Are you a fan of the great Universal monsters?  How about of classic British espionage of the Danger Man/Secret Agent variety?  Well, thanks to a new four-disc set that collects all the episodes of a fifty year old television series, you can now enjoy the best of both worlds.

Sure, most everyone agrees that the gleefully subversive James Whale 1933 take on H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man has never been surpassed and rarely approached.  Still, like any true archetype, the power of its core concept is adaptable to a variety of settings and purposes, even to non-horror genres.  So it’s no surprise that over the decades there have been numerous combinations of drama, romance, comedy, and adventure that have played with the power of invisibility.  Yet few have tried to build upon the premise that the ability to become unseen is inherently soul-corrupting; notable exceptions are Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow Man (2000) and its sequel, but perhaps they also prove the rule:  if you can’t dramatize the psychosis and perversion well, perhaps it’s best to avoid the horror overtones altogether.  One film that took this strategy was the war-time effort Invisible Agent (1942), from which the late 1950’s Brit TV series seems to have taken its cue.

Yes, this Invisible Man does contain elements of horror throughout, but since the audience knows our protagonist is a good guy, there are few genuine scares to be had here.  To be sure, there’s plenty of suspense and creepiness (e.g., the episode “Behind the Mask” with a frightening Dennis Price), but the title character is usually the most straight-laced, well-balanced character on hand.  Think of the typical “Mad Scientist” figure but then substitute “Boy Scout-Like” for “Mad” and you’ll have a sense of Dr. Peter Brady.  The victim of a lab accident, he’s distracted by none of the usual personal baggage of the cycle—a serious girlfriend, a professional rival, or a bent for personal revenge or world domination.  Most importantly, since Brady’s not going insane as a byproduct of his invisibility, he seems in little hurry to find the cure for his condition.  Making him a kind of low-grade superhero rather than unpredictable or angst-ridden might seem like a bit of a comedown, but it also frees up the series to explore a wide variety of story types, something it does exceedingly well.

The creators of Invisible Man made other strategic decisions as well, most of them welcome in that they provide a solid basis for ongoing populist entertainment, which is what any TV series aspires to.  For example, the clothes that Brady wore during the initial accident—because they have “animal fibers”—are invisible as well.  This innovation removes both the naughty subtext—“the Invisible Man is nude!”—and the intrinsic silliness that’s always present when the setting is, say, anything other than a tropical beach.  Also, the first episode is careful to establish Brady as a top “sportsman,” so it’s supposed to be no surprise that he can handle himself in fights, escape when bound or trapped (which happens a lot), or drive cars from the passenger seat (so as not to be shot by those aiming for the invisible driver, natch).  However, we’re also missing the full range of talents that a professional crime fighter or government agent would typically possess, so Brady often comes off as simply a better-than-average guy who must use his invisibility in a limited number of ways.  Oh, and did I mention that the entire world knows of his existence?  Having celebrity status is often useful to him, but it also diminishes the “outlaw” feel that other versions of the character come by naturally.

Yet even with such limitations, this series provides endless fun.  Sometimes this is just of the almost-goofy sort, as when you realize you’ve been watching actors work a sequence of scenes by themselves, speaking to empty chairs and the like in what is essentially a series of monologues.  And let’s not forget how the bad guys consistently do a great job of fighting themselves à la Edward Norton in Fight Club (1999).  My personal favorites in this regard are the guard who wrestles an ether-soaked cloth against his face and the villain who crumples his body into a small package and deposits himself neatly into a car trunk.

Of course there are bigger pleasures to be had here, too, much bigger ones.  Indeed, this entire series might be considered an interesting warm-up for the fabulous Danger Man, which producer Ralph Smart was to bring to the airwaves soon afterward.  (In fact, in another connection that should jazz fans of this period, look for Colin Gordon, Number Two in the brilliant Prisoner episode “A. B. and C.,” as a baddie during the first season.)  Viewed in its own right, Invisible Man is rarely less than really sharp, its storytelling hyper-efficient yet not entirely shorn of wild accents.  It boasts crisp yet atmospheric black-and-white cinematography, a surprising amount of subjective camerawork, and a minimum of distractions to the plot-driven thrills.  So if you want all kinds of secondary storylines and maxi-arcs, this isn’t for you—but it’s also what make this series so refreshing.  Don’t expect an overarching sinister organization or a bunch of domestic troubles to make Brady more “human” and identifiable.  Instead, and without fail, we get an attention-grabbing springboard, a straight-ahead dramatic “problem,” a couple of complications, often a twist, and then the climax—then we reload and start all over again.

It’s pretty amazing, actually, how much ground is covered in just about 25 minutes of running time per episode.  As a result, you may find yourself, like me, consuming one episode after another like a bottomless bag of popcorn.  And there are very few unpopped kernels (read:  filler) either.  When Brady is recruited by British Intelligence to get an agent out of the Middle East, there’s no clichéd “But-I’m-a-scientist!” exchange.  Rather, Brady’s attitude is, “Okay, how do I get started?”

For every episode that falls on the pedestrian side (e.g., Brady simply follows someone to solve a “mystery”) there’s one with an ingenious idea such as the heavies using modified naval radar to locate him.  Yet even when the invisibility angle is practically neglected, we still get gems such as one race-against-time episode that is as tight and as involving as one could expect from the age-old set-up of an innocent man facing imminent execution.  (Indeed, this episode resembled the tremendous Time Without Pity done in miniature, and the fact that Joseph Losey’s thriller was released only a couple of years earlier makes me think it may have been an influence.)  For the most part the espionage elements are solid, especially for television, which way back when didn’t provide much room for much subtlety.  However, the lack of “tradecraft” in these pre-Le Carré days is at times startling; at one point a traitorous saboteur openly has a meeting with heavily accented foreign agents in a busy coffee shop.  Similarly, Brady himself lacks the compelling, nuanced characterization and wit that would make Patrick McGoohan’s characters so memorable, let alone George Smiley and crew.

As the voice of Brady, Tim Turner is a little too square-jawed and goody-goody, so if you’re looking for the wild mood swings of Claude Rains or Vincent Price, you’ll be disappointed.  Part of the problem is that Brady’s voice is obviously post-dubbed, which lends it a slightly artificial tone and prevents him from playing off the other actors in any organic way.  Sure, this technique requires some getting used to, but it also solves the problem of the muffled voice.  The biggest offender in this respect is probably The Invisible Man Returns (1940), in which the audience is often deprived of Price’s magnificent pipes because his lines are always filtered through the trademark bandages.  In any case, you may not be happy with Brady’s voice, but you’ll probably appreciate the thoughtful, considered approach to such technical issues.  You can tell that those who crafted Invisible Man sweated the details and worked hard to produce intelligent scripts and decent special effects on a modest budget.