The Amazing Transparent Man

Edgar G. Ulmer deserves recognition for his frequent ability to make the most out of films with paltry budgets and that generally lack originality to boot. In this case, we’re looking at the umpteenth iteration of the parable of the invisible (not really “transparent”) man first popularized in H.G. Wells’ classic 1897 novel, a movie that also makes room for the fears and anxieties that characterized the post-WW II era, such as the nuclear threat and the dangers of radioactive pollution.

The director sets the story in a typically noir context which, despite the film’s short length, covers all the canonical noir elements: a bitter and cynical protagonist, a gangster with an ambivalent “femme fatale” companion, the crushing weight of a murky past coming back to haunt main characters, a fatalistic ending, and let’s not forget the pronounced alcohol and tobacco consumption. Worthy of note are a series of ingenious solutions with a metacinematic flavor (a character tosses a bedsheet at the camera to initiate a dissolve, Dr. Ulof breaks the fourth wall to directly address the audience in the final scene, etc.).

Overall, “The Amazing Transparent Man” is an unpretentious work which, thanks in part to its inoffensive innocence, manages to supply an hour or so of pleasant entertainment for fans of independent sci-fi films.