THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) is Dynamite!

The editors of Scholastic Magazine's Dynamite sure loved cover-featuring 70's genre television, including more than a few one-season wonders like 1975's The Invisible Man, starring David McCallum, Melinda Fee (The Aliens Are Coming) and Craig Stevens.The show was NBC's "answer" to rival network ABC's hugely successful bionic adventure show, The Six Million Dollar Man, and even shared many of the same creative personnel. Unfortunately, it only lasted a mere 13 episodes before fading away....

Not at all coincidentally, today is David McCallum's 80th birthday. Here's wishing him a great one!

GEMINI MAN (1976)

The Gemini Man: Sam Casey (Ben Murphy) is an agent for INTERSECT, a government think-tank and operations center specializing in secret missions. While on a diving assignment, Sam was irradiated by an underwater explosion. The radiation rendered him invisible, but INTERSECT devised a way to control his invisibility, by fitting him with a computerized watch that kept him visible. He could, however, shut it off, and become invisible again, for short periods of time. If he did this for more than 15 minutes in any 24 hour period he would die.

Only two month after the demise of Universal's The Invisible Man, this variation on the same theme debuted on the same network, under the stewardship of the same producers, Harve Bennett and Steven Bochco... so I think it's fair to look at it as a "retooled" version of the same show.

Unlike David McCallum's intellectual (and married) Daniel Westin, Sam Casey was a bell-bottom bluejeans/denim-shirt wearing, hunky "everyman" in the Steve Austin mold, and not tied down by the bounds of matrimony. But that wasn't enough to bring in viewers, and Gemini Man folded quicker than its predecessor, cancelled after airing only five episodes.

Eleven episodes were shot in all, and were shown in syndication (and later on the Sci-Fi Channel), and a couple were edited together into "movies" for TV and home video release (one of these was skewered by the 'bots of MST3K in one of it's later seasons).

I was not a fan of this show... and I haven't seen an episode since the Spring of '76. One of these days, I guess I'll need to revisit it.

THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) DVD Review

In response to 1974's smash-hit ABC sci-fi adventure series, The Six Million Dollar Man - which chronicled the adventures of a former-astronaut with cybernetic (i.e. bionic) limbs working for the U.S. government as a secret agent - competing network NBC turned to the same creators and studio (Universal) and set out to duplicate the magic formula.

This time, instead of an ex-astronaut with experimental robot parts, the creators looked to Victorian author H.G. Wells, and came up with a scientist turned permanently invisible in an experiment gone wrong. Unfortunately, The Invisible Man (1975) wasn't the success the network hoped for, lasting a mere 13 episodes.

In the pilot film, we're introduced to Dr. Daniel Westin (David McCallum, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) an idealistic physicist working for a private scientific think-tank called KLAE. His assistant is his wife, Kate (Melinda O. Fee), and his overbearing boss is KLAE administrator Walter Carlson (Jackie Cooper of Superman: The Movie, in the pilot, Craig Stevens in the series). In the long tradition of film and TV scientists, Westin tests his new invisibility ray machine on himself, only to find that he's been permanently rendered un-seeable. A friend of his makes him an extraordinarily life-like rubber mask and pair of gloves so he can still function in society, and while he works on a cure for his condition, his employers exploit his condition by marketing him as "the KLAE Resource," renting him out to conduct various missions for government agencies and corporate clients.

(Also Rudy Wells' West Coast OSI laboratory....)

In 1975, the show was considered innovative for its use of blue-screen special effects, which were shot on video and then cut into the traditionally filmed episodes. Those video inserts really stand out today, and the "peeling off the mask to reveal... nothing!" shots look more than a little hokey to modern eyes. Most of the other effects - floating objects and such - were handled exactly the same way that Universal handled them in their 30s and 40s Invisible Man black & white movies - with often all-too-visible wires. Still, in context of the time (and bearing in mind lower-resolution 70s television screens) the effects serve the stories effectively enough.

 

Unfortunately, it's in the stories that the show really falls flat. At first thought, invisibility seems the perfect power for a secret agent, but in execution, it's actually got very limited applications. Also, it's - and this should be obvious - not very visual. What you end up with is lots of tracking shots through hallways and sets, supposedly following the titular invisible man... but that gets boring fast. At least on the "bionic" shows, the heroes could punch people, knock down doors/walls, pick up and throw people and heavy objects... an invisible guy, on the other hand, can't really do anything, much. Even talented writers and producers like Steven Bochco and Harve Bennett (Six Million Dollar Man, Star Trek II) seem to struggle with the concept, and you very quickly end up with such obvious plots as Westin and his wife using his invisibility to cheat in a crooked casino or foil the schemes of a fake psychic by messing up his rigged seances.

McCallum is fine as Westin, although he occasionally seems bored (and why not, since his performance is so often just a voice-over). Melinda Fee, on the other hand, is delightful and charming as Westin's long-suffering wife and partner in adventure. And, as she's actually on-screen more than her unseen hubby, it really falls on her to carry most episodes. Fortunately, she's up to the task, bringing a warm humor to her role, regardless of the quality of the stories themselves. Craig Stevens (Peter Gunn), is slightly smarmy as their manipulative boss, but that's more the nature of the role as written than any failing on the actor's part. 

Canadian label VEI brings to The Invisible Man to Region 1 DVD under license from Universal, in an acceptable, if unremarkable, four-disc set. The episodes, which do show their age with intermittent specks, minor wear and fluctuating colors, are presented in the 4x3, 1.33:1 "full-frame" format of their original airings. Despite the noted minor print imperfections, the overall presentation is reasonably solid, although the shot-on-video effects sequences, are of noticeably lesser resolution and quality. The 2.0 mono audio is equally serviceable. There are no extras provided.

