Original subtitles

(LANDLORD) You out there!

- Hold on! Hold on! - (PANTING)

(TWO GUNSHOTS)

- (GUNSHOT) - Aah!

(GASPING)

Aahhh!

(WHIMPERS WITH PAIN)

(BREATHING STEADIES)

(KNOCKING)

(KNOCKING CONTINUES)

(TUTS) Not again! I'll have the dogs set on you!

- Snotty Little brats. - Thank you, Lucy.

- What was there? - It wasn't nothing, sir.

One of them village Lads, if you ask me, playing runaway rings again.

At this time?

Mm.

Lucy?

(CLATTERING)

Who's there?

Who's in there?

My God!

Keep your nerve, Kemp. I need help, badly.

This is nonsense.

Some sort of trick.

How do you know my name?

- What are you? - Steady, man.

Lie still, you fool!

I don't want to hurt you.

By heaven, you'll madden me, lie still!

Now, that's better.

But if you shout, I'll beat your head.

I shan't shout. Let me sit up.

- Will you Listen to reason? - (GASPING FOR BREATH)

just let me sit quietly for a moment.

Oh! (PANTING)

This is no foolishness or magic.

I am invisible.

Then it's true.

- True? - The newspapers.

Who are you? Why have you come here?

- It's Griffin, man! You remember me! - Griffin?

University College, a year below you.

- Griffin? - I've made myself invisible.

Griffin, Griffin...

- You won a medal at chemistry! - Invisible, Kemp.

- Invisible. - Oh, my brain's rioting.

This is horrible.

(GRIFFIN) It is horrible enough.

(CHAIR SHIP-TING)

(GRIFFIN sums)

Great God, I'm tired.

- Have you any whiskey? - It's hypnotism, isn't it?

I need food and drink, Kemp. I'm near dead with exhaustion.

Kemp!

Whisky.

Yes, I'll give you mine.

It's in my study next door.

No tricks, Kemp.

I could kill you with the greatest of ease.

Kemp!

Be patient.

This is the insanest thing that ever happened.

(SLURPING)

(SWALLOWING AND SIGHING)

But you can't be invisible! It was demonstrated only last...

Never mind what's been demonstrated. I'm starving hungry and cold.

Have you a dressing gown?

Yes.

- Your arm. - It's a gunshot wound. It's trivial.

- It's still bleeding. - You'll just have to put up with that.

- Are you married? - No.

Are you alone in the house?

- You know I'm not. - Apart from the servants.

For the moment, yes.

Don't worry, you're quite safe up here. The sen/ants won't disturb me while I'm working.

Good.

(GRIFFIN sums)

Sit down, Kemp, sit down. We have to talk.

You haven't changed much.

- I wish I could say the same for you. - (LAUGHS)

Good, you've calmed down at last.

Who shot you?

I had a confederate, a fool of a man.

He stole... money from me

and other things.

- Is he invisible, too? - No.

He shot you?

No, some imbecile I've never seen before fired at random.

- I am fortunate that it's only a flesh wound. - You should let me attend to it.

Later.

Damn this blood. It gets visible as it coagulates.

What devilry is it that makes a man invisible?

It's not devilry, it's a process, quite sane and intelligible.

(SCOFFS) But...

good God, man, how is it done? Tell me how you come to be like this.

You understand, of course, my corning here was no coincidence?

I made a terrible mistake, trying to carry this thing through alone.

I've wasted so much strength and time, so many opportunities.

One man alone can do so little.

I saw your name recently in a scientific journal, an article on optical density.

Seeing that changed all my plans.

I realised I was no longer alone. You, of all people, would understand and help.

We worked together once before. We could do so again.

- Boys at college. - You were always cool and methodical,

the ideal confederate.

I was on my way here when that cur stole my notebooks and gave me the slip.

What a fool I was to trust him.

I can be trusted.

What I want, Kemp, is a hiding place,

somewhere I can eat and sleep.

- Together, we could do great things. - Griffin...

With food and rest and a companion, anything is possible.

- Listen... - Please hear my story out.

Very well.

(SIGHS)

It was all so simple to begin with,

so credible.

The Light hurts my eyes.

It began at Chesilstowe College, about a year after I Left London.

L gave up medicine in '84, took up physics instead.

The whole subject of Light, of optical density, fascinated me,

and I flung myself into research in whatever spare moments I had.

I was working under frightful disadvantages.

I was just a shabby, poverty-stricken demonstrator,

hemmed in by a lot of silly, gaping students and a professor called Hobbema,

the sort of scientific bounder who is always prying, thieving ideas.

Ah, Griffin!

Stewart and I wondered if you'd join us for lunch in town.

- Thank you but I'm not hungry. - You must take some nourishment.

Stewart tells me that you missed breakfast again this morning.

Stuart, like others, should learn to mind his own business.

- His concern was well-meant. - Perhaps.

Well, I have no wish to interrupt your work.

Tell me, are you any nearer to testing your hypothesis experimentally?

Oh, I'm sorry. Of course, you must keep it to yourself.

I'm just naturally curious to know when you'll publish your findings.

Of course, if you don't wish to discuss it...

Professor Hobbema.

What do you know of optical density?

Oh, I know the whole subject's a network of riddles.

I've discovered a general principle on pigments and refraction.

A formula, you mean?

