#1100: ARNOLD, Jack: The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
ARNOLD, Jack (United States)
The Incredible Shrinking Man [1957]
Spine #1100
Blu-ray
Blu-ray
Existentialism goes pop in this benchmark of atomic-age science fiction, a superlative adaptation of a novel by the legendary Richard Matheson that has awed and unnerved generations of viewers with the question, What is humanity’s place amid the infinity of the universe? Six months after being exposed to a mysterious radiation cloud, suburban everyman Scott Carey (Grant Williams) finds himself becoming smaller . . . and smaller . . . and smaller — until he’s left to fend for himself in a world in which ordinary cats, mousetraps, and spiders pose a mortal threat, all while grappling with a diminishing sense of himself. Directed by the prolific creature-feature impresario Jack Arnold with ingenious optical effects and a transcendent metaphysical ending, The Incredible Shrinking Man gazes with wonder and trepidation into the unknowable vastness of the cosmic void.
81 minutes
Black & White
Black & White
Monaural
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2021
Director/Writer
Jack Arnold was 41 when he directed The Incredible Shrinking Man.
The Film
A
Film Rating (0-60):
The Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien.
Commentary
Featuring genre-film historian Tom Weaver and horror-music expert David Schecter.
Program
On the film’s special effects by effects experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt.
Conversation
Between filmmaker Joe Dante and comedian and writer Dana Gould.
Auteur on the Campus: Jack Arnold at Universal (Director’s Cut) (2021)
Interview 1
From 2016 with Richard Christian Matheson, novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson’s son.
Interview 2
From 1983 with director Arnold.
8 mm home-cinema
Versions of the film from 1969.
60
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien.
Commentary
Featuring genre-film historian Tom Weaver and horror-music expert David Schecter.
Program
On the film’s special effects by effects experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt.
Conversation
Between filmmaker Joe Dante and comedian and writer Dana Gould.
Auteur on the Campus: Jack Arnold at Universal (Director’s Cut) (2021)
Interview 1
From 2016 with Richard Christian Matheson, novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson’s son.
Interview 2
From 1983 with director Arnold.
8 mm home-cinema
Versions of the film from 1969.
The Lost Music of “The Incredible Shrinking Man”
Extras Rating (0-40):
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