These video documentaries from David J. Skal may be decent introductions to the classic Universal monster movies, but having read quite a bit about such films, including Skal's own "Hollywood Gothic" about "Dracula," I don't find them very revealing. This one about James Whale's 1933 "The Invisible Man," one of the three best Universal horror and sci-fi films of, well, probably ever, along with the same director's two Frankenstein films, doesn't have a lot to say about the film, and the presenter Rudy Belmer isn't especially informative in the DVD commentary also available on home video collections, either. Both spend quite a bit of time on the biographies of the people involved in the production. This doc particularly gets derailed in discussing the life of Whale, which while of some interest, mentioning a cut scene from the director's "Show Boat" (1936), for instance, doesn't seem relevant in a program that's less than 40 minutes. As in Skal's other docs about Whale's films, there's a lot of advertising for and clips shown of the semi-fictional Whale biopic "Gods and Monsters" (1998), which the caption points out is also "Available From Universal Studios Home Video." Besides the brief biographies, the dark comedy of Whale's films is mentioned, the special effects for the Invisible Man are explained a bit, and there's an overview of the sequels and follow-up Invisible Man films--at least of the ones that Universal Studios is also trying to sell.
The story of how Claude Rains came to be cast in the film is a bit different than other stories I've read, which emphasize that Whale already knew him from the stage. And Belmer's presentation rubbed me the wrong way from the start with his faint praise for the silent cinema having originated visual effects, only to degrade the art by saying, "But it was the early talkies that truly gave special effects their soul." It would've been better had they examined how the traveling mattes of "The Invisible Man" are a refinement of the matte work of early cinema magicians Georges Méliès ("A Trip to the Moon" (1902)) and George Albert Smith ("Santa Claus" (1898)) and how they adopted this effect from photography and magic lantern slides. Additionally, they could've proposed that "The Invisible Man" seems to delight in its trick effects much in the same way that those early films did in the mode of the "cinema of attractions," but that probably would've required interviewing more-academic film scholars like Tom Gunning, who coined that term. A relief from the talking heads and film clips in the form of a visual demonstration of the matte work or the printing process involved would've been informative, too. Or, with all the focus on Whale, they could've expanded on Ian McKellen's connection of camp to the director being gay and the meaning that has on the film.
The best point made here is the narrative similarities of "The Invisible Man" and the 1931 "Frankenstein," which although this connection has been made by others, it's more effectively made here by the cuts back-and-forth between the love triangles of the two films.
The story of how Claude Rains came to be cast in the film is a bit different than other stories I've read, which emphasize that Whale already knew him from the stage. And Belmer's presentation rubbed me the wrong way from the start with his faint praise for the silent cinema having originated visual effects, only to degrade the art by saying, "But it was the early talkies that truly gave special effects their soul." It would've been better had they examined how the traveling mattes of "The Invisible Man" are a refinement of the matte work of early cinema magicians Georges Méliès ("A Trip to the Moon" (1902)) and George Albert Smith ("Santa Claus" (1898)) and how they adopted this effect from photography and magic lantern slides. Additionally, they could've proposed that "The Invisible Man" seems to delight in its trick effects much in the same way that those early films did in the mode of the "cinema of attractions," but that probably would've required interviewing more-academic film scholars like Tom Gunning, who coined that term. A relief from the talking heads and film clips in the form of a visual demonstration of the matte work or the printing process involved would've been informative, too. Or, with all the focus on Whale, they could've expanded on Ian McKellen's connection of camp to the director being gay and the meaning that has on the film.
The best point made here is the narrative similarities of "The Invisible Man" and the 1931 "Frankenstein," which although this connection has been made by others, it's more effectively made here by the cuts back-and-forth between the love triangles of the two films.