623-The Amazing Transparent Man

Film Year:  1960
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  Edgar G. Ulmer
Starring:  Marguerite Chapman, Douglas Kennedy, James Griffith, Ivan Triesault
MST Season:  6
Featured Short:  "The Days of Our Years"

The Short

The short that dares to either teach you important safety tips or depress the hell out of you, whichever comes first, Days of Our Years has a reverend telling three stories of accidents that changed people's lives.  But it's not just a trio of stories about people who get hurt but rather how their actions affected others around them and how their carelessness caused other people to suffer.  So be safe, or humanity will be crippled.

Like Last Clear Chance, Days of Our Years is another Union Pacific production filmed right here in my neck of the woods in Idaho.  The moral of this story is not only to think about the consequences of your actions for yourself but also those around you.  We're treated to a guy eager to get home to his wife speeding and getting into a car accident, an old man suffering from a heart attack and killing a co-worker because he ignored the warning signs, and an excitable father of a newborn forgetting safe welding procedure and taking a welding flame to the face.

Rumor has it this short was the inspiration for the Faces of Death series!

The short is something of a mood killer, but it's intended to be.  One can't claim that it doesn't let the viewer know the importance of safety, and if you don't practice it for yourself you should at least do so for those around you.  It's actually fairly effective.

The Movie

I think it can be safely concluded from the title of The Amazing Transparent Man that we're facing a cheap Invisible Man knock-off.  In it a villainous douchebag is plotting to take over the world with invisible soldiers created by a blackmailed scientist, but he needs nuclear material for his plan to be put into effect.  He breaks an infamous safecracker out of jail to turn invisible and steal it, but this crook has ideas for his own brand of fun in being invisible, and doesn't take kindly to working for being under someone else's thumb.

According to the special features on the MST DVD, Amazing Transparent Man was filmed along with Beyond the Time Barrier as a tax write-off for rich oil well owners in Texas.  It definitely looks the part, as its special effects don't hold a candle to the famous 1933 tale of invisibility that no doubt inspired it, and the storyline is fairly basic and a bit slothful.  In addition to that, invisibility seems to have been chosen as the subject matter since it takes simple tricks to pull off, such as moving doors or people talking into thin air, while actual transformation scenes are kept to a minimum.

Despite it's faults I enjoyed Transparent Man as a dumb diversion B-picture.  It doesn't hold a candle to some of the better Invisible Man films Universal had made in the 30's and 40's, though I'd argue it's probably more interesting than The Invisible Man's Revenge.  The gangsters plot is somewhat entertaining, though a bit incompetent, and the movie gets more energized once the Transparent Man comes into play.  If you want a kinda low budget, black and white sci-fi movie for a rainy day, you could do worse.

The Episode

This episode's short, Days of Our Years, is an uphill battle.  The short can be a bit of a bummer and it's kind of hard to make it funny.  But our boys' penchant for dark humor comes in handy here, as they take the dark events unfolding and puts a humorous slant on it.  As Mike points out at the end, what he's gathering from the short is that the leading cause of accidents are "Joy, sex, and old age."  Days of Our Years could have been a disaster, but it's not and it's fairly funny.

Switching between Days of Our Years and Amazing Transparent Man is dangerous, because it's a switcharoo in riffing style.  Days had an onslaught of dark humor that just leveled the short in front of them, while Transparent Man doesn't really give them an option of maintaining that momentum.  It's slow out the gate, and at least the trio makes due with what they have available.  Once the movie starts moving the riffing steadily gets funnier as actual scenes with the Transparent Man are pretty hilarious, leading up to a nuclear climax full of winning jokes.  I especially like the police report toward the end, where a witness claims "He was invisible but I'm positive he was black!"

The host segments are lightweight but funny, and are highlighted by the opening sketches with sees Servo trying to put Crow in his butterfly collection (don't ask because I don't know either, but it made me laugh) and the Mads opening a bed and breakfast, featuring Frank all dolled up as Auntie McFrank.  Mike and the Bots steal the show in this segment, as they are talked into dressing up as "local townsfolk" and interpret that as psychotic hillbillies.  Mike in particular is hysterical during this segment, with his blank stare throughout.  Other host segments include Mike reminding Crow of the "gentle pressure" safety lesson of the short and Frank trying (and failing) to see the now rather obscure film Squanto:  A Warrior's Tale on his one day off in five years (good of Frank to get one the episode before he's set to leave the series).

The Amazing Transparent Man is one of those episodes that's criticized for having a short that's funnier than the main feature.  There's really no denying that, though I'd say the main feature is well worth diving into for those who have patience.  It steadily gets funnier as it goes along and I got a lot of laughs out of this experiment.

Good

The DVD

Amazing Transparent Man finally became visible on home video as one of the final episodes of the series released by Shout Factory on their Volume XXXIX set.  Video was fair with a few barely noticeable flaws while audio felt a little soft to me.

The highlight special feature is a documentary called Beyond Transparency, which details a fairly interesting backstory for the production of Amazing Transparent Man and it's sister film, Beyond the Time Barrier, as basically productions made as tax write-offs for oil tycoons in Texas.  Interesting parallels are made between this film and another pair of MST features:  The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews.  There is also a neat link to Attack of the The Eye Creatures thrown in for good measure.

Also featured is a theatrical trailer.

Days of Our Years was featured on the shorts compilation Shorts Volume 2, which was featured on Rhino's Volume 3 collection.  Shout Factory re-released this compilation in their own re-issue of Volume 2 as well.