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      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
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      • Let Us Be Gay
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      • True Confession ('37)
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      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
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      • Remember the Night ('40)
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      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
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      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
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Claude Rains in The Invisible Man

Claude Rains, the accidental voice of the invisible man

11/6/2020

0 Comments

 
​Claude Rains is most likely remembered for his iconic walk-off with Humphrey Bogart at the end of Casablanca (’42).  His portrayal of Captain Louis Renault was just one of many memorable supporting characters that he played throughout his 30+ year career, but without his first role none of them would likely have happened.  Rains, a noted London stage actor, appeared in a screen test for RKO, performing a scene from A Bill of Divorcement (’32), that went horribly wrong.  The test was known for its overacting & theatricality & Rains was rejected by the studio.  Fortunately, director James Whale was looking for a commanding voice for his follow up to Frankenstein (’31) & The Old Dark House (’32) & was acquainted with Rains through their time in the theatre.  Screening the test at Universal, Whale laughed at the poor acting, but recognized that Rains’ voice was perfect for his film, where the male lead wasn’t seen until the final shot. Originally, Boris Karloff was slated to play the lead character in The Invisible Man, but a contract dispute with Universal Studios led to his bowing out & caused Whale to look elsewhere. Colin Clive (Frankenstein) was also offered the role, but turned it down to return to his native England. Rains himself believed that his failed RKO test destroyed what chance he had of a Hollywood career, but the confluence of events, landed him the role, led him back to Hollywood and started a brilliant career as one of the greatest character actors of the classic era.
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​The Invisible Man had a circuitous route to production with 9 different writers, including John Huston & Preston Sturges, creating 6 treatments & 10 screenplays, while 4 separate directors were at times attached during the 2+ years of pre-production.  Whale, in fact, left the production twice, before finally agreeing to shoot a script by R.C. Sherriff (Goodbye, Mr. Chips & That Hamilton Woman) that most closely resembled H.G. Wells’ classic novel.  Mixing Wells’ typical blend of science & fantasy, The Invisible Man tells the story of a chemical scientist who discovers a serum that renders him invisible, but also may have serious side effects.  While he retreats to work on an anecdote his mania increases with murderous results.
 
Once production finally began, however, Rains balked at the constrictive nature of not only the bandages he wore throughout, but also Whale’s efforts to simplify his performance.  Harkening back to Rains’ screen test & his experience in theatre, Whale’s goal was to have Rains utilize his dynamic voice to create character & limit the emoting for the back row.  Using a combination of a maniacal laugh, a haughty attitude & an overall disdain for all he felt inferior, Rains constructed a character that clearly boarders on insanity, often ranting and railing against ignorance & stupidity.  While not the classic monster, in the vein of Dracula or Frankenstein, Rains’ Dr. Jack Griffin is every bit as frightening, both in his bandaged physical appearance, but more forcefully as he terrorizes while invisible.
 
The initial scene of a bundled soul, wandering through a snowstorm, only to bring about recoil as he enters The Lion’s Head Inn, wonderfully sets the tone for the film. The rogue’s gallery of inn patrons brings both color & depth to Whale’s frame, adding a three dimensionality to the proceedings, highlighted by the elastic faced & piercingly shrill Una O’Connor as the inn’s proprietress.  Whale relies on these secondary characters to temper the horror/suspense with moments of levity, highlighted by the special effects flying objects.  Rains is at his best as he cackles loudly while flinging beer mugs, tossing bicycles & hurling caps, all pulled from the hapless villagers.  It’s the genius of the film/screenplay that undercuts horror at the same time emphasizing the mental instability of Dr. Griffin.  His physical expression of his madness is supported by his verbal rampages of mostly political & revenge fantasies, always bringing the danger back to a more serious & threatening realm.
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​That danger is never more palpable than when Griffin transforms from a bandaged physical being to fully invisible.  Using state of the art special effects, sometimes combining 4 separate pieces of film to create the illusion, Whale & special effects master John P. Fulton, literally disappear the invisible man on screen, a remarkable feat for the early ‘30’s.  In doing so, however, they also craft a level of believability that in itself is terrifying & elevates the film beyond carnival sideshow.  Griffin’s anger, while always on edge while bandaged, often explodes when he is invisible, no more so than while intimidating Dr. Kemp, his erstwhile colleague & romantic rival.  Only when in the presence of his love Flora Cranley (Gloria Stewart) does Griffin soften. Rains utilizes his voice especially well while invisible, creating a growl of sorts that exacerbates the otherworldly experience of being disembodied.  Whale’s camera marks his movements with a certain fluidity, but it is Rains’ voice that commands the viewers eyes to follow the action.
 
The entirety of the special effects required nearly 45 minutes of the film to be hand touched to make sure no flaws in the effects took away from the illusion.  This required an extraordinary performance by Rains, trapped as he often was in bandages, but sometimes in heavy black velvet clothing & a paper-machce helmet.  In one particularly long scene, shot on a very hot sound stage, Rains actually passed out from heat exhaustion.  All this is to say that even though Rains was forced to act primarily with his voice, was constricted by his director, heavy costumes & special effects props,  he created a deranged & emotionally challenging character in spite of everything.  The Invisible Man is a testament to his talent as an actor, even as we only see his face for a matter of seconds (in the last shot of the film).
 
