He meddled in things men should leave alone! (The Invisible Man / Phantom Of The Opera (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	The Invisible Man / Phantom Of The Opera (DVD)
Date:	27/10/05 (132 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Invisible Man's a classic

Disadvantages: Phantom of the Opera is rubbish

Universal’s horror films of the early 30s have been incredibly influential, effectively defining the genre for at least the next three decades. Some of them, like the original Dracula, haven’t aged that well. Others, notably the films directed by James Whale, are still thoroughly entertaining. The studio has released a fair few DVD double bills in the last year or so. This is one of them.

The Invisible Man, from 1933, was James Whale’s third horror movie. An adaptation of HG Wells’ fabulous novel, it’s still very much worth watching. Whale’s sensibilities seem far more modern than those of almost any other director from the era, and the film comes across as far more grown up and knowing than the likes of Dracula or The Wolf Man.

The film deals with the unfortunate Griffin, a scientist who’s turned himself invisible. He initially hides out in a rustic inn, trying to find a cure for his condition, but the nosey locals soon drive him out, and he embarks on a crazy, escalating reign of terror, the invisibility process also having driven him mad. (He believes, rather unrealistically, that his invisibility will allow him to conquer the world.)

Griffin is played by Claude Rains, an English stage actor. He later went on to become one of Hollywood’s best character actors, probably being best-known as the cynical Captain Renault in Casablanca. This was his first film, and he is superb; his voice was always wonderful, and obviously being invisible, his voice is what matters. He’s highly entertaining as a man driven to madness by his increasingly frustrating circumstances (anyone who has to use London’s public transport system on a regular basis will be able to identify). The rest of the cast are perfectly adequate, especially William Harrigan as Griffin’s craven friend Kemp. Gloria Stuart, who plays his adoring fiancée, turned up in Titanic decades later. The rustics in the inn are all entertainingly low-brow, with the possible exception of Una O’Connor, an English actress whose heavy-handed approach to comic relief mars several otherwise great films of the era.

It’s a relatively faithful adaptation of Wells’ novel, although it’s played more for comedy than the typically bleak book. It’s possible that things that were scary back then no longer are, but I find it very hard to believe that the film was ever seriously intended to frighten anyone. The Invisible Man’s crimes tend more towards the mischievous than the psychopathic (even when he murders people you can’t really take it seriously). The scenes at the inn (the first third or so of the film) probably inspired every subsequent moment of tiresome Hammer horror comic relief, with bumbling coppers, pig-ignorant yokels and unreasonably suspicious innkeepers. In fact, the suspicion and fear that Griffin inspires is vastly disproportionate to anything he ever actually does. (This has led some film critics to see gay subtexts in the film; James Whale was gay, and all his horror films have a healthy streak of camp humour running through them.)

The special effects in the film are surprisingly good considering how old it is. Sometimes you can see wires lifting things, and a few of the invisibility effects are unconvincing, but the scenes where Griffin whips off his bandages to reveal nothing underneath are brilliant. Otherwise, in spite of its modern sense of humour, the film is quite dated – there’s almost no incidental music, for instance, and the editing is very old-fashioned, with frequent fades to black separating scenes. Still, I think the film holds up incredibly well, and is certainly worth seeing; at only 70 minutes, it never really has the chance to be boring.

There’s a good, hour-long documentary about the film, which includes some nice reminiscences from Claude Rains’ daughter. It explains how the special effects were done and puts the film into the context of the rest of James Whale’s career. It also discusses the various sequels Universal made, most of which seem to have been straightforward adventure or comedy movies. There’s also a stills gallery (as always, a little pointless) and a commentary by film historian Rudy Behlmer. I don’t enjoy film-historian commentaries too much, and this one is no exception. Quite a lot of what he tells us is in the documentary anyway, and I just feel that the whole thing is a bit dry – he’s obviously reading prepared notes, and while it’s a nice idea, I don’t think this kind of commentary works too well.

The other film in this set is The Phantom of the Opera (chosen, I guess, because it was Claude Rains’ other starring role for in a Universal horror). Made in 1943, it really isn’t very good at all. Universal’s horrors by then were generally uninspired, low-budget rubbish. This was at least a big-budget prestige picture, filmed in garish Technicolor, but the emphasis is far more on the opera and a deeply uninteresting love triangle than on the Phantom and his dark deeds.

A violinist in the Paris Opera, the Phantom is hideously scarred by acid after a misunderstanding involving a manuscript. He’s in love with a young singer, whose career he secretly nurtures. She is also admired by a local policeman and the opera’s leading man. The majority of the film is taken up with their romantic entanglements, and there are many, many long opera sequences. The Phantom himself does all the usual phantom stuff, but it’s all handled very half-heartedly. We’re usually just told what he’s done, rather than shown it.

The real stars of the film are Nelson Eddy and Susanna Foster as the romantic opera singers. Eddy had been a big star a few years before, appearing in several operettas for MGM. (Yes, apparently light opera was once a big draw for cinema goers. I’ve no idea why.) The singing is perfectly adequate, but watching people perform operas on stage really doesn’t make for compelling cinema. With the opera taking most of the focus, the Phantom himself doesn’t get nearly enough screen time. He also looks stupid, his mask and costume making him look like a cheap super villain, and Rains never makes him particularly threatening. The unmasking scene, the single most important part of any Phantom of the Opera movie, is rubbish, and the facial deformities not nearly hideous enough. And the ending of the film is really, really terrible.

The main problem with this film is its legacy. In Gaston Leroux’s original novel, and in the first (and best) film version (the silent one starring Lon Chaney), the Phantom’s an evil bastard who just happens to like music and lust after a young singer. This film changed that, turning him into a tragic hero, more sinned against than sinning. This probably inspired Hammer’s uncharacteristically wishy-washy 60s version, and certainly inspired the Lloyd Webber atrocity. The Claude Rains version also seriously downgrades the Phantom – he should be an almost supernatural force of evil, inspiring terror in everyone who hears of him. Rains’ version is feeble, and his crimes distinctly half-hearted.

The extras are much the same as on the Invisible Man disc. The documentary is pretty good, as it discusses the silent version at some length, and also the Hammer version, which Universal distributed, and rather cheekily pass off as one of their own films. It’s interesting stuff, although I can’t help feeling that this film doesn’t really warrant such an impressive documentary. There’s also a picture gallery, a trailer and a commentary from a different film-historian (Scott MacQueen – the commentary has the same faults as the one for The Invisible Man, sadly).

I bought this for The Invisible Man. The picture quality on both films is adequate, although there are quite a few scratches and so on. The best thing about this DVD (and similar Universal releases) is that they’re dirt cheap. I think they’re supposed to sell for £10 each, but they’re perennials in sales and cheap DVD shops like Fopp. Probably not an essential purchase for the vast majority of people, but if you’re like me then you might want to get this.

Summary: A good, cheap way of getting a classic film