The Incredible Shrinking Man
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| The Incredible Shrinking Man | |
|---|---|
 Original film poster |
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| Directed by | Jack Arnold |
| Produced by | Albert Zugsmith |
| Written by | Novel: Richard Matheson Screenplay: Richard Matheson Richard Alan Simmons (uncredited) |
| Starring | Grant Williams Randy Stuart April Kent Paul Langton Billy Curtis |
| Music by | Uncredited: Irving Getz Hans J. Salter Herman Stein |
| Cinematography | Ellis W. Carter |
| Editing by | Albrecht Joseph |
| Distributed by | Universal Studios |
| Release date(s) |  April 1, 1957 |
| Running time | 81 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$ 750,000 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Incredible Shrinking Man is a 1957 science fiction film directed by Jack Arnold and adapted for the screen by Richard Matheson from his novel The Shrinking Man (ISBN 0575074639).
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is contaminated by a radioactive cloud and pesticide, and he slowly begins shrinking. When he's three feet tall, he briefly becomes friends with a female circus midget but then continues to shrink, eventually being reduced to living in a dollhouse. After nearly being killed by a cat, he winds up trapped in a basement and has to battle a voracious spider, his own hunger, and the fear that he may eventually shrink down to nothing. After defeating the spider, the hero accepts his fate and (now so small he can escape the basement by walking through a space in a window screen) looks forward to seeing what awaits him in ever smaller realms.
The original novel differs slightly in content and tone from the film. In the novel the story is told through flashback. It describes Scott's life in the basement up until his battle with the spider. Scott Carey and his wife Louise have a five-year-old daughter named Beth. He encounters a drunken pederast when he's 42 inches tall and some teenage toughs when he's three feet tall. He experiences some disturbing sexual tension in his dealings with his daughter's 16 year old babysitter, Catherine, when he is under two feet tall and has to cope with a strained relationship with his wife. The soliloquy which closes the film is not found in the book but was added to the script by the film's director, Jack Arnold.
[edit] Goofs
There are three noticeable mistakes within a two minute segment of the film. When the cat attacks Carey in the doll house, it puts its left paw through the window. The cut to the inside shows its right paw. Then, Carey pulls the lamp off the table. The shade lands upright, but the next shot shows it on its side. Also, when the lamp hits the floor, there is the sound of glass breaking, although nothing on the lamp broke.
[edit] Sequel
Matheson wrote a script for a sequel, The Fantastic Shrinking Girl, which was never produced. However, the script (in which Louise Carey follows her husband into a microscopic world) appeared as part of a collection called "Unrealized Dreams" published by Gauntlet Press in 2006. Stephen King's non-fiction book "Danse Macabre" featured a chapter based upon "Shrinking Man"; he talked to Matheson who told him about the plans for the sequel which never came to pass.
[edit] Production
The Incredible Shrinking Man
The camera work and effects were considered remarkable and imaginative for their time.
The theme of size-changing was explored in several other movies of this period, including Jack Arnold's earlier Tarantula, in which a synthetic food causes several animals to grow to massive size. The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) explored the opposite idea of uncontrolled growth. Attack of the Puppet People was rushed into production by American International Pictures and Bert I. Gordon in 1958. Other notable films of this genre include Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Fantastic Voyage. The final permutation (female shrinkage) eventually appeared in 1981 with The Incredible Shrinking Woman, a credited remake in which Lily Tomlin played the wife of an advertising man; she shrinks as a result of exposure to household products. Currently there are plans for a remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man as a comedy which will revolve around a magician (slated to be Eddie Murphy) who suddenly starts to dwindle and frantically searches for a way to revert back to his previous size. But as of 2008, no current word when production will begin or if the script is to be re-written to be either a comedy, as originally intended to be, more of a remake to the original movie, or possibly be more faithful to the novel.
