Film Credits

Written by: Richard Matheson

Directed by: Jack Arnold

Starring: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton, William Schallert, Billy Curtis

Review

Previously available only in a long out-of-print MCA DiscoVision edition, The Incredible Shrinking Man appears to the naked eye again in what is an outstanding MCA/Universal laserdisc reissue. This 1950's classic science fiction film was directed by Jack Arnold (the same gent responsible for other 1950's classic fare as The Creature From the Black Lagoon, It Came From Outer Space and Tarantula) and features a script by Richard Matheson based upon his own novel of the same name. As you may have gathered from the title, the film is about an incredible shrinking man, Scott Cary (Grant Williams), who begins slowly shrinking in size after being exposed to a mysterious radioactive cloud. Needless to say, Scott isn't pleased with his condition, especially since even the best medical people can't stop it. So as Scott continues on his downward trend, he finds out that his new world isn't the greatest: his marriage fails, his pet cat decides Scott is proper morsal size and attacks him, and he winds up trapped in the basement having to deal with a (now) enormous tarantula. Matheson's intelligent screenplay, combined with the wonderful oversized props and special effects, helps make The Incredible Shrinking Man an "incredible" (though ultimately depressing) film.

Incredible is also a perfect way to describe MCA/Universal's "Encore Edition" disc. The black & white imagery is generally very crisp and detailed, and the contrasts are very good. While the print is free from most blemishes, a few scenes feature minor grain; also, there were a couple of instances on side two where frame-repeating was apparent. Although The Incredible Shrinking Man was not filmed in any sort of a widescreen aspect ratio, the opening credits are windowboxed to preserve the full image (giving an unexpected approx. 1.57:1 aspect ratio), while the remainder of the film is slightly cropped so as to fill your screen (while I would have preferred that the film be banded for it's entirely, nothing is really lost due to the cropping). Since the film runs only 81m, special-effects laden side two appears in CAV with perfect still frames. Unlike most previous MCA "Encore Edition" titles, The Incredible Shrinking Man contains no extra features such as a trailer or still file. The CX-encoded digital Westrex mono soundtrack is in extremely good condition. The disc was pressed at Pioneer and has not been chapter encoded.