(VEI has also offered the show on Blu-ray, but that edition is a disaster, with all 13 episodes crammed onto a single disc, and the image stretched to fill a 16x9 aspect ratio.)

I was a big fan of The Invisible Man when I was ten, and was eager to get my hands on this DVD set. I'm still glad I did, but I can now see why it had such a short run.

By far, the best part of the show is the portrayal of the Westins as equal-partners in both science and adventure, and the adult chemistry between McCallum and Fee almost makes up for the show's other shortcomings.

If you remember and enjoy the series from its original run (or later, Sci-Fi Channel reruns in the 90s) and want to add it to your collection, the VEI DVDs aren't bad - although I'd suggest avoiding the disastrous Blu-ray release altogether.  

BUY:  The Invisible Man (Complete Series)

THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) In The House

Just returned from my favorite music & video store, Bull Moose Music in Waterville, Maine, with the new DVD set of 1975's The Invisible Man television series from VEI and NBCUniversal. At first glance, the picture quality appears to be slightly better than the recent Logan's Run discs from Warners, but I only looked at the first two episodes.

Produced by veterans of The Six Million Dollar Man, the series starred David McCallum, Melinda Fee and Craig Stevens, and ran for only 13 episodes. This was a big favorite of mine when I was ten years-old. I plan to start watching these DVDs tonight, so look for a full review of the set in a week or so.

News: THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) Revised DVD Cover Art

Here's the recently released, revised (and presumably, final) DVD key art for the forthcoming complete series (12 episode) release of 1975's The Invisible Man, starring David McCallum and Melinda Fee, and co-produced by The Six Million Dollar Man's Harve Bennett.

The DVDs - and Blu-rays - from VEI Entertainment are supposed to be released in the U.S. at the beginning of May. The set can be preordered now from Amazon and other online retailers.

Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series DVD

Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series Blu-ray

THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) TV Guide Ad

Here's another Space: 1970-era vintage TV Guide advertisement, for the Fall premiere of NBC's 1975 television series, The Invisible Man. Starring David McCallum and Melinda Fee, the sci-fi adventure program crossed H.G. Wells with The Six Million Dollar Man. It didn't last long - 12 hour-long episodes and a 90 minute pilot film - but it is fondly remembered by this Star Kid. The show will be hitting U.S. home video on DVD and (surprisingly) Blu-ray, in May of this year. I can hardly wait!

Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series DVD

Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series Blu-ray

News: THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) Coming To U.S. DVD/Blu-ray in 2012

According to an article a couple weeks ago (sorry it's taken me so long to report it here) at the TV Shows On DVD website, VEI of Canada will be releasing both DVD and Blu-ray editions of the complete 1975 The Invisible Man television series, starring David McCallum, Melinda Fee and Craig Stevens, in the U.S. on May 1st, 2012.

The 12-episode series was originally scheduled to be available in Canada on DVD & Blu-ray in October, but that release has been delayed until February, 2012.

The show, which was a variation on the Six Million Dollar Man formula by way of H.G. Wells (co-produced by the bionic franchise's own Harve Bennett), cast McCallum as Dr. Daniel Westin, a researcher who is permanently rendered invisible in a lab accident. This makes him an ideal covert agent, and he's soon going off on secret missions with his supportive wife, Kate (Melinda Fee) for a private think tank called KLAE.

As a kid, I really enjoyed the show, and am looking forward to revisiting it on disc.

Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series DVD

Pre-Order The Invisible Man - The Complete Series Blu-ray

News: THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) Coming to DVD

According to TV Shows on DVD, the 1975 David McCallum sci-fi adventure series, The Invisible Man, is coming to DVD in October from Canadian company VEI. The complete 12-episode series will be offered on DVD and - rather surprisingly, for a show of this vintage - Blu-ray.

In this version of The Invisible Man, which was clearly intended to be the network's answer to The Six Million Dollar Man (and was even co-created by Harve Bennett), McCallum played Dr. Daniel Westin, a scientist who accidentally turns himself permanently invisible in an experiment. With the help of his wife (Melinda Fee), he creates a remarkably lifelike rubber mask and pair of gloves, and is soon recruited by the government to be a secret agent. Westin received his orders from Walter Carlson (Craig Stevens).

I enjoyed the show as a kid, of course, and saw a few episodes on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the 90s. I seem to remember that it had a slightly lighter tone than the bionic shows, and I liked that the hero was married and that his wife was his partner in his adventures.

At the moment, the set looks like it will only be available in Canada, at least initially. Amazon.ca is already taking pre-orders.

THE INVISIBLE MAN (1975) Opening Titles

There have been countless (okay, you could probably count them, but who has the time?) film and TV adaptations and variations of H.G. Wells' classic novel, The Invisible Man, but the one that's closest to my heart is the 1975 television series that starred David McCallum, Melinda Fee and Craig Stevens.

The show was pretty much a knock-off of The Six Million Dollar Man, but instead of the central character having cybernetic limbs, he was made permanently invisible in a laboratory accident. In both cases, the newly-super-powered hero became a secret agent for the United States government.

This was the TV era where, if someone got or had superpowers, they generally only had two options: fugitive (The Incredible Hulk, The Phoenix) or secret agent (Wonder Woman, Bionic Woman). Doctor Daniel Westin (McCallum) chose the patriotic route. If I remember correctly, though, he was a little different because, unlike most television superheroes, Westin was married and worked with his wife (Fee).

I remember really enjoying this show as a kid, and while the effects are primitive by today's standards, they were pretty impressive in 1975. I vaguely recall catching an episode or two in the 90s when they were rerun on theSciFi Channel, and thinking that they were still kinda fun.