We Are All The Incredible Shrinking Man

Every once in a while I need to revisit my boyhood. Okay, truth:  I've never really grown up (much like someone with my same initials and I don't mean Peter Pears), so "revisiting" is a stretch. There are a countless movies my dad introduced me to as a kid, and many of those remain among my favorites: The Greatest Show On Earth, The Five Pennies, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, and many many more. Some stand out more than others, and one of the strongest may seem like an odd choice, but it haunted, disturbed and moved me more than most: The Incredible Shrinking Man. I still remember every detail of not only the movie, but of me fidgeting, getting nervous and worrying whether Scott was going to come out of this alive, be cured.  Every few years I come back to it, and . .. today was that day.

Each time I watch it, even knowing the outcome, I become five or six again, fraught with fear and concern about the plight of this tiny human.  Once the shrinking begins, the loneliness, the feeling of helplessness Scott faces almost overwhelm me. The perilous challenges ,when the worst of the shrinking begins - one life threatening battle after another are ceaseless . . . . relentless . . . oppressive.  Then, when he becomes truly alone, trapped in the basement, his wife and brother having left, believing he 's dead . . . it tears at my heart.  

As a child, naturally I couldn't comprehend why this story affected me so profoundly, but as years progressed, so did my mind, and my interests in science, philosophy, religion, the cosmos, the myriad dimensions beyond the physical or real world took hold of my brain, and I became obsessed with the why and how of everything.  I vividly recall coming back to this movie in adulthood and there was that proverbial lightbulb moment . . . that Aha! head rush.  This wasn't just some sad horror or sci-fi flick, it was an allegorical look at humanity, at the relative smallness of our place in the vastness of the universe. BUT like the billions of atoms that make us up - the universe recognizes the infinitesimal, and everything matters.  I watched Spaceman last night and one of my takeaways from it works in concert with The Incredible Shrinking Man: the universe is exactly as it should be.

What's fascinating to me about all of this is that the Richard Matheson wrote his 1956 novel as an allegory about the loss of masculine influence on post-war America.  The shrinking man was representative of that loss.  Apparently, Matheson, who wrote the screenplay as well, was not pleased with the direction of film or its ending, but years later, came around to appreciating it . . . and its ending.  And, speaking of the ending, in all of the film testing before its release, audiences hated it. Everyone seemed to want Scott to be cured, to be restored to his full size and reunited with his wife.  Director, Jack Arnold, essentially stated they'd have to change the ending over his dead body, and so the film ends exactly as it should: full of understanding about our place in the universe, but also an accompanying fear of what that means..

For me the biggest tragedy of the film is that its leading actor, Grant Williams, never achieved any genuine measure of fame, never got any roles truly worthy of his talent, and died alone at age 53.  It was interesting diggig up what I could on him and realizing how many gifted people like Williams just never got the opportunity to shine - or only briefly in small films like this one. It's really the story of Hollywood, isn't it?  Grant Williams was born in New York, and began acting onstage as a child.  He joined and was trained in the U.S. Airforce, and after serving returned to New York to study with Lee Strasberg. He found professional work in the theatre and I'm not sure who saw him, but he was quickly offered a contract and signed by Universal and moved to Hollywood, playing bit roles on television or uncredited ones in film. He caught the eye of Jack Arnold who was impressed and cast him against type as evil gunslinger, Chet Swann in the 1956 western Red Sundown, and then a year later in the lead role for the movie which he's still best known. 

One important fact I never before knew was was Williams was also a singer, three years after filming  The Incredible Shrinking Man, went back to New York as the tenor soloist in Martha Graham and Halim El-Dabh's legendary 1958 ballet Clytemnestra, for a three-performance run Broadway in 1960.  

Williams was a quiet man who seemed to shy away from the Hollywood glitterari and led a very private and not active social life. There was much gossip and rumor about his being gay (which seems likely) and consigned him to a career mostly of single episode appearances in shows like Gun Smoke, Mr. Lucky, and Shirley Temple's Storybook. His longest gig would be as the composer Tchaikovsky in a three episodes for The Wonderful World of Disney.  Another strike against  him was one I'd never even considered until reading about it today was that Williams was fair and blonde, and and during his career Hollywood was almost exclusively casting its leads as tall, dark and handsome like Cary Grant, Rock Hudson,Steve McQueen, et al. 

Watching the film now, while there are several supporting roles, most importantly Randy Stuart, who is excellent as Scott's wife, nearly the entire film is carried on the shoulders of Mr. Williams's as Scott Carey. Because of the way it had to be filmed, Williams was required to act through most of the film alone, as has been noted: acting opposite nothing and with no one.  The role also called for incredible physicality: Scott must go from appearing childlike, lost in grownup world of furniture and giants, sipping coffee from a boat sized cup, and then performing incredible physical feats, fighting like a gladiator, swinging across vast spaces and climbing seemingly insurmountable heights. Watching it with an actors eyes, Williams serves all of this up with a ferocity that feels natural and is admirable. he also suffered multiple injuries, burns, and went temporarily blind during filming. Through it all is an underlying sadness always just under the surface that is enormously moving.  Additionally, Williams, as Scott, narrates the entire film which, after his epiphany and acceptance, creates something profoundly poetic out of Matheson's screenplay.  

I know this is another of those movies I love that people wonder, "what's wrong with him?" . . . but for almost 60 years (WHAT?) this movie has been part of my life and so, part of who I am. All these decades later, I'm still fascinated by it, still moved by it, still compelled to watch it. In it's way, we, all of us, become The Incredible Shrinking Man