The Incredible Shrinking Man

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The Incredible Shrinking Man

Original film poster by Reynold Brown
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) Flag of the United States April 1, 1957
Running time 81 min.
Language English
Budget US$ 750,000
Followed by The Incredible Shrinking Man (Remake)

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 even 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] Production

Scene from 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. Them! (1954), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Beginning of the End (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 an Eddie Murphy comedy film titled The Incredible Shrinking Man.

[edit] Quotations

  • "That's silly, honey. People just don't get smaller." (Louise reassuring her shrinking husband, Scott)
  • "The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle." (Scott, to himself)
  • "And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears locked away and in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God there is no zero. I still exist." (Scott, to himself - last line in movie.)

[edit] Sequel

Matheson wrote a script for a sequel titled Fantastic Little Girl, but the film was never produced.[1] The script, in which Louise Carey follows her husband into a microscopic world, was later published in 2006 by Gauntlet Press in a collection titled Unrealized Dreams.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Reflections of a Storyteller: A Conversation with Richard Matheson William P. Simmons, Cemetery Dance magazine

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Shrinking_Man"
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