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The Incredible Shrinking Man

Blu ray – Region Code: B

Arrow Video

1957 / 1.85:1 / Street Date November 13, 2017

Starring Grant Williams, Randy Stuart

Cinematography by Ellis W. Carter

Directed by Jack Arnold

Richard Matheson’s The Shrinking Man debuted in 1956, published by Gold Medal Books in an economical paperback edition with electrifying cover art by Mitchell Hooks.

Disguised as a modest science-fiction potboiler, Matheson’s brainy thriller appeared the same year Look Back in Anger opened at the Royal Court, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit arrived at New York’s Roxy and Howl was unleashed via City Lights in San Francisco. Existential angst was all the rage and The Shrinking Man was its poster boy.

The first hand account of Scott Carey, a well-heeled suburbanite who suddenly finds himself growing smaller and smaller, Matheson’s briskly paced novella charts Carey’s literal and figurative descent as the tokens of his success – home,...

Mickey Rooney was earliest surviving Best Actor Oscar nominee (photo: Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy in ‘Boys Town’) (See previous post: “Mickey Rooney Dead at 93: MGM’s Andy Hardy Series’ Hero and Judy Garland Frequent Co-Star Had Longest Film Career Ever?”) Mickey Rooney was the earliest surviving Best Actor Academy Award nominee — Babes in Arms, 1939; The Human Comedy, 1943 — and the last surviving male acting Oscar nominee of the 1930s. Rooney lost the Best Actor Oscar to two considerably more “prestigious” — albeit less popular — stars: Robert Donat for Sam Wood’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and Paul Lukas for Herman Shumlin’s Watch on the Rhine (1943). Following Mickey Rooney’s death, there are only two acting Academy Award nominees from the ’30s still alive: two-time Best Actress winner Luise Rainer, 104 (for Robert Z. Leonard’s The Great Ziegfeld, 1936, and Sidney Franklin’s The Good Earth, 1937), and Best Supporting Actress nominee Olivia de Havilland,...

Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney has died at his Los Angeles home. He was 93. With a remarkable career that spanned 10 decades, Mickey Rooney was one of the last surviving artists to have witnessed the evolution of film – from his first onscreen role in the 1926 silent film Not To Be Trusted, to his appearance in 2011′s The Muppets, and beyond.

After first taking to the stage at the age of 15 months, as part of his parents’ Vaudeville act, Joseph Yule Jr. soon progressed to child stardom – appearing in almost 80 silent comedy shorts as the comic strip character, Mickey McGuire. It was this character that would provide the star’s new name, as his mother decided a change was needed. Joseph Yule Jr. became Mickey Rooney, and signed with MGM in 1934 – soon taking to the screen alongside legends such as Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy.

A Family Affair in 1937 – based on the Broadway...