Boris Karloff is often credited with the quintessential monster performance in the classic Universal Horror series, but I would argue that Claude Rains performance in The Invisible Man is equally iconic.  Karloff signaled great emotional depth solely through his expressive eyes, giving Frankenstein’s monster a soul that elevated the entire film.  Rains , however, gives his character an invisible soul completely through the sound of his voice.  He captures a range of emotions that includes anger & sadness at their basest, grandiosity & mania in the extreme & sorrow & remorse in all its subtlety.  The accidental invisible man launched his career in American film with grace, imagination and a voice that would long be remembered in the many parts he made his own.
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  • Home
  • Top 10 Lists
    • My Top 10 Favorite Movies
    • Top 10 Heist Movies
    • Top 10 Neo-Noir Films
    • The Top 10 Films of the Troubles (1969-1998) >
      • The Troubles Selected Timeline
    • Top 10 Films from 2001
    • Director Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Film Noir Directors
      • Top 10 Coen Brothers Films
      • Top 10 John Ford Films
      • Top 10 Samuel Fuller Films
      • Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films
      • Top 10 John Huston Films
      • Top 10 Fritz Lang Films (American)
      • Val Lewton Top 10
      • Top 10 Ernst Lubitsch Films
      • Top 10 Jean-Pierre Melville Films
      • Top 10 Nicholas Ray Films
      • Top 10 Preston Sturges Films
      • Top 10 Robert Siodmak Films
      • Top 10 William Wellman Films
      • Top 10 Billy Wilder Films
    • Actor/Actress Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Joan Blondell Movies
      • Top 10 Clark Gable Movies
      • Top 10 Ava Gardner Films
      • Top 10 Gloria Grahame Films
      • Top 10 Jean Harlow Movies
      • Top 10 Miriam Hopkins Films
      • Top 10 Grace Kelly Films
      • Top 10 Burt Lancaster Films
      • Top 10 Carole Lombard Movies
      • Top 10 Myrna Loy Films
      • Top 10 Marilyn Monroe Films
      • Top 10 Robert Mitchum Noir Movies
      • Top 10 Paul Newman Films
      • Top 10 Robert Ryan Movies
      • Top 10 Norma Shearer Movies
      • Top 10 Barbara Stanwyck Films
    • Top 10 Noir Films (Classic Era)
    • Top 10 Pre-Code Films
    • Top 10 Actresses of the 1930's
  • Reviews
    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
      • Elevator to the Gallows ('58)
      • Days of Heaven
      • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
      • Last Picture Show Teaser Intro
      • Le Silence De La Mer ('49)
      • The Princess Bride ('87) Intro
      • Pulp Fiction ('94) Intro
    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
    • The 1920's >
      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
      • Sunrise (1927)
      • Wild Orchids ('29)
    • The 1930's >
      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
      • Criss Cross (1949)
      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
      • Overlooked Christmas Movies of the 1940's
      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
    • The 1950's >
      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
      • A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
      • Mogambo ('53)
      • Niagara (1953)
      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
      • Pushover Noir City
      • Rear Window (1954)
      • Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
      • Some Like It Hot ('59) >
        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
    • The 1960's >
      • The April Fools (1969)
      • Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
      • Cape Fear ('62)
      • Cool Hand Luke (1967) Intro
      • Dr Strangelove Intro
      • For a Few Dollars More (1965)
      • Fistful of Dollars (1964)
      • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
      • The Man With No Name Trilogy
      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
    • The 1970's >
      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
      • Chinatown Introduction
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
    • The 1980's >
      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
      • Scarface (1983)
    • The 1990's >
      • The General (1998)
    • 2000's >
      • Belfast (2021)
      • Blonde (2022)
      • Hunger (2008)
      • In Bruges (2008)
      • Joy Division
      • Mank (2020)
      • No Man's Land (2001)
      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
  • Artists
    • Actors/Actresses >
      • Joan Blondell
      • Faye Dunaway: 1967-1976
      • The Noir Villainy of Dan Duryea
      • Clark Gable Bio
      • Jean Harlow Bio
      • Veronica Lake
      • Norma Shearer
    • Directors/Producers/Cinematographers >
      • Founders Series: Alice Guy-Blache
      • John Alton
      • Joan Harrison-Producer/Writer
      • Hitchcock & Cary Grant
      • William Wellman
    • Books >
      • Book Reviews >
        • Book Review: Clark Gable by D. Bret
      • Pre-Code
      • Actor Bios
      • Film Noir
      • Director Bios
      • Studio Head Bios
      • Hollywood History
    • Studio
  • Resources
    • Sight & Sound Top 100 2022
    • NOTES >
      • American Graffiti Notes
      • Anatomy of a Murder Notes
      • The Asphalt Jungle Outline
      • Breakfast Club Notes
      • Citizen Kane Notes
      • It's A Wonderful Life Notes
      • Rebel Without a Cause Notes
      • Singin' in the Rain Notes
    • CMBA Interview/Profile
    • Bay Cinema Society Press
    • Hollywood History >
      • Production Code
      • Film Noir
  • Video Introductions
    • Video Introductions
  • Last Picture Show Notes
  • Paul Verhoeven