The Incredible Shrinking Man
|
|
The Incredible Shrinking Man is a 1957 science fiction film based upon the novel The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson, and adapted for the screen by Matheson.
The film's hero is contaminated by a radioactive cloud and pesticide, and begins gradually shrinking. Throughout the film the hero continues to get smaller. When he's three feet tall he briefly becomes friends with a circus dwarf, but then continues to shrink, eventually reduced to living in a dollhouse. After nearly being killed by a cat, he winds up trapped in the basement and has to battle a voracious spider, his own hunger, and the thought he may eventually shrink down to nothing. The camera work and effects for the shrinking hero were considered remarkable and imaginative for their time. (The drops of water dripping from the boiler near the end of the film were actually created using water filled condoms; the consumption of large numbers of these raised eyebrows amongst the film company's accountants).
Having defeated the spider, the hero accepts his continuing accelerating shrinkage, and looks forward to see what waits for him in the realms of the ever smaller.
The original book version is slightly different; the hero, Scott Carey, and his wife Louise have a five-year-old daughter named Beth. He encounters a drunken pederast when he's 42 inches tall, and some teenage toughs when he's 3 feet tall.
The theme of size-changing was explored in several other movies of this period. The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) dealt with male growth, while Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) explored the idea of female growth. The fourth permutation (female shrinkage) eventually appeared in 1981 with The Incredible Shrinking Woman. In that version, Lily Tomlin played the wife of an advertising man; she shrinks as a result of exposure to household products. Currently there are plans for a remake of The Shrinking Man starring Eddie Murphy, a comedy which will revolve around a magician who suddenly starts to dwindle and frantically searches for a way to get back to his previous size. It is tentatively scheduled for release in 2005.
There were also Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Honey, I Blew up the Baby from Disney.