The incredible story of Mister C.

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Movie
German title The incredible story of Mister C.
Original title The Incredible Shrinking Man
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1957
length 81 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Jack Arnold
script Jack Arnold,
Richard Matheson
production Albert Zugsmith
music Frank Carling ,
Earl Lawrence
camera Ellis W. Carter
cut Al Joseph
occupation

The Incredible Story of Mister C. (Original title: The Incredible Shrinking Man ), an American science fiction film from 1957 , was shot in black and white by Jack Arnold and is widely regarded as the director's best film. As a template for the first time in 1956 published served science fiction novel The Strange Case of Mr. C. (AKA The Incredible Shrinking Man ) by Richard Matheson , who is also the writer wrote. Grant Williams stars as the shrinking Scott Carey.

action

Scott Carey goes on a boat trip with his wife Louise on the California coast. While she is below deck, the boat passes through a strange cloud. After a few months, Scott notices that changes are happening to him: he is slowly beginning to shrink, his clothes no longer fit. The doctors consulted are at a loss, Scott's perspective hopeless. Shrunk to the size of a child, he becomes a national curiosity . With his stature, his self-esteem and emotional balance shrink, which results in tension in his marriage. Unable to do his job, Scott writes his autobiography while his home is besieged by reporters. A short woman can only briefly instill new courage in him.

Hardly bigger than a toy, he builds a doll's house. He can only communicate with his wife by screaming and is falling increasingly into agony . One day when Louise carelessly leaves the house, Scott is chased almost fatally by both cats. On the run from the animal, he falls down the cellar stairs and from then on remains missing for his wife and brother Charlie, as she suspects that he was killed by the cat. Only once, when she enters the cellar, does Scott see Louise: But now he's so small that she can no longer hear his screaming.

Unable to escape from his cellar dungeon, Scott comes to terms with his new home, the dimensions of which are visibly exceeding his possibilities. Left on his own, he finds his identity back and kills a spider while fighting for a piece of stale bread.

Little by little, a new world opens up for Scott, who is now able to slip through a fly screen: the microcosm .

Production and Background

On the surface, Jack Arnold's film is just a science fiction film, which, with oversized buildings, creates the illusion of inexorable downsizing and the threats that result from it. However, the film offers much more.

The cause of the cloud at sea is not mentioned, but it seems obvious that it is radioactive or chemical in nature. Due to the suddenness of its occurrence, Arnold uses it as a metaphor for the use of atomic and chemical science (by the government and the military), which is beyond public control and deliberately no warnings are given about its use. The power over the forces of nature is directed against those who have entrusted their own kind with this power. Hollywood's scientific-military bondage during the Cold War is gradually showing signs of disintegration.

As in many SF films of the 1950s, fate descends almost silently on the average American. In contrast to his previous films, however, Arnold is not concerned with shock effects: the director is more interested in the psychology of his protagonist in what is for him a literally oversized environment than in the effects that are more effective for the audience. Cat and spider, deadly dangers for the shrinking Mister C., who has no given name in the title, are anything but dangers of a new dimension: despite and through decreasing stature, Mister C. achieves a new self-image that has nothing in common with the boring life of "all american boy ”. One would almost believe that Mister C. is penetrating an anarchic world that was only opened up to him by his bourgeois people, guided by ridicule, pity and greed for sensation. In addition, the family is no longer a haven of harmony and continuity: the only thing that remains continuous is Scott's removal from everyday worries and fears. Even his increasing impotence towards Louise, who regards him more as a son than a husband or wife, is echoed in the threat posed by cats and spiders. At the beginning of his story, Scott thinks he is a patriarch, but even then his wife is not ready to give in without consideration. The smaller Scott becomes, the greater the matriarchy of Louise-Cat-Spider, the greater the threat to his existence, which for the society he is used to only has to serve as a laughing stock or a research object. It is only when Scott becomes aware of his qualifications that he leaves his home and pioneers a new future that now lies before him more hopefully and prophetically than ever before.

Quote: “The Infinitesimal and The Infinite. But I suddenly knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. "" To God there is no Zero. I still exist. "

The huge drops of water falling on Scott Carey in the basement were simulated with the help of condoms that were filled with water. When the producers complained about the high cost of contraceptives after filming was over, director Arnold replied that the filming had been very exhausting and that those involved had had some fun afterwards.

The film premiered in the United States on February 22, 1957 and in the Federal Republic of Germany on May 31, 1957.

synchronization

The German dubbed version was created in 1957 at Arena Filmproduktion in Munich under the dubbing direction of Konrad P. Rohnstein , who also wrote the dialogue book.

role actor German Dubbing voice
Scott Carey Grant Williams Dietmar Schönherr
Louise Carey Randy Stuart Eleanor Noelle
Clarice April Kent Inge Schulz
Charlie Carey Paul Langton Peter Pasetti

Awards

The film-historical significance of this production was recognized in 2009 by its inclusion in the National Film Registry .

Reviews

  • "Second-class trick shots, many helpless phrases, foolish overall design." - Handbook of the Catholic film criticism
  • “(..) Lilliputian aspects gave the genre new impulses; Super-witty script by Richard Matheson (...). “(Rating: 3 stars = very good) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz
  • “A delightful adventure film of the B category, shot with a special amount of original tricks, which is now one of the classics of fantastic films. In some scenes of involuntary comedy, the fable proves to be plausible and touches at times in its tragic accents. " -" Lexicon of international film "
  • “ In addition to the content, a number of imaginative cinematic means contribute to the disturbing effect of 'The Incredible Shrinking Man'. (...) Carey's fight with the spider (...) represents the climax of the film in every respect. Carey's confrontation with the spider is pure horror, presented explicitly as it is unparalleled in science fiction cinema of the 50s seeks. This also applies to the sharp contours and the 'low-key' illumination. "(Andreas Friedrich)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release Certificate for The Incredible Mister C. . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2006 (PDF; test number: 14 014 V / DVD).
  2. ↑ Andreas Friedrich: The incredible story of Mr. C. In: Film genres: Science Fiction / Ed. By Thomas Koebner . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003 (Universal-Bibliothek; 18401), ISBN 3-15-018401-0 , p. 115
  3. ↑ World premieres according to IMDb
  4. ↑ At synchrondatenbank.de. Retrieved January 12, 2020 .
  5. ↑ 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958 . Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism, 3rd edition, Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 448
  6. ^ In lexicon "Films on TV" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 854
  7. ↑ (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997
  8. ↑ Andreas Friedrich: The incredible story of Mr. C. In: Film genres: Science Fiction / Ed. By Thomas Koebner. Reclam, Stuttgart 2003 (Universal-Bibliothek; 18401), ISBN 3-15-018401-0 , pp. 110-115