The Invisible Man (1975) – Review

The idea of an invisible secret agent is certainly an enticing one — what could be better than a spy that no one can see — and it’s such an obvious premise that it had already been explored during the Universal Pictures run of Invisible Man movies, where in the 1946 movie Invisible Agent, the grandson of the original Invisible Man, was utilized by the American government to track down Nazi and Japanese spies during WWII. Later in 1958, there was a British television series where a scientist developed the invisibility formula and was then quickly recruited by the British Intelligence Service, but today we will look at the second attempt at bringing the H.G. Wells-inspired story to the small screen, this one starring Man from U.N.C.L.E.’s David McCallum as the titular Invisible Man.

Created by Harve Bennett and Steven Bochco, this series dealt with brilliant physicist Daniel Westin (David McCallum), who had been trying to develop a teleportation system for a company called the Klae Corporation, and though aided by his equally brilliant wife Dr. Kate Westin (Melinda O. Fee), they hadn’t quite managed to crack the secret of matter transportation via demolecularization, but one of the side effects of their experimentations was the discovery of an invisibility process. This is probably one of my favourite aspects of the show because we know for a fact that some of the greatest scientific discoveries have happened by accident, and so having our hero discover the secret of invisibility while working on something completely different, is quite believable. Also quite believable is the reaction of their boss Walter Carlson (Jackie Cooper), who immediately sees the military aspect of such a discovery, and the money from Pentagon contracts that it would inevitably bring in.

Note: The character of Walter Carlson is only played by Jackie Cooper in the pilot episode, a much more avuncular and friendly Walter, played by Craig Stevens, joins our heroes for the rest of the season.

Of course, Daniel has no desire to see his work being used as a weapon, informing his boss, “You gave me your guarantee, I came here because you said I wouldn’t have to work on weapon systems anymore, I want to use invisibility in positive ways,” and after a bit of shouting, Carlson eventually concedes to Daniel, allowing him to proceed in whatever manner he sees fit. Because our hero is of the naïve, altruistic sort, he actually believes his boss, thus he is blindsided by a meeting with Pentagon Brass a few days later. Realizing that destroying his invention is the only way to prevent it from being used for military purposes, Daniel sneaks into his lab late one night, turns himself invisible, triggers an overload of the system, and destroys all of the apparatus in the process. With him being invisible, escaping Walter and his security goons was no problem, but plans have a way of not always working out as well as one would hope.

Science Note: An invisible person would be completely blind as light would pass right through the retina without resistance, so unless your invisibility was based on a magic ring like in the Hobbit, don’t count on being able to see.

Now earlier, we learned that the invisibility process was only temporary — test rabbits would revert to being visible after a few hours — and Daniel had even developed a serum that could reverse the invisibility instantly, and because Daniel is your typical science fiction doctor, of course, he tries the invisibility process on himself, much to the chagrin of his wife. His reversal serum seemed to work fine at first, yet on the night of his industrial sabotage, the serum worked, but only briefly, and soon Daniel found himself once again to be an invisible man. The process turns out to be unstable, and the serum is pretty much ineffective, so he tracks down the plastic surgeon Nick Maggio (Henry Darrow), who had developed special material called Dermaplex, which has the same properties as skin and can be used to make a mask for Daniel to wear.

Note: Nick also provides special contact lenses and dental caps, so that Daniel will have visible eyes and teeth, but in later episodes, we see that the mask actually incorporates eyes and teeth, which makes no functional sense.

Daniel returns to the Klae Corporation to inform Walter that he is willing to bend on his principles, but only if he can rebuild his lab — apparently being permanently invisible can soften ones moral center — and Walter agrees, after warning Daniel that what he has discovered has most likely already leaked and that many interested parties will be looking for him, stating that, “Everybody wants you now, and if they can’t have you alive, they will settle for you dead.” Walter is immediately proven right when Klae executive Rick Steiner (Alex Henteloff), who Daniel had considered to be a friend, shows up with some goons to kidnap Daniel and Kate. Things don’t go well for the traitorous friend and his pals — they die in an inferno when Daniel causes their van to crash — and when the dust is settled, Daniel declares his independence by punching Walter in the jaw and going home with his wife. As they walk off together, Kate remarks, “I’ve never spent the night with an invisible man before,” to which Daniel responds, “With the lights out you will never know the difference.”

Note: The pilot episode is much darker in tone than the rest of the season, with Daniel’s invisibility treated more as a curse than an awesome superpower, while the following episodes take on more of the aspect of a comedy/adventure show.

That last bit of dialogue exchange marked this shift in tone, and as for the rest of the season, Daniel and Kate become sort of a “Nick and Nora” type couple from The Thin Man movie series, with their flirty banter being the highlight of the show, giving us a married couple who are clearly madly and deeply in love with each other. They now eagerly work alongside Walter Carlson (Craig Stevens), who inexplicably no longer has designs on making money through military applications. We get a quick hand wave to explain Daniel and Kate’s return to the Klae Corporation, that they will work as “secret agents” when not trying to cure Daniel’s invisibility, but in the following eleven episodes, we barely see them in the lab as the happy couple seem quite content to jet around the world solving a variety of problems.

A show’s new opening would explain the show’s basic premise, with narration explaining, “Machine Malfunction…Westin Permanently Invisible…Klae Corporation Will Finance Recovery Effort…Westin Will Render Aid as a Secret Agent. His Codename: The Klae Resource.”

The series takes on many of the aspects of one of its chief contemporaries, The Six Million Dollar Man, with Walter becoming this show’s version of Oscar Goldman and Daniel’s invisibility subbing in for bionic powers. Daniel would become something called “The Klae Resource,” which governments could call on for aid in sticky situations, but only Daniel, Kate and Walter would know that this mysterious resource was just Daniel running around invisible.

Note: Some religious groups protested the series, claiming it was obscene because it featured a “naked” man.

Our heroes would frequently deal with “international threats” which we often saw Steve Austin encounter as an agent of the OSI — sadly Daniel and Kate never meet a robot bigfoot — and thus, during this single season, before being cancelled due to poor ratings, they’d come across a variety of foes; a nefarious art thief (Ross Martin), a fake spiritualist (John Vernon), a corrupt prison warden (Pat Harrington Jr.), a crooked small-town judge (Roger C. Carmel), and an escaped mental patient (Monte Markham) who would demand the secret of The Klae Resource. This last example was easily the show’s best entry, as the self-proclaimed psychopath wanted to use Daniel’s invisibility to take over the world — Markham’s performance in this episode was masterfully chilling, you actually felt our heroes were in danger — and this was the only time the show veered close to the source material of H.G. Wells’s book, with a madman trying to use invisibility for nefarious purposes.

The show utilized the same chroma key technique that weather forecasters of the time used when standing in front of a blue-screened weather map, and this at times resulted in some less than convincing invisibility moments, but most often the show relied on point-of-view shots of Daniel wandering around while invisible, with the occasional wire used to hold up telephone receivers or bolt cutters. As a whole, the show was certainly not breaking ground in the area of visual effects, and these less-than-effective techniques may have attributed somewhat to the show’s drop in ratings, but star David McCallum has since stated that the majority of the episodes were too tongue in cheek, in his opinion, and lacked the tension of the pilot episode, which he believed to be the real downfall of the show.

This 1975 version of The Invisible Man may have only lasted one season, where its visual effects could at best be described as adequate, but overall, it was a vastly entertaining outing, mostly due to the charismatic chemistry between the two leads, and it makes this adventure/comedy something worth seeking out.