The Human Vapor

Well, this is a surprise. I did not expect to so thoroughly enjoy The Human Vapor. A curious mixture of film noir, The Invisible Man, The Phantom of the Opera, and even a soupcon of His Girl Friday, this genre-bending horror film from Ishiro Honda is his most effective and entertaining film since he got stuck in the science fiction ghetto. A lot of credit has to go to the script by Takeshi Kimura who had written some of Honda’s better science fiction fare over the previous few years, so it’s nice to see that Honda’s confident filmmaking supported by a script that mostly gets things right.

A bank robber is foiling the police, namely Detective Okamoto (Tatsuya Mihashi). The robber gets the money, leaves no trace of his presence (including fingerprints or footprints), and vanishes from the car crash scene during his flight. The car crashed near the house of semi-retired Noh dancer Fujichiyo Kasuga (Kaoru Yachigusa) where her live-in, elderly servant Jiya (Bokuzen Hidari) insists no one has been seen in or near the house other than the two all day. Okamoto tells his suspicions that Kasuga must be involved somehow to his girlfriend, the reporter Kyoko (Keiko Sata) (her scenes seem to be influenced directly by Howard Hawks‘ newspaper film) and his superiors at the police station. So begins the film’s feel of film noir as Okamoto trails Kasuga, a femme fatale, and investigates seemingly disparate paths towards one mystery. It’s quiet with a bit of tension that feels appropriate for the opening of a noirish mystery and thriller.

There’s also a surprising reticence to jump into over-explanations of nonsense science. In fact, we don’t even get an explanation for the bank robberies until halfway through the film. Honda and Kimura show a really strong amount of restraint before jumping into Eiji Tsuburaya’s special effects, establishing character to build the story upon. I suppose the only complaint I have with this opening is that the relationship between Kyoko and Okamoto is too thinly drawn, like it needed one full scene of them being romantic instead of buddy-buddy. It’s a small part of the film since the romance is more of a character-based subplot than the main story, so it’s easy to forgive. However, there’s a moment late in the film that relies on the relationship that doesn’t hit as well as it should.

It takes until about halfway into the film before the man responsible shows up, Mizuno (Yoshio Tshuchiya), whom the newspapers end up calling the gas man since he can literally turn his body into gas at will. His demonstration to the police is interesting because if you take the perspective that this is a science-fiction film, it’s frustrating because the police should know the rules that weird things are gonna happen, right? Except they don’t know that, so it’s this weird moment where we have to push aside all of our knowledge of movies to accept perfectly acceptable actions by police. It’s not really a criticism, just an observation.

Anyway, I love Mizuno as a bad guy. The inspiration from The Invisible Man extends well beyond just the use of empty suits walking sometimes. It goes to how Mizuno acts and the reasons behind it. There’s a mad scientist bit, Mizuno being the victim of Dr. Sano (Fuyuki Murakami) and his experiments shown in a brief flashback (with mercifully no effort to explain the nonsense science), which is a tie to James Whale’s film, but Mizuno also has a line about how he’s no longer human. He doesn’t need to follow human morality which is exactly the sort of madness that plagued Claude Rains’ character, derived from the eponymous character in Fritz Lang‘s Dr. Mabuse films. It doesn’t extend in dialogue beyond that, but it provides the foundation for his actions and madness.

His plot, though, is to fund the comeback by Kasuga to the stage, stealing the money and giving to her to put on a large recital that should cost at least ten million yen. There’s a plot to try and capture and kill the gas man who can filter under doors at will, introduced by another minor scientist character who gives no real detail on it (mercifully), allowing greater focus on our characters as we go to the ending. The real emotional core of the film ends up being Kasuga (making the underdevelopment of the relationship between Okamoto and Kyoko slightly less important), and it’s a surprisingly strong culmination of her and the overall story.

So, I have some small issues with a couple of character moments. The other is Mizuno’s affectation towards Kasugo is more implied than shown (there’s a moment where Okamoto announces it when he first meets the guy that feels off), but otherwise this film is really, really good. It’s an homage to classic Universal monster movies, film noir, and Howard Hawks that manages to feel alive on its own. This is, I think, deeply underappreciated. It’s really good. I’m a fan.

Rating: 3.5/4