Steve Guttenberg stars as a low-level government worker who has a run-in with an invisible spy on his wedding day. Before he dies, the invisible man gives Guttenberg the formula and almost immediately, Steve-O is wanted for murder. He accidentally takes the formula, which turns him invisible too and with the help of his cute future sister in-law (Lisa Langlois), tries to get the formula back into the right hands.
The Man Who Wasn’t There was one of the first movies I vividly remember seeing in the theater. (I was five at the time.) So, because of my memorable viewing experience, I may be looking at it through rose tinted 3-D glasses. Even now, I can acknowledge the film has its fair share of problems, but the blast of nostalgia I get from watching it outweighs many (okay, some) of its shortcomings.
The film was produced by Frank Mancuso, Jr. for Paramount, who had just made Friday the 13th 3-D for the studio the year before. I have a feeling that the film may not have originally been conceived as a 3-D movie. (They probably just used the flick as an excuse to crank out another 3-D movie with the existing technology.) C’mon, let’s face it. The idea of invisibility doesn’t really lend itself to the gimmick. How can an invisible man be in 3-D if you can’t even see him? Sure, some of the floating objects the invisible man is holding look kind of cool in a depth-of-field kind of way, but few of them ever cross the plane of the screen and out into the audience.
The movie admittedly gets off to a rough start. The opening slapstick fight between stereotypical foreign ambassadors (one of whom is played by Return of the Living Dead’s Don Calfa) is pretty embarrassing. Luckily, the movie improves dramatically once Guttenberg becomes invisible.
Guttenberg has charisma and is a likable presence, even if the material he’s been given is weak at times. It’s Lisa Langlois who steals the movie though as his love interest. She is a lot of fun to watch and probably deserved to be a bigger star. Lisa also gets some good nude scenes, including when she takes the formula and reappears naked while being chased by two cops. Then of course, there’s her memorable sex scene with Guttenberg while he’s invisible. The rest of the supporting cast is pretty strong and includes Art Hindle, Jeffrey Tambor, and William Forsythe.
The film was directed by Bruce (Nighthawks) Malmuth (who also appears as a henchman), although nothing in his filmography suggests he can do comedy. (He can’t, really.) The comic car chases aren’t funny and go on too long to boot. In fact, the whole movie really could’ve been trimmed down. It’s nearly two hours long and probably would’ve played just fine at around ninety.
The Invisibility effects are a mixed bag. Some of the optical effects are good (like when the invisible man gets knifed), but a lot of the effects are the same shit they were doing back in the Claude Rains days. (There are even a few visible wires when the invisible man is holding something.) When the 3-D and the invisible effects DO work in harmony, the results are quite striking like when an invisible man blows smoke rings into the audience. The scene where Guttenberg’s boxers are running around on their own is amusing too.
Scenes like this really captured my imagination when I saw it on the big screen. I saw many of the 3-D movies that came out around the same time including Spacehunter, Jaws 3-D, and Amityville 3-D, all of which in one way or another cemented my love for the gimmick at an impressionable age.
Speaking of 3-D, while the effects aren’t particularly outstanding, there are enough of them to warrant seeing it in 3-D. Malmuth certainly utilizes the effects more than many directors did during the late ‘00s 3-D boom. The effects include:
• 3-D Opening Titles
• 3-D Hors D’oeuvres
• 3-D Knife
• 3-D Knife
• 3-D Smoke Rings
• 3-D Falling Man
• 3-D Invisibility Vial
• 3-D Telescopes (multiple)
• 3-D Falling Man
• 3-D Gun
• 3-D Confetti
Then of course, there’s the centerpiece scene where Guttenberg walks into the girls’ locker room and watches Michelle Bauer and Brinke Stevens shower. This might have been the first instance of nudity I saw in a movie, and it’s certainly one I have never forgotten. It probably also explains my devotion to those iconic Scream Queens. (Another Scream Queen, Deborah Dutch also appears as a horny secretary.)
Ultimately, even for someone who has fond memories of the movie, The Man Who Wasn’t There is just too uneven to really work both conceptually and from an effects standpoint. The 3-D is good enough to make me say if you end up seeing it in 2-D you’ll probably want to subtract a ½ * to the rating.
Writer Stanford Sherman also wrote stone-cold classics like Krull and The Ice Pirates.
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