whimsical, bemused
benign person, often slightly eccentric,
that it's curious here to see him
playing seemingly straight and sombre.
This was only his fourth film.
Although born of Irish parents in England
on the Scottish border in 1874,
he had been in America since
the beginning of the 20th century,
and appeared for years
on Broadway in major works,
including seven plays
by George Bernard Shaw,
in addition to Liliom, Volpone
and Reunion in Vienna, et cetera.
He made his film debut
in the latter in 1933.
Travers, whose real name
was Travers Heagerty,
had appeared in two plays
with Claude Rains,
Camel Through the Needle's Eye in 1929
and the stage version
of The Good Earth in 1932.
Dr Cranley tells Kemp
about the drug monocane.
The doctor has discovered
this on a list of chemicals
which had been left behind by Griffin.
Cranley refers to monocane
as "a terrible drug"
that "draws colour
from everything it touches".
He also says that the drug
gradually induces madness.
The fictional monocane was
an invention by screenwriter RC Sherriff.
In the book, Griffin, a university student,
has damaged his mind with strychnine.
But by having monocane
be part of the invisibility formula
as well as a mind-altering drug,
which presumably was not known by
Griffin, per the dialogue in this scene,
gives an acceptable motive
for his various acts in the film,
versus the book's one-note monomania.
In the 1940 Universal sequel
The Invisible Man Returns,
the name of the drug
is changed to duocane,
presumably marketed underground as
"New, improved and double-strength".
A few of Henry Travers' 52 films
include Ball of Fire, High Sierra,
Mrs Miniver, Random Harvest,
Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt,
and that hardy perennial, Frank Capra's
It's a Wonderful Life in 1946
as the memorable Clarence, the angel.
He died in 1965.
A quiet evening at home,
reading and listening to the radio.
A sidebar, if I may:
The tune being played on the radio
is that apotheosis of maudlin
sentimentality "Hearts and Flowers",
performed in an old-fashioned manner
even for 1933,
on what sounds like an upright piano
with all the frills and trills.
Presumably, this is an inside joke,
put in by a music editor some years later,
to replace the music used
for the initial release of the film.
That music was "La Rosita",
a 1923 composition
that became a semi-standard.
The substitution probably stemmed
from a music clearance situation.
The invisible man has decided
to pay a visit to his old colleague.
The radio announcer
begins the news with a report
about an invisible man
in the village of lping.
Kemp is interested. Then the radio, of
course, is turned off by you know who.
Both writer RC Sherriff
and director Whale did not want
to rely on just the invisible man's voice
to indicate his presence
during scenes when he's totally invisible,
as in this situation.
They wanted the audience
to be drawn to the character,
so everything was set up,
staged and photographed to this end.
Whale told Film Weekly "It was all very
well to film the scenes without the actor,
but I knew that I had in some way
to let the audience know clearly
that the actor was there all the time,
although he was invisible."
"Therefore, in nearly every one
of the 'invisible' scenes,
I had to devise bits of business so
the audience should know where he was,
what he was doing and so on."
"In one scene,
I made him sit in a rocking chair,
so by the movements of the chair,
the audience would realise he was there,
although there was
no sign of his presence."
"He's sitting in a chair
talking to another person."
"I showed the seat of the chair
sagging slightly as he sat down."
"Then, when his voice
became more confidential,
I had the chair moved
a few inches toward the other person,
as though the invisible man had drawn it
closer for more intimate