Background Following the success of
Dracula (1931), Richard L. Schayer and
Robert Florey suggested to
Universal Pictures as early as 1931 that an adaptation of
H. G. Wells'
The Invisible Man would make a suitable follow-up. Both
Carl Laemmle and
Carl Laemmle Jr. opted to make a film adaptation of
Frankenstein (1931) instead. While
Frankenstein was shooting, Universal bought the rights to
The Invisible Man from Wells on September 22, 1931, for $10,000; he demanded script approval from Universal. Universal had purchased the rights to the
Philip Wylie 1931 novel
The Murderer Invisible, intending to lift some of the more gruesome elements from it to incorporate into Wells' story. The director first set up for the project was
James Whale, whom Laemmle Jr. had great faith in. He had directed
R. C. Sherriff's play ''
Journey's End in London and New York and the 1930 film Journey's End. Following the release of Frankenstein'', which would break box office records across the United States, Universal had the film's star
Boris Karloff signed to a five-year contract. On December 29, 1931, the
Los Angeles Record stated that Karloff's next film would be
The Invisible Man. By January 28, 1932, Whale had left the project, wary of being tagged as a "horror" director. This left Karloff as the only cast member of a film with neither a script nor a director.
Pre-production The first director set to replace Whale was Robert Florey, whose film
Murders in the Rue Morgue was released in February 1932. By April 9, Florey had a draft of
The Invisible Man co-written with
Garrett Fort who had contributed to the scripts of both
Dracula and
Frankenstein. Based mostly on Wylie's
The Murderer Invisible, their outline included plot elements such as an invisible octopus, invisible rats, and blowing up
Grand Central Station. Unwilling to wait while Florey worked out the script and the film's technical difficulties, Universal made
The Old Dark House (1932) Karloff's next feature with Whale as director. Whale had decided to return to horror features following the financial failure of his film
The Impatient Maiden (1932). By June 1932, producer
Sam Bischoff left Universal to set up his own independent studio. Florey accepted Bischoff's invitation to join him and also left Universal. By June 6,
John L. Balderston, whose name had appeared in the credits of
Dracula and
Frankenstein, submitted a screenplay for
The Invisible Man in collaboration with the film's new director
Cyril Gardner. This was Balderston's third attempt at the script based primarily on Wylie's novel. In mid-1932, Universal writers
John Huston and studio scenario editor
Richard Schayer attempted new treatments for the film. By July 18, there was still no officially approved script and Universal loaned Karloff to
MGM to shoot
The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). By November, following the release of
The Old Dark House, Whale was again set to be the director of
The Invisible Man with a new script being written by
Preston Sturges. Sturges' script involved a Russian chemist who makes a madman invisible to wreak vengeance on
Bolsheviks who have destroyed his family. After working on the script for eight weeks, Sturges handed in his screenplay; Universal fired him the next day. Sherriff described Sturges' draft as "a sort of transparent
Scarlet Pimpernel". On November 5, it was reported that Karloff was to star in a film titled
The Wizard to be directed by
E.A. Dupont, while Whale would film Karloff in
The Invisible Man in early 1933. Whale had also written his own treatment for the film, which is described by historian Gregory Mank as inspired by both
The Phantom of the Opera and
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde interjected with religious touches like those in his films
Frankenstein and
The Old Dark House. After Wells rejected this draft, Whale left
The Invisible Man again. On January 17, 1933, Universal reported a loss of $1,250,283 in 1932 and planned to shut down for six to eight weeks after current productions had finished shooting. While Whale directed
The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), E.A. Dupont's project
The Wizard was never filmed and he became the next person set to direct
The Invisible Man.
John Weld was signed to write the film's script and browsed through several rejected drafts, including one by
Laird Doyle. Weld asked for a copy of Wells' novel from Universal. As they did not have a copy, he got his own to use for source material. Yet another new writer was attached to write the script by February 3. R.C. Sherriff was the screenwriter and Whale was once again set to direct. Sherriff worked on the script at his home in London and disregarded Universal's request he draw material from Wylie's
The Murderer Invisible and the previous draft scripts. Universal Studios closed down on February 13 with only executives and a skeleton crew remaining on the payroll. Universal laid off Whale for twelve weeks before he directed
The Invisible Man. Universal reported they planned on having Karloff return to
The Invisible Man in May. After Universal reopened in May, they released his new film
The Kiss Before the Mirror to critical acclaim, but it was among the studio's lowest-grossing films in Los Angeles and New York. While Sherriff was completing the script, on June 1, several trade papers announced Karloff was leaving the picture.
The Hollywood Reporter reported on May 16 that Karloff was "definitely out," while
Variety reported he had left the project by June 1 citing salary issues. Wells approved of Sherriff's script, including changes such as having Griffin's drug monocane not just make him invisible, but also drive him into insanity. Sherriff recalled that "[Wells] agreed with me entirely that an invisible lunatic would make people sit up in the cinema more quickly than a sane man". Sherriff completed his draft and returned to Hollywood in July 1933. Some sources, including
Phil Hardy's book
Science Fiction and
Carlos Clarens'
An Illustrated History of the Horror Film, state that Wylie revised Sherriff's final draft, while the authors of the book
Universal Horrors found no evidence to support this claim.
