Today’s PICTURE OF THE DAY comes from James Whale’s classic THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933), and it’s the initial appearance of the Invisible Man, which remains for my money, one of the best first entrance scenes of any of the classic Universal Monsters.

The locals are all huddled together at the neighborhood pub, drinking and having a grand old time while a snowstorm rages outside, when the door opens, letting in both the howling blizzard winds and a strange man wrapped in bandages. The atmosphere in this scene is off the charts creepy.

This entrance is up there with the first time we see the Monster (Boris Karloff) in FRANKENSTEIN (1931), also directed by James Whale, and when Dracula (Bela Lugosi) appears for the first time at the top of the castle stairs in Tod Browning’s DRACULA (1931).

Claude Rains is superb as the titular character, playing a menacing monster mostly by just using his voice, since the character is invisible! THE INVISIBLE MAN also features spectacular visual effects for its time.

I often consider THE INVISIBLE MAN to be Universal’s most overlooked classic, as you don’t usually hear it mentioned in the same conversation with DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, or THE WOLF MAN (1941), or even THE MUMMY (1932) for that matter. But it’s an exceptional film, filled with both humor and some truly frightening scenes. The murder of Dr. Kemp always gets me.

And the Invisible Man’s initial appearance, shown above, is one of classic horror cinema’s most effective and chilling scenes. Not bad for a sequence which occurs in the opening moments of the movie!

It’s always cozy to be indoors during a snowstorm, unless the door opens letting in first a chilling wind followed by a mysterious stranger wrapped in bandages!

Yikes!

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