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| Images courtesy of Universal Pictures |
American film director Jack Arnold is perhaps second to
Robert Wise and later Stanley Kubrick one of the grandfathers of
science-fiction cinema. A technically
proficient pioneer who started out in acting before enlisting in the military
following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he became an army cameraman assisting Nanook
of the North director Robert Flaherty in a number of military films. After the Second World War ended, Arnold
began making feature films of his own and broke into the mainstream with his
1953 3D film It Came from Outer Space (the first filmed in the process
by Universal-International). Having
achieved success with the atomic-age subgenre in the vein of Them! or The
Day the Earth Stood Still, it became apparent Jack Arnold was going to work
several more times within the science fiction arena, eventually moving on to Creature
from the Black Lagoon and Tarantula.
Around the same time science-fiction fantasy novelist
Richard Matheson was gaining momentum in the literary community with more than
many of his short stories and novels adapted to the cinematic medium,
particularly within Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone universe. Himself a sci-fi/horror titan spoken of the
same breath as H.G. Wells or Ray Bradbury, Matheson also adapted a number of
Edgar Allan Poe stories to film for Roger Corman and later adapted his own
short story Duel to the screen for Steven Spielberg’s directorial
debut. Only three novels in, Matheson
unveiled his 1956 text The Shrinking Man, a Kafka-esque atomic-age
descension into madness predating the likes of The Fly by way of Honey
I Shrunk the Kids involving an ordinary married man who while relaxing on a
boat is exposed to a mysterious mist that over the course of several months
begins to shrink his body size.
Originating as a screenplay (Matheson’s first) who sold the rights for
his initial short story to Universal-International, the film went into
production as the novel was being completed and published with the
aforementioned Jack Arnold on board as director recently having scored a hit
for the film company.
Robert Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is vacationing with his
wife Louise (Randy Stuart) on their boat when a mysterious mist coming from the
ocean drifts towards the watercraft.
Louise takes shelter but Scott is exposed outdoors to the strange
fog. Six months pass and the man begins
noticing his clothing no longer fits with his shirt becoming oversized and his
pants and shoes falling off freely.
Undergoing medical observation it is determined through a combination of
exposure to pesticides his molecular structure has been set off course causing
him to shrink. As Scott’s case brews
into a national sensation with many gawkers, his devoted wife Louise grows
weary of his ill temperament and domineering attitude with his desperation and
helplessness over the inevitability of his situation sets in. Even a chance meeting with carnival worker
Clarice (April Kent) who shares his height is short lived as he continues to
decrease in size. As he becomes small
enough to fit inside a dollhouse, he soon finds his once tranquil home life a
nightmare as he fends off the family cat, entrapment in common household items
such as boxes, mousetraps and dealing with an enormous spider hovering over his
only source of food.
With an insistence towards an unknown cast of actors and a
tightly closed set preventing on-set press photography, pioneering visual
effects with ornate set pieces filmed in one of the world’s largest soundstages
and a physically and emotionally demanding performance from Grant Williams who
suffered numerous injuries on the shoot which delayed production and boosted
the budget, The Incredible Shrinking Man is bold, uncompromising science-fiction
thriller filmmaking of the absolute highest order. From its innovative use of black velvet trick
photography lensed brilliantly by Ellis W. Carter, rear screen projections and
bleak foreboding coda which reportedly ran into problems with the studio and
disgruntled test viewers wanting a more upbeat finale, it took chances that
were unheard of and that it emerged intact unexpurgated in cinemas is something
of an editing miracle. On a tight budget of $750,000 and slim, lean running
time of eighty-one minutes, it moves at a breakneck speed and you start to feel
the uphill battle of mobility with the film’s hero as his size decreases but
severity of survival grows.
One of the top grossing science-fiction films of the 1950s,
ranking alongside The Thing from Another World and Invasion of the
Body Snatchers albeit the far more daring and transcendent of them, a
special effects marvel and an existential thriller touching on kindred themes
as The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001: A Space Odyssey and even Phase
IV begging the question what our place in the universe is? A movie as much about the fear of dying and
how common household items can take on terrifying implications or threats to
one’s safety and well-being, a film about chance and accepting fate of survival
in the animal hierarchies and a hard look into the mirror of our own
significance in the grand scheme of things however small we might seem, there’s
in all the terror and helplessness being doled out a glimmer of hope.
Though Richard Matheson scripted half of an unmade sequel
film entitled The Fantastic Little Girl and a parody called The
Incredible Shrinking Woman came about, The Incredible Shrinking Man remained
a timeless work of its day grounded specifically in the atomic age. Recently canonized by The Criterion
Collection in a brand new 4K restoration, it represents one of the pinnacles of
the genre in its infancy. Still ahead of
the curve technically, still searing in its relentlessness and sense of realism,
it all but absolutely cemented Jack Arnold and Richard Matheson as masters of
compelling, intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking science fiction to
learn from and respect.
--Andrew Kotwicki
