in American touring
companies of hit plays.
Rains went on to become,
in the late 1920s,
the Theatre Guild's
outstanding character actor.
Now we're going to see more physical
effects - mostly wire effects - coming up
to get material out of his room
and down to the street.
None of this involved travelling mattes,
but it involved heavy-wire work
that you couldn't see
because of the thinness of the wires.
The actor playing Inspector Bird
is Britisher Harry Stubbs,
who had been
in American films since 1929.
Horror film buffs will recognise him from
later appearances in Werewolf of London,
The Invisible Man Returns,
The Mummy's Hand, The Wolf Man
and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
For those who wanted yet another round
of Una's shrieks, this is the moment.
It is also her grand finale for this film.
In 1954, Una was
a very frail and weak 74 years old,
but she couldn't resist taking
the part of the deaf Scottish maid
whose testimony provides comic relief
in Agatha Christie's play
Witness for the Prosecution.
A major hit,
it ran for 645 performances in New York.
Una's portrayal delighted audiences.
Billy Wilder directed the film version,
starring Tyrone Power, Charles Laughton
and Marlene Dietrich in 1957,
and Una went to Hollywood for her last
screen appearance, recreating her role.
She died in 1959 at the age of 78.
Two years earlier, James Whale, when
he died, had left a bequest to the actress.
Now the invisible man has started to
put into practice his "reign of terror".
Remember that speech about beginning
with a few murders, here and there?
Inspector Bird was his first murder victim,
but we know there are more to come,
perhaps on a big scale.
Here's actor John Carradine,
then known as John Peter Richmond,
when he was playing
small roles around Hollywood.
Coming up very soon is one of
the most ingenious but complicated
travelling-matte shots in the film.
Special-effects technician John Fulton
will explain in his own words
his working methods for the matte shots.
As stated earlier, the scenes involving
the invisible man partially clothed
or totally invisible but with props
such as cigarettes or lighters visible,
along with other characters on the set,
were photographed as normal,
but without any evidence of the
invisible man and/or the handled props.
The negative was then developed. After
the entire film was finished shooting,
Fulton and his crew,
along with director James Whale,
began the special process work.
Said Fulton "We used a completely black
set, walled and floored with black velvet,
to be as nearly
non-reflective as possible."
"Our actor was garbed from head to foot
in black velvet tights,
with black gloves and a black headpiece
rather like a diver's helmet."
"Over this, he wore
whatever clothes might be required."
"This gave us a picture of unsupported
clothes moving on a dead black field."
From this negative, we made
a print and a duplicate negative,
which we intensified
to serve as mattes for printing."
"Then, with an ordinary printer,
we made our composite."
Now here's that scene I was talking about.
John Fulton says
"This shot had to show
the man himself from the rear,
and his reflection in the mirror."
"Ordinarily this would be simple enough,
but when you add the difficulties
of showing the unwrapping
of an invisible head,
you have some complicated
problems to solve."
"This required the making
of four separate takes,
combined by the travelling-matte
printing system into one picture."
"First, there was the shot
of the wall and the mirror,
with the mirror itself
masked out by black velvet."
"Next, a separate shot of the opposite wall
of the room, as reflected in the mirror."
"Thirdly, the shot of the invisible man
from the rear, unwrapping his bandages,
and lastly, the reflection of him
from the front doing the same act."
"All of these had to be
perfectly coordinated,