Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man

I am amazed by the special effects in this Abbott and Costello thriller.

An invisible man manages to smoke? How did they do it? This is a fun one since the boys spend most of their time talking to a man they can't see! Creepy for the time...now curl up with it on a rainy day. That's a great way to enjoy Bud and Lou's crime capers!

To me, this is arguably the best of the "A&C Meet…" series. The boys get mixed up with a prizefighter accused of murder who escapes the cops and gangsters by turning invisible with the help of an experimental serum. Naturally, this leads to an array of amusing hijinks.

The comic potential here is greater than in other A&C monster entries (…Meet Frankenstein; … Meet the Mummy; etc.) because the menace here has the power of invisibility. That means the menace can challenge the boys in public without the public knowing it. On the other hand, the other monsters can't mix in public without being seen which narrows the comic potential to haunted houses or other non-public spaces.

For example, take the punching bag scene. It looks like Lou (Costello) has lightning speed rocking the bag when in reality it's the invisible boxer Tommy (Franz) who's doing it. There're a number of set-ups like this where the public is astonished by Lou's apparent powers, while actor Costello milks the comic potential.

That's not to say the other monster entries are not funny to varying degrees. But the monsters are restricted in these movies to scaring everyone in over-the-top fashion, whereas being invisible greatly expands the possibilities, such as the nightclub scene with the poor flummoxed waiter (Syd Saylor) who can't figure out who's doing what.

Anyway, the movie's consistently amusing and inventive. However, I wish we saw more of that great flashy blonde Adele Jergens (Marsden) and that great phony gangster Sheldon Leonard (Morgan). Seeing them together here resembles a match made in some cheap nightclub heaven. All in all, this is one of my A&C favorites among their many comedies.

Bud Abbot and Lou Costello were an amazing comic team who endeared themselves to their fans with the kind of humor they projected; theirs was the kind of good fun with a lot of sight gags that made them one of the favorite duo in the movies for quite a while.

Universal, their studio, decided to showcased them in a series of movies that involved the "monsters" in its roster. This film is not one of those, but because of the usage of the amazing visual effects employed in using the visual effects in the "Invisible Man", it became a winner from the start.

This was one of the best Abbot and Costello's best movies. Both do excellent work under the direction of Charles Lamont. Arthur Franz, who is not "seen" enough is good as Tommy, the man accused of a crime he didn't commit. Sheldon Leonard is one of the gangsters that are manipulating the boxing matches. Nancy Guild and Adele Jergens are welcome additions to the movie.

Best of all are the boxing scenes involving Lou Costello as the amazing new boxer, Lou, "The Looper", who goes to beat Rocky, his better equipped opponent with a little help of his invisible friend.

Personally, I LOVED this one. Up there in A & C's top 3 (I'll let YOU figure out the other two) What made this so good...other than the great "invisible" effects (done by John Fulton who was responsible for those in Universal's original THE INVISIBLE MAN), were the boys themselves who almost moved away from slapstick to semi-straight roles here. Bud and Lou play a couple of newly credentialled detectives assigned to a murder case, the suspect being a boxer (Franz is great here) Lou's sequence in the boxing ring...with the assistance of his "invisible assistant" is a side splitter. The effects if anything, top the original film. Their attempts to prove his innocence make for a very entertaining hour and twenty two minutes.

Most A & C fans recall this one fondly.

could possibly be the second best movie a&c made besides frankenstein