Verdict
Summary
Filmed and released in 3D, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a goober of a movie with clunky humor, awkward set pieces and a climax that makes no sense whatsoever, but it’s still really appealing thanks to fun, engaging performances by young stars Guttenberg and Langlois (who has some eye-popping nude scenes), and a very upbeat score by Miles Goodman.
Plot:
A bystander ends up with a top-secret invisibility serum that two governments are searching for.
Review:
On the day of his wedding, Sam Cooper (Steve Guttenberg), a low-rung State Department peon, is running around like mad to make it to the church on time. It just so happens that foreign spies and government spooks and hired thugs are on the run, chasing an invisible man who ends up at the hotel where Sam is getting ready to emerge in his tuxedo. When some goons bust the door down and kill the invisible man by shooting every which way and throwing daggers in every direction, Sam somehow ends up with a small orb containing the precious invisibility serum, which is what everyone is after. Blamed for the murder of the naked dead man who materializes on the floor, Sam is dumped by his fiancé and chased by the bad guys (or maybe they’re good guys) and he ends up at the house of his fiancé’s bridegroom (played by spunky and super cute Lisa Langlois) who tries helping him sort out how to use and conceal the invisibility serum. The two of them go on the run together, get invisible together (which means they have to be naked), and hide out for awhile in an all-girls’ academy where Sam gets up to some hijinks like walking around the girls’ shower and locker room, but when the spooks and goons pick up their scent, they’re off again, falling in love in the midst of all the flying bullets, knives, and car chases.
Filmed and released in 3D, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a goober of a movie with clunky humor, awkward set pieces and a climax that makes no sense whatsoever, but it’s still really appealing thanks to fun, engaging performances by young stars Guttenberg and Langlois (who has some eye-popping nude scenes), and a very upbeat score by Miles Goodman. Director Bruce Malmuth struggled with this material and the flat script and had trouble making these ingredients work, but I still sort of enjoyed the whole thing despite its faults. The fact that they tried to make all this in 3D is mind-boggling because nothing we see (or don’t see) lends itself to the format. John Carpenter’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man, which came nearly a decade later, was better.
Kino Lorber’s brand new Blu-ray release of The Man Who Wasn’t There brings the film to disc for the very firs time, and it presents the film from a new 4K scan, giving the viewer the option to watch the film in either 2D, or in two different 3D versions. There’s a new audio commentary, and one pair of 3D glasses. The film is presented in 2:35:1.
