Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)

Film: Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)

Stars: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Arthur Franz, Nancy Guild, Adele Jergens, William Frawley

Director: Charles Lamont

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

This month we are devoting all of our classic film reviews to Golden Age Horror films that I saw for the first time this year.  If you want to take a look at past titles (from this and other seasons of this series), look at the bottom of the page for links.

We have entered the 1950's, at which point most of the Universal Monsters were being retired, or at the very least put into storage until a new generation could appreciate them.  That is, unless they were being revived by Abbott & Costello.  In 1948, the comic duo teamed up with some of the major stars of the genre (Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney, Jr, and Glenn Strange) reprising their roles for the last time in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.  The film was a hit, and Abbott & Costello saw an opportunity to put themselves in similar situations, meeting more of the Universal Monster canon (you can see my review of their Frankenstein outing below, but I loved the movie).  We're going to get to the second of these films today, with Lou & Bud teaming up with the Invisible Man, though not in the same way as their 1948 outing.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Lou (Costello) and Bud (Abbott...it was not uncommon for the actors to use their same names onscreen), who have just graduated from private detective school.  Their first client is Tommy Nelson (Franz), a boxer who has been accused of murdering their manager & is on the run from the law, and is trying to convince his fiancee Helen (Guild) that he's innocent.  Tommy also wants her uncle Philip to inject him with a serum to make him invisible until he can prove his innocence.  The serum works, and Lou & Bud work with Tommy to try and prove he wasn't the killer, and he was framed as part of a coverup when he refused to throw a match.  They do this through a series of shenanigans involving Lou pretending to be a champion boxer (with Tommy doing most of the work), and in the process they find the real murderer.

The movie is funny, for sure.  My favorite parts were obviously involving Lou (Abbott was a great straight man, but no one comes away from these movies talking about anyone other than Costello), and in particular William Frawley as a dumbfounded police detective who is trying to figure out what's going on, and who thinks that Bud & Lou are involved in some way with the murder.  But it's also a movie that disappoints after Frankenstein, and makes me a little bit reluctant in what might be in store for the remaining Abbott & Costello films, which we'll tackle next season of our Monster Movie films (we have one more Universal Monster horror film this month before we look at a pair of other 1950's horror classics to close the month, but it won't be played for comedy).

That's because while Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is brimming with nods to the horror films that made it possible, Invisible Man isn't really in the same canon as the rest of the stories.  There's only one nod to the original Invisible Man (the serum that is made was invented in this picture by Jack Griffin, the character played by Claude Rains in the original movie), but otherwise this is entirely removed from the Universal Monster canon, and doesn't really contain any of the other characters.  Abbott & Costello would meet both Jekyll & Hyde and the Mummy (their last big-screen dalliance with a Universal Monster), but this was an indication that the only reason audiences were showing up were for the comic duo, and not for the Universal Monsters.  That's fine (I like Abbott & Costello), but compared to the genius of their previous outing, it's a bit of a letdown.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, Werewolf of London, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, The House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Masque of the Red Death