The Invisible Man: Complete Legacy Collection

Great series of movies! Made before any computer enhancements! Fun to watch! Definitely a great addition to my collection.

Gotta love the old, classic monster movies.

With brilliant, groundbreaking special effects Claude Rains' warped scientist Griffin terrorizes the countryside as an invisible killer. Gloria Stuart snubs the wormy Kemp and attempts to humanize and rehabilitate Griffin. Watched as part of the Legacy Collection, this has the great restored remastered version. Picture quality is excellent. After these of course the 'sequels' nose dive all the way to the final resting place of Universal monsters, the inevitable Abbott and Costello crossover. Return • Vincent Price is framed for his brother's death and has his friend render him invisible to extract revenge on the perpetrator. Price does his best descending in mania routine, but can't quite match ol' Claude. Woman •Wacky comedy has a put-upon "model" being turned invisible by a professor trying to impress his deadbeat playboy patron, meanwhile gangsters attempt to steal the secret all while the butler threatens resignation. Series heads over the cliff. Agent •Amusingly a better film than the last two sequels, grandson of Griffin goes under the influence of the drug to work espionage for the US after Japan forces us into the war. Goes to Berlin and fights Sir Cedric Hardwicke as a Nazi (!) and Peter Lorre as a Japanese (!) while romancing the lovely Ilona Massey as a double agent. Laughable but actually works. Revenge •Series takes another dip as an aggrieved anti-hero arrives to reclaim his share of a diamond mine and turns invisible to affect the change. Nobody's likeable in this one and he's taken care of by John Carradine's vengeful hound! Grrrowl! Abbott and Costello Meet •The boys graduate from a detective school and are immediately enjoined to free a framed boxer who becomes invisible and helps Lou the Looper in the ring. Not bad.

Great collection

I was very happy when Universal finally released this Legacy collection on Blu-Ray. I had the DVD release from 2004, but these Blu-ray versions are really well done. High quality on all films. It's hard to say which film is the best because they're all very good and I like how they really cover a multitude of genres. "The Invisible Man" and "The Invisible Man's Revenge" are more about committing crimes and exacting revenge. "The Invisible Man Returns" is classified as horror, but is more of a suspense and crime thriller about a good man wanting to clear his own name before the formula drives him insane. "Invisible Agent" is a World War II Spy thriller. Finally "The Invisible Woman" and the Abbott & Costello films are flat out comedies. My only disappointment is that they didn't create new documentaries. The one documentary that is presented is the same one that was on the DVD release. There is a hi-def documentary about Universal, but it's more general and made for the 100 year anniversary of the studio. Still, highly recommended for anybody who is a fan of old horror and science fiction films.