A geometrical expression in four dimensions.

- Go on. - A method by which it will be possible,

without changing any other property of matter, except colour in some instances,

to lower the refraction index of a substance to that of air.

- A liquid. - Solid or liquid.

Extraordinary.

No doubt you know molecular physics,

but let me put the elementary facts to you as if you didn't, to make my meaning clearer.

Any schoolboy knows that if an object neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light,

- it cannot be visible. - That's plain sailing.

A transparent thing becomes practically invisible

in a medium of the same refractive index.

If I put this piece of common glass into water thus, it almost vanishes,

because Light passing from water to glass is only slightly affected.

It is almost as invisible as a jet of gas in air for the same reason.

If I were to smash the glass and beat it into a powder,

it would become much more visible in the air.

The powdered glass has many surfaces.

But put back into water, the powdered glass vanishes again.

Forgive me, but as you say, this is very elementary.

Think of all the things that are transparent and seem not to be.

This paper, for instance.

Soaked in oil, it would become as transparent as glass.

Is this what's been occupying all your spare time this term?

Not only paper, Professor Hobbema.

Cotton fibre, wood fibre, bone.

Bone, Professor.

And flesh, Professor.

And hair and nails

and nerves.

Now do you begin to understand what's been occupying my time?

The whole fabric of man except the red of his blood and the dark pigment of his hair

is made up of transparent, colourless tissue.

You and I, Professor Hobbema, are as transparent as a sheet of glass.

But... if a man were made of glass

he would still be visible.

Imbecile!

Really, Griffin, I am trying to understand.

You are saying, then, that there is no such thing as an invisible animal?

- I suppose that's what I'm saying. - In the sea, there are thousands, millions.

- All the larvae, all the Little naupliae... - Yes, yes, in water, perhaps,

but not in air.

- I need money, Hobbema. - I beg your pardon? Money?

- To continue. - Oh!

Hmm.

Just how far have you got with your experiments on physiology?

On pigments to make blood colourless

and yet remain with all the functions that it has.

- You'll publish. - Of course.

And when I publish, no one will share my credit. This is in cipher.

Well!

We must talk again. Very soon.

Oh! Stewart will never forgive me.

No doubt I shall see you in the common room at tea time.

Fool!

I left the college, took a place in London,

- an attic room near Tower Bridge. - (GAS ENGINE HAMMERING)

I worked there as I had never worked before, immersing myself in research.

Infinite detail, Kemp, the exasperation. You've no idea.

Month after month, every mountain of difficulty I toiled over

showed another from its summit.

And then, suddenly, one afternoon last June,

I found myself with scarcely a difficulty left beyond the planning of details.

(ENGINE CONTINUES HAMMERING)

Invisible.

I have transcended magic.

L was like a man emerging from a thicket, Kemp.

I could scarcely believe I'd done it - and in the nick of time, my money was exhausted.

(KEMP) What money was that?

- Griffin? - Must you interrupt?

To be of help, I must understand everything.

- Have you a benefactor who sponsors you? - No.

Then where did you find the money for your lodgings and your equipment?

How did you survive for three years, Griffin? You Left Chesilstowe with no money.

My father. The money came from my father.

I see.

No, you do not see.

I robbed him.

- What? - I stole from him.

I found out too late the money was not his. He shot himself.

My God! I am sorry. You must have felt very badly about it.

Not in the least. He was a stupid man, the victim of his own foolishness.

The current cant required my attendance at his funeral,

but I really felt as if it were not my affair at all.

All those shabby, black, bent old men with sniveling colds.

A cheap funeral.

Cheap hearse, scant ceremony.

Couldn't you speak out to save his character?

Why? It mattered Little to me, less to him. Poor fool.

- You think me callous? - Well...

- For God's sake! - Don't you understand?

- Your wound! - The power, Kemp!

The incredible power of invisibility...

mine!

Ours!

A weakling like my father means nothing. He was a means to an end.

This is the reality, the hands that hold you to this chair.

Domination, Kemp. Invisible power.

- Terror! - Terror?

Yes, yes, yes! A reign of terror.

Against whom?

Weaklings, enemies, the world.

You and I, Kemp. Think of what we might achieve.

A thousand things are possible.

Together we'll strike them down, the enemies.

Judicious slaying.

So simple. Kill to terrify.

To dominate, to rule.

- Kill, if necessary, again and again and again. - Why must there be killing?

Don't you understand? How else am I to achieve the power my invisibility bestows?

Not wanton killing. Judicious slaying, Kemp.

A reign of terror.

All who disobey my orders I must kill,

and kill all who would defend them.

- (SIGHS) - You're worn out, Griffin.

I can hear it in your voice.

And you're still losing blood.

I've had very Little sleep in the last three days.

Why don't you rest here until morning?

We can talk again tomorrow.

I need drink and food.

Of course you do.

Are you mad?

I'm sorry. That was stupid of me.

I'll fetch it myself.

Understand, Kemp.

You'll be sorry if you make any attempt to hamper or trick me.

To have worked for years,

to have planned and plotted

and then to have every conceivable sort of silly creature sent to cross me...

If I have much more of it, Kemp, I shall go mad.

I give you my word.

Men of your stamp, Samuel Kemp,

don't know what real rage is.

Nothing is going to stop me now, nothing.

If you betray me,

I shall kill you.