The Invisible Man - 1933

Boris Karloff had been the studio's original choice for the role of the Invisible Man. He turned down the role because he would not be seen on screen until the end. Director James Whale wanted someone with more of an "intellectual" voice than Karloff. He selected Claude Rains after accidentally hearing Rains's screen test being played in another room. (Until this film, Rains had primarily been a stage actor. Although he had appeared in one silent movie in 1920, this was his first sound film.)

In order to achieve the effect that Claude Rains wasn't there when his character took off the bandages, the director had Rains dressed completely in black velvet and filmed him in front of a black velvet background.

On the DVD short documentary, Claude Rains' daughter tells of a time when the two went to see this movie in the theater years after it was made. It was bitterly cold and his face was completely covered by a hat and scarf. When he spoke to ask for the tickets, the attendant immediately recognized his voice and let them in for free.

Although the actor under the bandages was usually Claude Rains, particularly in the sequence set at the inn, often it was a double. You can tell him apart from the real Claude Rains because he is taller and has aquiline features, with a nose so prominent that it is visible even through the bandages. Rains's dialogue was all pre- or post-recorded and dubbed onto the soundtrack.

When screenwriter R.C. Sherriff came to Hollywood to write The Invisible Man (1933), he asked the staff at Universal for a copy of the H.G. Wells novel he was supposed to be adapting. They didn't have one; all they had were 14 "treatments" done by previous writers on the project, including one set in Czarist Russia and one set on Mars. Sherriff eventually found a copy of the novel in a secondhand bookstore, read it, thought it would make an excellent picture as it stood, and wrote a script that (unlike the Universal versions of Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931)) was a closer adaptation of the book.

>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<>.

SPOILER: Although he has the lead in the film and his character is onscreen for 95% of the film, Claude Rains never actually "appears" onscreen until the very last moment.

Cast of The Invisible Man

Claude Rains as Dr. Jack Griffin – The Invisible Man
Gloria Stuart as Flora Cranley
William Harrigan as Dr. Arthur Kemp
Henry Travers as Dr. Cranley
Una O'Connor as Jenny Hall
Forrester Harvey as Herbert Hall
Holmes Herbert as Chief of Police
E.E. Clive as Constable Jaffers
Duddley Digges as Chief Detective
Harry Stubbs as Inspector Bird
Donald Stuart as Inspector Lane
Merle Tottenham as Millie