrinking must have looked absolutely stunning in the 1950s when the film first came out, because they still look impressive when I'm typing this in 2010. Carey's struggles with unexpected sources of terror like a cat, a mousetrap or a spider haven't lost any of their charm over the decades: they are still edge-of-your-seat suspense, and I'm not saying this as any kind of affirmative action in favour of old movies – I genuinely haven't been this thrilled by a movie in a long time! Besides the visual effects, the riveting music is also perfectly in tune with the thrilling style of the film.

Even though the film can easily be enjoyed as a great sci-fi suspense film, there's also a deeper, more personal level to it. Carey truly develops as a character over the course of the film. He is aware of his frustration and changing moods and scolds himself for being rude to his wife and not being able to take the new challenges bravely head-on. The sense of loneliness, created excellently with beautiful black & white cinematography and camera angles, has been said to mirror the fearful atmosphere of the Cold War and the nuclear era. This is a valid interpretation, but it's also possible to see Carey's journey as a symbol of Man's existential despair and feelings of inadequacy in life that is seemingly normal and mundane. The grandiose finale provides a majestic ending for the tale of new-found self-esteem; all my worries about a predictably tacked-on happy ending were proved unnecessary.

I wrote this review immediately after seeing the film for the first time. These words came out completely without effort and that is, to me, a sign of an honestly compelling cinematic experience. The Incredible Shrinking Man is a delight to watch, not the least bit goofy or dated like some other old sci-fi films. I recommend it for every fan of the genre, admirers of imaginative special effects and anyone interested in existential character studies.

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.

Instead of the typical blood and gore screaming sensationalism of many 1950s sci-fi films, this is an amazingly well thought-out film that is underplayed and even philosophical.

There are some amusing moments in the film, such as when we discover Scott in a dollhouse, but much of the story is handled seriously -- the topics of being different, surviving in an unsympathetic world, crass commercialism, and loneliness are well portrayed.

The theme of the film is what is really amazing. Despite the rather schlocky title, we are given a view of humanity's place in the universe. The final sequence is an imaginative portrait of the balance between the macrocosm and the microcosm.

The film is more than it first appears. Definitely see this one.

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!