We’re now moving into the later years of the Universal Monsters and that means they tried to revitalize it and inject some new life into the series by leaning into the addition of the comedy team Bud Abbott and Lou Costello to the series.

This time out, the classic comedians are a pair of newly minted detectives that find themselves approached by a possible murderer and boxer, Tommy Nelson (Arthur Franz). He hires the pair to help prove his innocence, he didn’t commit the crime for which he is being hunted.

Helen (Nancy Guild), his girlfriend has her father, Dr. Gray (Gavin Muir) concoct a familiar serum, but Gray warns that Tommy may succumb to the madness that comes with the injection.

Working against the clock, Lou and Bud try to help out, and to do so, Lou has to become a boxer, with some help from an invisible Tommy, of course.

There’s lots of comedic moments throughout the film, while still following the established rules of the franchise. But it does let Bud and Lou have tons of fun, and Lou is always entertaining and wonderful at physical comedy.

The restaurant scene, where Tommy is getting increasingly drunk is hilarious as is the finale which sees Lou in the ring boxing as the baddies try to get him to throw the fight and Tommy fights beside him.

It’s not as fun as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein which is an all-time comedy classic, and features three of the Universal Monsters, but it definitely has some good laughs in it. There’s a nice gag scene with Lou hypnotizing people with a watch and taking money from Bud, and returning it, only to take it again. It’s got a lot of little business that really lets the pair shine.

And the Invisible Man story actually works fairly well here, it’s (re)treading familiar ground, even recycling effects from earlier films, but overall, it’s a fairly entertaining entry in the Universal Monster series, even if a lot of it is played for comedy, and the horror is glossed over.

There are a couple more films for me to dig into before I can say that I have seen all of the Universal Monster movies, and I’ve enjoyed the majority of them, and can see revisiting them on those occasions when I just need something familiar on.

Let’s see what happens next time when Abbott & Costello Meet The Mummy!