The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

Film Review

With some money still left in the kitty after he had completed shooting Beyond the Time Barrier in a matter of days director Edgar Ulmer was able to knock out another super-economy sci-fi offering, although this time round inspiration seemed to be in even shorter supply than the ready cash.  The Amazing Transparent Man is a poor man's version of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, a film that invites us to ponder the morality of science whilst vomiting a third rate caper plot into our unsuspecting lap, along with dialogue that has you wondering why human beings ever bothered inventing language.  Whereas in previous years Ulmer's creativity (nurtured in German expressionism) appears to have been stimulated by the lack of resources, here it looks as if it has given up the will to live, as might anyone who attempts to watch the film.  The moody beginning, which carries the unmistakable doom-laden feel of the director's earlier films noirs, wrong-foots us into expecting another Ulmer tour de force.  Ten minutes in, the film has found its level, a level occupied only by ragged genre B-movies trying but failing to make a positive impact.

The Amazing Transparent Man isn't quite as dismal as its tacky comicbook title suggests, and there are a few things the film has in its favour.  The script may be terrible (probably the worst that Ulmer had to cope with) but the principal cast make the most of what they are given and the performances are good enough to hold the spectator's attention and distract us (mostly) from the dreadful production values.  The special effects are modest, even for the standards of the time, but they serve the story effectively, the gradual fading away and reappearing of Douglas Kennedy (playing a character humorously but incredibly named Faust) are well rendered, given the practically non-existent budget.  The film's main failings lie in the script, which offers not only an almost total absence of plot but a crowd of unconvincing stock characters that would struggle to get their cumulative IQ into double figures.  The ham-fisted attempt to make some kind of moral point at the film's close is the final insult, and if you were watching the film on DVD the likelihood is that five seconds later the DVD will be doing a fair impression of a Frisbee straight into the nearest litter gathering receptacle.

Film Synopsis

No sooner has Joey Faust broken out of jail than he finds himself a prisoner of Paul Krenner, a former major in the U.S. army who plans to create an army of invisible soldiers.  Dr Peter Ulof, another prisoner, has invented a machine that can render a man invisible, but he needs additional equipment to make the process reliable, and this equipment is presently only available in a secure government installation.  Offered a substantial bribe, Faust plays along with Krenner and is made invisible so that he can steal the equipment Ulof needs.  Once he is invisible, Krenner realises he can pull off a bank robbery without getting caught, but when he attempts this the failings of Ulof's invisibility process becomes apparent...