Casting Whale considered
Colin Clive for the film's title role, but he also thought of actor
Claude Rains, whom he met at a London performance of
The Insect Play in 1923. At the time, Rains' career was as a stage actor in New York and London and Universal discouraged Whale from casting him, not wanting an unknown actor in the lead. Rains had been earning so little money from his work on stage he was considering leaving the theatre completely as he had recently bought a farm in New Jersey. Whale had tracked down a screen test Rains had done for
A Bill of Divorcement, which Rains later described as "terrible", saying he was "all over the place! I knew nothing about screen technique, of course, and just carried on as if I was in an enormous theatre. When I saw the test, I was shocked and frightened". After viewing the screen test, Whale wanted Rains as the lead and had him do another reading of the scene where Griffin boasts to Dr. Kemp of his plans to rule the world. Universal approved of the screen test and signed Rains for a two-picture deal, including top billing in
The Invisible Man. While filming, Rains asked Whale to let him act more emotionally, asking him if he could "try to express something with [his] eyes". Whale replied: "But Claude, old fellow, what are you going to do it with? You haven't any face!" Whale did not fully divulge the details of the role to Rains but sent him to studio labs to prepare for special effects, where molds and casts of his head were made.
Gloria Stuart, who had worked with Whale in
The Old Dark House and
The Kiss Before the Mirror acted in the role of Flora Cranley. Stuart reflected on working with Rains and found him to be difficult, saying: "He was
molto difficile, he was an 'actor's actor' and he didn't really give". The role of Dr. Arthur Kemp was set for
Chester Morris. He left the project when he learned it was unflattering. William Harrigan was cast as his replacement. He had worked with Rains in a 1932 stage version of
The Moon in the Yellow River. Other actors cast in the film were on the verge of Hollywood success, including
Walter Brennan playing a man whose bicycle is stolen, and
John Carradine as an informer. Among the crew, cinematographer
Arthur Edeson had worked with Whale on
Waterloo Bridge (1931),
Frankenstein,
The Impatient Maiden, and
The Old Dark House.
Heinz Roemheld composed the score for
The Invisible Man. He would later score ''
Dracula's Daughter (1936), The Black Cat (1934), and win an Academy Award for Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Roemheld was a former concert pianist, and conductor who had impressed Carl Laemmle with his accompaniment to screenings of the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera. Roemheld left Universal in 1931 but returned in 1933 to score The Invisible Man''. The film's score is only heard in the opening, during the last seven minutes of the film, and while the closing credits run. The film's score was recycled in later Universal productions, a common practice during the 1930s. The music is heard again in
Werewolf of London (1935),
The Black Cat, and the two film serials
Flash Gordon (1936) and
Buck Rogers (1939).
Filming James Whale (left) on set of
The Invisible Man Principal photography of
The Invisible Man began at the end of June 1933, and concluded in late August. All of the special effects shots were filmed in what Gloria Stuart recalled as "in utmost secrecy" during production. The special effects work took another two months to complete. Universal press clips falsely claimed that the invisibility effects were optical effects done with mirrors. Whale worked closely with
John P. Fulton on the film's special effects. Fulton revealed how the effects were done in the September 1934 issue of
American Cinematographer, stating they had been shot against a completely black set with walls and floors covered in black velvet to make it non-reflective. The actor was then covered head to foot with black velvet tights and wore whatever clothes he required for the scene. With this negative, a print was made, and a duplicate negative was made to serve as mattes for printing. Then with an ordinary printer, they made a composite first printing of the positive of the background and normal action, using the negative matte to mask the area where the invisible man was to move. Fulton said the principal difficulty of this was matching the lighting on the visible clothes shot with the general lighting used in the scenes and fixing small imperfections such as the scenes with eye-holes which were touched up in the film frame by frame with a brush and opaque dye. John P. Fulton wrote, "We photographed thousands of feet of film and many "takes" of the different scenes, and approximately 4,000 feet of film received individual hand-work treatment in some degree, making approximately 63,000 frames which were individually retouched in this manner!" For other scenes, where Rains is unwrapping the bandage from his head for the villagers, Rains' own head is hidden below his collar, and the bandages are being taken off a thin wireframe. Other effects involving props moving "by themselves" are done with wires pulled by booms or dollies. John P. Fulton explained the mechanics of the scene where footprints in snow reveal the Invisible Man's presence and path: "As other actors appeared in these shots, we could not make the footprints appear by using 'stop-motion,' so instead we dug a trench along the line where we wanted the footprints, and covered the trench with a board, in which the footprints had been cut. The footprint-openings were filled with the wooden outlines which had been cut to make the footprints; these were supported by pegs extending to the bottom of the trench, and a rope was looped around the pegs, so that pulling upon it would pull out the pegs, and cause the outlines to drop away from the board. The board was then covered with the snow-material; and as we shot the scene, we pulled on the rope, pulling out the pegs, and causing the snow to drop down through the holes, giving us perfect footprints." The film's final cost after Fulton finished the special effects was $328,033. ==Release==