Creepy TV: The Invisible Man (1958)

H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man has been adapted for movies or television several times, starting with the 1933 feature film starring Claude Rains in the title role.

While that film stayed relatively close to the original source material, television adaptations have gone in a different direction. In 1958, the first small screen adaptation aired in England. The hooks here were these:

1. The lead role was not credited to any one actor. The actors were kept anonymous by design. and, as you'll see in the video below, the actor playing Dr. Peter Brady (the character was named Griffin in Wells' novel) keeps his back turned to the camera to keep his identity a secret.

2. Dr. Brady ends up as a espionage agent for the British government. Harve Bennett's equally loose adaptation for NBC and Universal in 1975 followed a similar path, but lasted one season. We'll discuss that version another day.

The Invisible Man was last seen on American screens in 2012-13 on Me-TV. The Peter Rodgers Organisation, which acquired another ITC series, The Saint, among its current holdings, has the rights.

Here's the opener, "Secret Experiment".



The scenes with Peter's sister and niece were meant to make the show appeal to families, given the heroic nature of the character in this iteration.

Rating: C.