PHOTO 1: INVISIBLE MAN (1933) with Claude Rains, directed by James Whale, who also directed ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ PHOTO 2: INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS (1940) with Vincent Price. PHOTO 3: INVISIBLE WOMAN (1940) with Virginia Bruce. PHOTO 4: INVISIBLE AGENT (1942) with Jon Hall. PHOTO 5: INVISIBLE MAN’S REVENGE (1944) with Jon Hall. PHOTO 6: ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN (1951) with Arthur Franz. ‘Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948) has a thirty second cameo by Vincent Price as the Invisible Man. That film is not in this box, but the cameo is shown in it's entirety in the documentary on disc one. Back in 2014 Universal released the "Classic Monsters Complete 30 Film Legacy Collection" in a DVD mega-box. All the Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, Invisible Man and Wolf Man movies produced by Universal in the 1930s and '40s, plus + the 1943 “Phantom of the Opera” plus some stragglers from the 1950s. With the “Invisible Man Legacy Collection” everything has finally been re-released on Blu-Ray in improved black & white pictures. It’s amazing how many shades of gray those old negatives had. Quite beautiful pictures. No new extras on Blu-Ray, but all the extras from DVD have been carried over (listed on Amazon’s website). 'The Invisible Man' has audio in English or French + a commentary track + SDH subtitles in English and Spanish. The remaining five films have audio in English + SDH subtitles in English, French and Spanish. See the end of this review for Amazon links to the other Blu-Ray boxes. H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man was always out-of-place in this collection: Science Fiction rather than Horror. Of course Frankenstein was also Science Fiction, but at least he looked scary (actually he was just misunderstood). Technically, the Invisible Man didn’t look like anything. Actor Claude Rains and director James Whale knew H.G. Wells from their time on the London stage in the 1920s. Uniquely, Wells was still alive for the first five of six films (he is on record as disapproving of them, though he had no problem collecting royalties). H.G. Wells died in 1948 and tragically never saw ‘Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man’. The Invisible Man sequels were more diverse than other Universal monster sequels: --- ‘The Invisible Woman’ (1940) was one of those awful comedies that John Barrymore filmed shortly before his death, when his acting was reduced to mugging for the camera. He plays the mad scientist. --- ‘The Invisible Agent’ (1942) was a World War II espionage film: The Invisible Man is an American spy pursued by Cedric Hardwick and Peter Lorre as Nazi and Japanese spies. --- ‘Invisible Man’s Revenge’ (1944) was a crime drama. This Invisible Man is thoroughly despicable: a psychopathic killer even before being injected with the invisibility drug. John Carradine plays the Mad Scientist. BLU-RAY LINKS ON AMAZON: Universal Classic Monsters: Complete 30-Film Collection [Blu-ray ] (but don't order until you've read the last paragraph of this review). Available separately: --- Dracula: Complete Legacy Collection [Blu-ray ] --- Frankenstein: Complete Legacy Collection [Blu-ray ] --- The Mummy: Complete Legacy Collection [Blu-ray ] --- The Wolf Man: Complete Legacy Collection [Blu-ray ] --- Invisible Man: Complete Legacy Collection Blu-Ray: reviewed on this page. --- Phantom of the Opera (1943) [Blu-ray ] * --- Creature From the Black Lagoon: Complete Legacy Collection [Blu-ray ] ** * ‘Phantom of the Opera’ (1943) officially lacks a sequel. Universal considered one, but the finished result is a curiosity, closer to a remake than a sequel. ‘The Climax’ (1944) starred Boris Karloff in a role suspiciously close to the Phantom played by Claude Rains. Plot: “Dr. Hohner (Karloff), house physician at the Vienna Opera, murders the star soprano when his jealousy drives him to madness. Ten years later, another young singer reminds Hohner of the late diva, and the old mania kicks in.” Susannah Foster repeated her role as the object of the Phantom/Dr. Hohner’s obsession. ‘The Climax’ is set in the Vienna Opera, but if the building looks suspiciously like the Paris Opera in ‘Phantom’, that’s because the same movie set was used for both films. Both films were shot in technicolor; expensive back in the 1940s. Only used for prestige productions. ‘The Climax’ is not yet on Blu-Ray (it would make a nice two-disc set with ‘The Phantom of the Opera’), but it is available in a five film, three DVD box: The Boris Karloff Collection (Tower of London / The Black Castle / The Climax / The Strange Door / Night Key) ** 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' blu-ray box: It always annoyed me that Universal included the three film ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ series in this collection. The Creature from the Black Lagoon is not a Universal Studios Classic Monster. He is a 1950’s Universal-International Monster. Completely different. This boxed set was supposed to be the 3-D debut of the second film, ‘Revenge of the Creature’, but Universal Home Video botched the 3-D transfer. If you have a 3-D TV, read the Amazon reviews of Creature From the Black Lagoon: Complete Legacy Collection [Blu-ray ] before ordering. I have never seen so many one-star reviews. I can't comment on it since I don't own a 3-D TV . The blu-rays also include the standard versions of films one and two, which look OK on my TV, but I sympathize with owners of 3-D TVs (I'd like to own one some day). My advice is don't order the Creature from the Black Lagoon blu-ray collection (or the Universal Classic Monsters: Complete 30-Film Collection [Blu-ray ]) until at least September of 2019. That will give them a year to fix the problem. Then only buy it after checking the latest reviews on Amazon. And don't buy used copies. THERE IS NOTHING AT ALL WRONG WITH THE OTHER FIVE MONSTER COLLECTIONS (Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, Wolf Man and Phantom of the Opera), all of which look beautiful on blu-ray.

Wonderful collection of films from the original through to the inevitable, and very funny Abbott and Costello meet up

Tres satisfait.

Schön, alle Filme der Original- Reihe zusammen in einer Edition zu haben! Bild- und Tonqualität schwanken, sind aber durchweg noch gut und jeder Teil ist super besetzt. Claude Rains, Vincent Price, John Barrymore... Diese DVD Box wird wahrscheinlich jedem Klassiker- und Gruselfan gefallen. Ich bin jedenfalls begeistert! Bitte beachten: die Complete Legacy Collection kommt ohne deutsche Tonspur.

This is the complete collection of Invisible Man movies made between 1933 and 1951 by Universal pictures. "THE INVISIBLE MAN" made in 1933 stars Claude Rains in his first Hollywood movie, although you don't see him till near the end. A scientist discovers a formula that turns people invisible but also causes madness. Brilliant special effects. Remember this was before CGI and everything had to be done laboriously and painstakingly. "THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS" made in 1940 stars Vincent Price but you only see him at the end of the movie. A man convicted of a crime he didn't commit is turned invisible by the brother of the scientist in the first film. Invisible, the man goes after the real killer but again madness starts to take hold. Not wanting men to have all the fun "THE INVISIBLE WOMAN" made in 1940 as well told the tale of a woman who when turned invisible seeks to even the score with her ruthless boss played by John Barrymore [Drew Barrymore's grandfather]. Played here for laughs rather than horror it's still an entertaining movie. In 1942 came "INVISIBLE AGENT" with Jon Hall, he of the south sea adventure movies of the 30's and 40's plays the invisible one this time taking on the nazi's. 1944 saw Jon Hall once again take on the role of the invisible man only this time he plays a different character who is a psychopath killer who goes after his friends who he believes did him wrong. 7 years later in 1951 came "ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN" a comic romp to end the franchise. All are very entertaining with bonus material which includes a feature commentary, production photo's and theatrical trailers.

The 1st film was the best but all watchable.