The Invisible Man

James Whale's The Invisible Man is a delinquent's delight, a film completely disinterested in anything other than the chaos perpetrated by a mad man who cannot be seen. Played by Claude Rains, Dr. Jack Griffin has toiled in secret, discovering a way to make his body disappear. This boon thanks, in part, to an Indian drug with uncommonly powerful bleaching abilities. These experiments have rendered him permanently transparent, with an antidote for this affliction just beyond the good doctor's scientific grasp. Although griffin's stuffier former colleagues talk up the psychosis associated with the miracle drug that forms the basis of his studies, there's ample evidence here that simply being beyond any conventional sense of redress have allowed this man to completely unravel. 

Whether wrapped in gauze or animating a pair of stolen trousers, Griffin can be heard ranting and raving like a lunatic. Rains' voice is a thundering, ever-present instrument that squats over the soundtrack and overenunciates every syllable available to it. His booming sentences register as a series of jabs and swipes; a tongue that clatters like a machinegun aimed at anyone unfortunate enough to be sharing space with him. What makes Griffin's mania even more entertaining though is the overt cloddishness of his victims: the citizens of the town he terrorises are slow-witted and screeching; the police who attempt to trap him are similarly clumsy and doltish. These dragnets offer absolutely zero amusement when measured against an amoral spectre who is perfectly happy to crater the heads of choking policeman. Even Griffin's contemporaries pale in comparison. So-called equals, such as William Harrigan's Dr. Kemp, can do nothing but tremble at the ungodly terror that is able to breeze in and out of their homes.