1957. Directed by JACK ARNOLD, Screenplay co-Written by RICHARD MATHESON. TAGLINES: "A fascinating adventure into the unknown!" "Victim of a weird mist! Day by day he shrinks! Science is baffled! Cat becomes a monster! Terror at every turn! A Deadly spider attacks! Lost in a flood's fury!" - When Scott Carey begins to shrink because of exposure to a combination of radiation and insecticide, medical science is powerless to help him. Scott Carey and his wife Louise are sunning themselves on their cabin cruiser, the small craft adrift on a calm sea. While his wife is below deck, a low mist passes over him. Scott, lying in the sun, is sprinkled with glittery particles that quickly evaporate. Later he is accidentally sprayed with an insecticide while driving and, in the next few days, he finds that he has begun to shrink. First just a few inches, so that his clothes no longer fit, then a little more. Soon he is only three feet tall, and a national curiosity. At six inches tall he can only live in a doll's house and even that becomes impossible when his cat breaks in. Scott flees to the cellar, his wife thinks he has been eaten by the cat and the door to the cellar is closed, trapping him in the littered room where, menaced by a giant spider, he struggles to survive. BEHIND THE SCENES TRIVIA : Orson Welles did the narration for the trailer for this film. He was at Universal working on Touch of Evil (1958). The plot was something new for Universal Pictures, which had to approve a story that did not have a neatly resolved ending. Richard Matheson's novel ends with the character shrinking to infinitesimal size. There is no last-minute rescue; the man keeps shrinking. In spite of these problems, producer Albert Zugsmith managed to secure a $750,000 budget. At the completion of production, studio executives wanted to change the ending to a happy one with doctors discovering a serum to reverse the shrinking process; director Jack Arnold refused. With the successful "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954) and its sequels to his credit, he was able to convince the studio to agree to a preview. The test audience was startled at the film, but they liked it; the ending was not changed. Scott Carey's closing soliloquy was added to the script by director Jack Arnold. Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider. Included among the American Film Institute's 2001 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.
GRANT WILLIAMS Mini Bio : Born August 18, 1931 in New York City Died July 28, 1985 in Los Angeles. He received his acting training from method maestro Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio. Grant played piano professionally and was a professional singer, who sang for five seasons with the New York Opera. The high point of his career came when he played the title role in "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957). Director Jack Arnold said that Williams gave an Oscar-worthy performance because, in many special-effects scenes, he could only imagine his surroundings and his fellow actors.