History Film / TheIncredibleShrinkingMan

* NarratingThePresent: Interestingly enough, Scott's voice remains in the same pitch despite his getting smaller as the film progresses, unless we're reading his mind...

* SquareCubeLaw: Quite possibly averted in that Scott ''slowly'' shrinks, thus giving his body a chance to adapt.

* RecycledSoundtrack: Apart from the opening title theme (composed by Irving Gertz and featuring a trumpet solo by Ray Anthony), the film's score consists of pre-existing music cues from Universal's production library.

** Scott's voice-over monologue at the end has him accepting the inevitable and reaffirming that no matter how small he is, he will still matter in this universe. However, that doesn't change the fact that he will eventually shrink to ''atomic size'' or worse, and that his wife assumes that their cat had eaten him. Matheson wrote a sequel -- unfortunately never filmed -- where it turned out the antidote has long-delayed effects that will eventually return him to normal. Scott's wife catches on as she begins to shrink herself. She sets out to find Scott, then they have more adventures trying to get back to the house.
** In the novel, his family packs up and moves out of the house the day before he finally shrinks for what he thinks is the final time. But it turns out much happier for Scott, as he finds he's now in a new microscopic world, still existing but smaller than anything any normal-sized person could perceive. Excited by the implications of all this, he happily runs off to explore his new surroundings.

* ILoveNuclearPower: As stated in the summary, the mysterious cloud is generally assumed to be radioactive.

* RecycledSoundtrack: Apart from the opening title theme (composed by Irving Gertz and featuring a trumpet solo by Ray Anthony), the film's score consists of pre-existing music from Universal's production library.

[[quoteright:305:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_incredible_shrinking_man.jpeg]]

** In the novel, his family packs up and moves out of the house the day before he finally shrinks for what he thinks is the final time. But it turns out much happier for Scott, as he finds he's now in a new microscopic world, still existing but smaller than anything any normal person could perceive. Excited by the implications of all this, he happily runs off to explore his new surroundings.

** In the book, his family packs up and moves out of the house the day before he finally shrinks for what he thinks is the final time. But it turns out much happier for Scott, as he finds he's now in a new microscopic world, still existing but smaller than anything any normal person could perceive. Excited by the implications of all this, he happily runs off to explore his new surroundings.

''The Incredible Shrinking Man'' is a 1957 SciFiHorror film directed by Jack Arnold, [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] the novel ''The Shrinking Man'' by Creator/RichardMatheson (who also wrote the screenplay adaptation).

* HowWeGotHere: After a brief prologue of Scott getting sprayed with the mist on the boat, the novel jumps right into him fleeing from the spider in the basement. Subsequent chapters feature {{flashbacks}} showing how he ended up in this situation.

* AdaptationalSpeciesChange: Because black widows were too small (and too ''deadly'') to be used for filming, a tarantula from Panama (named Tamara in the press book) played the role of the spider.

* AdultsDressedAsChildren: Justified in-universe; Scott is forced to don little boys' clothing (and then dolls' clothing) as he gets smaller. The novel has him deliberately playing the part of a child on a couple occasions.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Scott just happens to be outside on the boat when the radioactive mist passes by, and this only after he happened to have been accidentally sprayed with insecticide (which the radiation catalyzes to kick off the shrinking process) some time earlier. In the novel it's lampshaded just how long the odds are of somebody falling victim to that exact sequence.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Scott just happens to be outside on the boat when the radioactive mist passes by, and this only after he happened to have been accidentally sprayed with insecticide (which the radiation catalyzes to kick off the shrinking process) some time earlier. In the novel it's noted in-universe how long the odds are of someone falling victim to such a sequence.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Scott just happens to be outside on the boat when the radioactive mist passes by, and this only after he happened to have been accidentally sprayed with insecticide (which the radiation catalyzes to kick off the shrinking process) some time earlier. It's noted in-universe how long the odds are of someone falling victim to such a sequence.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Scott just happens to be outside on the boat when the radioactive mist passes by, and this only after he happened to have ingested bug spray into his system (which the radiation catalyzes to kick off the shrinking process) some time earlier. It's noted in-universe how long the odds are of someone falling victim to such a sequence.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Scott just happens to be outside on the boat when the radioactive mist passes by, and this only after he happened to have ingested bug spray into his system (which the radiation catalyzes to start the shrining process) some time earlier. It's noted in-universe how long the odds are of someone falling victim to such a sequence.

** Scott has shrunk to about three feet tall when he encounters a group of boys. When they realize he's the famous "Shrinking Man", they threaten to take his pants off to see if ''every'' part of him has shrunk.

The 1981 comedy film ''The Incredible Shrinking Woman'', directed by Creator/JoelSchumacher and starring Creator/LilyTomlin in the title role, is both a {{remake}} and spoof of the original novel. In 2015, there was a comic book adaptation from Creator/IDWPublishing, which was distributed in a four-issue miniseries from July to October. It shares the novel's title (though the variant cover to Issue 3 uses the movie title) and is closer to it in terms of story detail.

** Though he's upfront with Louise about his intentions, Scott's relationship with Clarice is a one-night stand, as he will eventually shrink to the point where intimacy will be impossible altogether. (Unlike in the film, there are no successful attempts to prevent the shrinking even temporarily.)

** Scott has shrunk to about three feet tall when he encounters a group of boys. When they realize he's the famous "Shrinking Man" they threaten to take his pants off to see if ''every'' part of him has shrunk.

** Scott's sexual frustration is addressed in a more straightforward fashion. When he has grown smaller than his daughter Beth, Louise hires a 15-year-old babysitter to watch her while she works. [[spoiler: Scott, while not making any direct moves, lusts over her (unknown to her, as she doesn't know about his presence). Incidentally, he vividly repeats a phrase he'd heard from a pedophile who'd earlier mistaken him for a little boy.]]

** Scott's sexual frustration is addressed in a more straightforward fashion. When he has grown smaller than his daughter Beth, Louise hires a 15-year-old babysitter to watch her while she works. [[spoiler: Scott, while not making any direct moves, lusts over her (unknown to her, as she doesn't know about his presence). Incidentally, he vividly repeats a phrase he'd heard from a pedophile who mistook him for a little boy.]]

** Scott's sexual frustration is addressed in a more straightforward fashion. When he has grown smaller than his daughter Beth, Louise hires a 15-year-old babysitter to watch her while she works. [[spoiler: Scott, while not making any direct moves, lusts over her (unknown to her, as she doesn't know about his presence). Incidentally, he vividly repeats a phrase he heard from a pedophile who mistook him for a little boy.]]

** Scott's sexual frustration is addressed in a more straightforward fashion. When he's grown smaller than his daughter Beth, Louise hires a 15-year-old babysitter to watch her while she works. [[spoiler: Scott, while not making any direct moves, lusts over her (unknown to her, as she doesn't know about his presence). Incidentally, he vividly repeats a phrase he heard from a pedophile who mistook him for a little boy.]]