Collectible Time: The Invisible Man Lobby Cards

My imagi-movie compatriot, Mel, located additional, 8" x 10", lobby-card reproductions for my collection, all assembled from Universal Pictures' impressions of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man. (She does take pleasure in thinking thematically.) 

The kick-off card comes from James Whales' 1933, classic originator, as adapted from Wells by R.C. Sherriff, featuring the esteemed Claude (The Wolf Man/Phantom of the Opera 1942) Rains as the ambitious and quite mad Dr. Jack Griffin and Gloria (The Old Dark House/Titanic) Stuart as his fiancée, Flora, with a left-corner insert of Una (Bride of Frankenstein/Werewolf of London/The Adventures of Robin Hood) O'Connor's frenetic Jenny. In addition to Griffin's bandaged/goggled guise (graced by, of all grand embellishments, indignant rays for the top-right portrait), Rains is depicted in bold, visible form on the card, in a manner that doesn't match the movie, but all the same, it's nice to catch the solid actor (pun intended) positioned near his spectral outline.  

The second card represents Joe May/Curt Siodmak's 1940 (Oscar-nominated) The Invisible Man Returns, sporting Sir Cedric (The Ghost of Frankenstein/The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1939/Invisible Agent) Hardwicke and Nana (Dracula's Daughter/The House of the Seven Gables) Grey as two of the movie's significant supporting characters. The erudite Vincent Price is, in fact, the Invisible Man in this one, enacting the falsely accused Lord Geoffrey Radcliffe, who's abetted by John Sutton's Dr. Frank Griffin. Though the latter two don't appear on the card, Price's intruding influence (at least to those familiar with the sequence) is felt in this taut, colorized, publicity still.  

Next up is Ford Beebee/Bertram Millhauser's 1944 The Invisible Man's Revenge, which exhibits a taut, black-and-white teaming of Jon (Invisible Agent/Cobra Woman) Hall and Evelyn (The Wolf Man/Ghost of Frankenstein/Inner Sanctum) Ankers. Hall enters as the movie's transparent Robert Griffin, and of special note, the great John Carradine plays the scientist who injects him with the invisibility formula. 

Last but not least is Charles Lamont/Robert Lee/John Grant/Frederic I. Renaldo's 1951 Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man. This card is more of a mini-poster with Bud, Lou and Adele Jergens depicted as scurrying caricatures, while the titular character creeps upon them. Genre favorite Arthur Franz plays the Invisible Man for this uproarious submission.

This is a swell quartet, for which I owe Mel mountainous thanks. Like the movies that inspired them, these lobby-card reproductions are bound to bring me years of visible joy. 😁