Monday, October 19, 2009

50 Movie Pack: SciFi Classics: Part 5 - The Amazing Transparent Man

I have never really been a fan of the invisible man story, at least a deliberate one. I can appreciate Ellison’s, but I never really got Huxley’s. The power of invisibility has obvious and usually lurid connotations. I know what I would do if I were invisible, and so do another million formerly pimply-faced, comic book-reading, men around the world. So when I come into a film knowing that it is already a poor excuse of a story I don’t really like, I can’t expect much. The Amazing Transparent Man was a film that hit drive thru’s across the nation in 1960, and features Marguerite Chapman in her last role in a feature film. No, I’ve never heard of her either, but she has a star on the walk of fame and she was in about 20 films throughout the 1940s, so she gets honorable mention, even though she doesn’t do much here.

The film begins with an escaped convict chased by the baying of dogs, who eventually finds his rescue in the form of a convertible driven by a sultry woman. By playing the old drunk-husband-being-ferried-by-his-doting-wife routine, the two quickly escape a police blockade. I immediately wish that this film will continue like the episode of the Twilight Zone that began the same way, but ended in the man and woman being pets/dolls to a child of a giant alien race. The message in that Twilight Zone is actually one of the most misogynistic, but I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you. Anyway, I digress. This film is nothing like that Twilight Zone episode anyway. The man asks the woman why she broke him out. “You’ll find out soon enough, when we get to where we’re going,” she informs him. They soon arrive at an old house in the country after day break.

The ex-con has quickly changed into a tuxedo at some point, and gets eyed down by a cowboy-hat-wearing guard outside the house. Laura, the sultry woman, has brought the criminal, Joey Faust, to the presence of an ex-major of some unknown military background. Major Krenner has brought Faust to his company for Faust’s renown as an expert safe-breaker. The cowboy hat is named Julian, and quickly makes his strengths known by informing Faust that one shot from his rifle will rip his spine right out of his body. The Major has plans to con Faust into breaking into a government facility to steal nuclear secrets. Krenner then introduces Faust to a scientist who has developed a ray that utilizes every spectrum of light to examine all tissue and structure of the human body. Dr. Ulof dutifully reads his cue cards and informs the men of the dangers of x-ray, alpha, beta and omega radiation. The doctor joins the men in their lead barrier after strapping a guinea pig on a table beneath the ray. Exposing the guinea pig to the ray turns it completely invisible to the eye. A door next to the ray interests Faust, and the Major becomes tight-lipped and looks constipated. “It’s no concern of yours,” he informs Faust.

While Faust sleeps, Julian stares in at him from the other room while reading gun magazines. The restless Faust awakes and fixes himself a drink, then opens his door to in turn take a coy peep at Julian. Faust lures Julian into his room by knocking at the side of the door and immediately knocks him out. A really cool screen wipe is accomplished when Faust uses his bed sheets to cover Julian and in turn the camera. He takes Julian’s gun and sneaks upstairs to the ray, and the door in which he was so interested. While investigating the door, the doctor comes from behind a divider to stop Faust. Apparently the Major is blackmailing the doctor and making him sleep in a twin bed next to a nuclear reactor. The Major keeps the doctor’s daughter behind that locked door near the ray to keep him in his employ, and the doctor begs Faust to open it. Faust is having none of it, thinking of his own problems, and his own daughter, whom he believes to be safe for the time being. When the doctor challenges Faust’s lock-picking skills, Faust perks up, not willing to let himself be bested. “I can open that thing blindfolded!”

Before Faust can open the door, a gun-toting Laura stops him and brings him back downstairs. Faust attempts to bribe Laura to his side, but Julian wakes up and knocks him out. It seems all sides are under the thumb of Major Krenner, and are willing to consider all options. Laura and Julian protect Faust when the Major returns, and Laura informs Faust that she’s willing to turn to his side, in exchange for the money Faust offers for her turning over the ray. The next morning, Major Krenner approaches Laura and takes issue with her helping Faust of course. He begins slapping Laura quite a bit, telling her to lay off the vodka. This further turns her interests towards Faust, who himself employs a no-slap, heavy boozing policy. The Major and the doctor still get Faust on the table down under the ray and are ready to begin the procedure.

Faust’s invisibility allows him to take advantage of the situation. Not being strapped down like the guinea pig, he immediately jumps off the table before the group emerges from the lead barrier. Of course the first thing he does as an invisible man is what any red-blooded invisible man would do – he begins kissing Laura on the neck. Then he plants a sucker punch into Major Krenner’s stomach and tells him that the deal’s only going to work on Faust’s terms.

While Faust enjoys his success at breaking out the nuclear X-13 material out from the government vault, the doctor and Krenner are upstairs debating the safety of using X-13 in the ray and the sustained doses of radiation poisoning that the guinea pig and Faust must endure to become invisible and then get turned back. You see, the guinea pig has died, but Krenner sees a win-win situation for him. If Faust dies from the radiation poisoning, he won’t be able to blackmail Krenner anymore, and testing the X-13 on Faust will allow the doctor to create a more powerful ray, one that will eventually be able to turn entire armies invisible. Krenner comes downstairs to inform Faust that his next heist must be done in broad daylight. The security has been tripled on the nightshift, but maintains the same personnel during the day. On the way to the government vault, Faust decides to knock over a bank, but unfortunately his heist is blown by his becoming visible again. A half-bodied Faust is soon identified by a bank teller.

Faust returns to the country house after leaving Laura behind with her cut of the bank money. He attacks Krenner and locks him in the room the Major has been keeping the doctor’s daughter in. When Laura returns, Julian tries to stop her, but she informs him that Julian’s son who has been the source of Krenner’s blackmail is already dead, and that Julian is just a puppet at this point. Julian, the doctor, his daughter Marie and Joey Faust leave the house and are planning to escape to somewhere the doctor can repair Faust’s disappearing state. The doctor informs Faust that they will both die from radiation poisoning, and they should stand up to Krenner to stop him from his dream of creating an invisible army. Before Faust can retrieve Laura from the house, Krenner shoots her during the escape and Faust realizes it’s time to approach Krenner. Krenner throws acid on Faust and then sets up the ray to be used on him, but Krenner, in his need for success, tries to return to the safe to get all the research data. While doing so, the X-13 is exposed to the ray and the house is destroyed in a nuclear explosion.

Meanwhile, the doctor, his daughter and Julian have gotten away, and when the FBI and local law enforcement begin examining the nuclear fallout from the blast, they bring Dr. Ulof to them for questioning. He explains the maniacal plans of Krenner to the detectives, and suggests that they let the wishes of that madman die with him. He yearningly looks to the camera and asks the viewer, “What would you do?”

The film is short, with a run time of about 57 minutes, and wasn’t a giant waste of time. I actually enjoyed the anti-nuclear message and the obvious ending that is employed by this 1960 film. It’s pretty obvious that the threat of the Cold War seeps its way into almost every aspect of the culture, and shitty drive-thru movies are no exception. But like I said, I knew exactly what Faust would do the minute he turned invisible, attempting to make time with a WWII era starlet.

Rating: 2 X-13 canisters out of 5.

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