The Invisible Man Appears (1949)

As titles go, The Invisible Man Appears certainly is, well, oddly contradictory, but never mind that… this is actually a reasonably historic film in its way, having been one of the first tokusatsu films, with effects by technical pioneer Eiji Tsuburaya; the latter had been doing this sort of thing since the 1930s, but after the war was over he’d been blacklisted from the studio system by the occupying American forces for working on wartime propaganda films. But Daiei took him on nonetheless for this film, inspired by the Universal Invisible Man of 1933 and to be that film’s superior. Um… it wasn’t. Fortunately it doesn’t lean too heavily on the effects, which is good because some of the effects shots are decidedly rough compared with James Whale’s rather older film, and Tsuburaya’s ascendancy as the master of his art would have to wait a few years for a certain city-smashing giant reptile to come along…

Anyway, the plot revolves around a formula for invisibility developed by a scientist which draws the interest of a criminal organisation looking to employ it for their own crooked ends. Unfortunately for all involved, including the poor bugger forced to become the titular invisible man, there’s no way to reverse the effect, and the formula will also turn the subject increasingly violent and mad… This is not a great film by any means despite its relative historical importance; as I said the effects are kind of rough at times and the unfolding of the plot is not the most coherent; still, there’s some imagination involved in some of the “invisible” business, and even if it’s not exactly a masterpiece it’s still interesting to watch, and I like that it’s out there, especially given that it took 60 years for it to get a western release. And, for what it may be worth, this is film number 50 that I’ve watched for the Century of Cinema challenge. Getting there slower than I’d like, but kind of impressed that I’m still sticking with it…