The Invisible Man (1959) ‘ Shadow Bomb’ – Stills : Gallery

Ian Hendry appears in this episode of The Invisible Man as Lieutenant Daniels. It’s a relatively minor supporting role, but he does appear throughout this episode. An early glimpse of him before he broke through into the mainstream the following year in Police Surgeon.

Plot

The invisible man is called in after a malfunction with a light sensitive bomb. Brady must somehow disarm the weapon before approaching darkness makes detonation inevitable.

The Invisible Man (also known as H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man) is a British science fiction/adventure/espionagetelevision series that aired on ITV from September 1958 to July 1959. The series was networked on CBS in the United States. It ran for 26 half-hour black-and-white episodes for two series and was nominally based on the novel by H. G. Wells, one of four such television series. The deviation from the novel went as far as changing the main character’s name from Dr. Griffin to Dr. Peter Brady who, in this version, remained a sane man, not a power-hungry lunatic as in the book or the 1933 film adaptation. None of the other characters from the novel appeared on the series.

The series follows the adventures of Dr. Peter Brady, a scientist who is attempting to achieve invisibility with light refraction – a completely different technique than the protagonist of the novel utilized. However, the experiment goes wrong and turns him permanently invisible. He is initially declared a state secret and locked up, but eventually convinces the UK government, represented by Sir Charles Anderson, to allow him to return to his laboratory and search for an antidote (“Secret Experiment”). Almost immediately, British Intelligence recruits him for an assignment (“Crisis in the Desert”), but soon security is breached (“Behind the Mask”) and he becomes a celebrity (“Picnic with Death”), consequently also using his invisibility to help people in trouble, as well as solve crimes and defeat spies for his country.

As a publicity gimmick, the actor playing the Invisible Man himself was never credited, either on-screen or in TVTimes, but Johnny Scripps played Brady without the bandages, i.e. apparently headless but otherwise dressed. Being a midget, he was able to see through the buttonholes in Brady’s coat. Tim Turner provided Brady’s voice, also without on-screen credit, using a transatlantic accent in order to help ITC sell the series to the United States.

 Extract from The Invisible Man in Wikipedia