Editing The Incredible Shrinking Man (section)

==Reception==
Arnold's biographer Dana M. Reemes described ''The Incredible Shrinking Man'' as initially being received as a routine to above average film; its reception has steadily grown ever since.{{sfn|Reemes|2002|p=74}} Philip K. Scheuer of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' called the film "a fascinating exercise in imagination, as terrifying as it is funny [...] Science-fiction admirers who are accustomed to finding food for thought as well as vicarious thrills in such flights of fancy will not be disappointed, either."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Scheuer |first=Philip K. |date=March 28, 1957 |title='Shrinking Man' Film Frightening and Funny |journal=[[Los Angeles Times]] |page=Part IV, p. 13 }}</ref>
The ''[[Monthly Film Bulletin]]'' praised the film, and declared it a "horrifying story that grips the imagination throughout", one that "straightforward, macabre, and as startlingly original as a vintage [[Ray Bradbury]] short story, for all its peaceful and resigned conclusion—opens new vistas of cosmic terror".<ref name="mfb-review">{{cite magazine|magazine=[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]]|title=The Incredible Shrinking Man|volume=24|issue=276|page=83|year=1957|publisher=[[British Film Institute]]|author=P.J.D.}}</ref>  [[Bosley Crowther]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' panned the film, writing that "unless a viewer is addicted to freakish ironies, the unlikely spectacle of Mr. Williams losing an inch of height each week, while his wife, Randy Stuart, looks on helplessly, will become tiresome before Universal has emptied its lab of science-fiction clichés."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Crowther |first=Bosley |date=February 23, 1957 |title=Diminishing Returns |journal=[[The New York Times]] |page=13 }}</ref> William Brogdon of ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' commented that the film was not thoroughly satisfactory, but had enough good qualities, specifically declaring "unfoldment is inclined to slow down on occasion, resulting in flagging interest here and there".{{sfn|Willis|1985|p=119}} The review noted the special effects and cinematography were "visually effective", but that "portions of the background score are overworked", which distracted from the plot.{{sfn|Willis|1985|p=119}} The film was the winner of the first [[Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation]] in 1958.<ref name="Grant">{{cite web|url=http://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/shrinking_man.pdf|title=The Incredible Shrinking Man|access-date=June 26, 2019|last=Grant|first=Barry Keith|website=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref>

Martin Rubin discussed the film in a 1974 issue of ''[[Film Comment]]'' and compared it to its contemporaries in the genre. He found it did not have the "schoolboy cynicism and moralizing of a [[Roger Corman]] film, nor any of the hysteria common to the Red-scare science-fictioners of the Fifties". He felt the story was well-suited to Jack Arnold, noting a "[[Orson Welles|WeIlesian]] director would have overinflated this film and compromised its sense of the ordinary with shadows and angles, while a more accomplished stylist of almost any other order would have softened it too much—such attitudes are better off in the horror film."<ref name="Rubin">{{cite magazine|last=Rubin|first=Martin|magazine=[[Film Comment]]|volume=10|issue=4|title=The Incredible Shrinking Man|year=1974|pages=52–53}}</ref> Rubin also compared it the other science fiction films Arnold made in the 1950s—''[[Creature from the Black Lagoon|The Creature From the Black Lagoon]]'', ''[[It Came From Outer Space]]'', ''Tarantula'', ''[[Revenge of the Creature]]'', and ''[[The Space Children]]''—finding them competitively "interesting in patches", but lacking in comparison to the "unity and clarity" of ''The Incredible Shrinking Man'', which "totally fulfills its central metaphor without being unduly constricted by it".<ref name="Rubin" />

Ian Nathan of ''[[Empire (magazine)|Empire]]'' referred to the film as a classic of 1950s science fiction films, and noted how the everyday objects found at home are "transformed into a terrifying vertiginous world fraught with peril. A confrontation with a 'giant' spider, impressively realised, as are all the effects, for its day, has become one of the iconic image[s] of the entire era."<ref name="empire-rev">{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180317224129/https://www.empireonline.com/movies/incredible-shrinking-man/review/|url=https://www.empireonline.com/movies/incredible-shrinking-man/review/|title=The Incredible Shrinking Man Review|access-date=March 17, 2018|date=April 27, 2006|last=Nathan|first=Ian|website=[[Empire (magazine)|Empire]]|archive-date=March 17, 2018}}</ref> [[Tim Lucas]] declared that the film "remains one of the perfectly realized science fiction films", noting it was "less about science than a masterful example of the 'what if' branch of speculative human drama".{{sfn|Lucas|2017|loc=00:00:19}}