Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)

Like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and the rest of their monster meetups, I first read about this film before I actually saw it. And, like both that film and the next one, I first saw it one afternoon on Sci-Fi Channel, although I don't think I saw the whole thing. I remembered the opening credits with the cartoon images of Abbott and Costello as detectives, the scene involving the invisible animals, the moment where Tommy Nelson first turns invisible right in front of Costello, him helping Costello look like a really good boxer in the gym, and a scene in a restaurant where Costello orders some spaghetti and the Invisible Man, in turn, keeps asking for a steak, but I don't think I saw the climactic boxing match or the actual ending until I saw the documentary, Now You See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed, on the Invisible Man Universal Legacy DVD set. As for the movie as a whole, I didn't see it for the first time until I got it in that DVD set with three other Abbott and Costello monster meetups. While it may not be as classic a movie as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I find this to be among the best of these flicks, as well as superior to that movie in some regards. In my opinion, it's one of the most concise and tightly-written, not coming off as bloated as Meet Frankenstein or as convoluted as The Killer, Boris Karloff, and I also think it's fresher in its comedy since it doesn't repeat the routines Abbott and Costello had done numerous times by that point, instead mostly allowing them to focus on the banter and wordplay they were great at, as well as play off their unseen co-star. Speaking of the comedy, there are some truly funny bits and gags here, including a couple that had me cracking up the first time I saw them. The film isn't perfect, as it does suffer from some hiccups in the writing and a couple of lackluster supporting characters, and its use of stock footage, as well as the same basic plot, from The Invisible Man Returns comes off as a bit cheap, but it's still one of the best example of the spooky fun that was to be had with Bud and Lou.

Bud Alexander and Lou Francis graduate from Dugan's Detective Training and promptly get their own office at an established detective agency. Moreover, their first case literally walks right through their door when a man in an overcoat slips into their office and hires them. Unbeknownst to Bud, but plenty clear to Lou, the man is Tommy Nelson, a middleweight boxer who's also a convicted murderer, charged with killing his manager, O'Hara. Having escaped from jail, Tommy brings Bud and Lou to the house where his girlfriend, Helen Gray, lives with her uncle. He intends to have her uncle, Dr. Philip Gray, inject him with the invisibility serum first created by Dr. Griffin so he can find O'Hara's true murderers, but Gray is reluctant out of fear that Tommy will go mad as Griffin did. While watching a football game downstairs, Bud sees a bulletin about Tommy that mentions a $5,000 reward for his capture. Now knowing he is the supposed killer, Bud decides to turn Tommy over to the police and collect the reward, when the police show up at the house. While Helen and Gray try to stall them, Tommy, instead of making a break for it, injects himself with the serum. At first, it doesn't seem to work and he wanders downstairs into the library, where Bud and Lou are waiting. Seeing their chance, Bud goes to get the police, when the formula finally kicks in and Tommy becomes invisible right in front of Lou. After a stint at the police station where Lou about drives the police psychiatrist out of his head, he and Bud return to their office, where they meet Helen, who tells them that Tommy wants them to help prove his innocence. Under her instructions, they head to a spot with a suitcase full of clothes for him, although Bud calls the police to meet them there so. It's only after the cops have gone after, again, seeing no sign of Tommy that he reveals his invisibility to Bud and persuades the two of them into helping him. Believing O'Hara was killed because he refused to throw a fight with another boxer named Rocky Hanlon, he has Bud and Lou go to the gym where Hanlon works out and makes it seem as though Lou is an amazing, undiscovered boxer. As a result of the press coverage he gets, a bout is arranged between him and Hanlon. Knowing that Hanlon's gangster promoter, Morgan, will arrange for Lou to throw that fight, Tommy intends to double-cross him by helping Lou win the fight so he'll expose himself as the one who killed O'Hara. But, as things grow more dangerous, Bud and Lou start to come up with plans of their own. Worst of all, Tommy is starting to show the mental effects of the serum, as he's becoming increasingly unstable and power hungry.

As was the case with Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, this film began life as something totally different, specifically as another straight Invisible Man film, the last of which Universal produced in 1944. But, again, with the success of Meet Frankenstein, the studio decided to reconfigure it as another meetup with Abbott and Costello. While Charles Barton, the director behind their two previous horror-comedies, wouldn't work with them again until their last movie as a team, this was directed by another man who'd worked with them before: Charles Lamont. Lamont had first directed the duo in their 1943 film, Hit the Ice, and before that had done a number of short subjects, including the "Baby Burlesk" films that kickstarted Shirley Temple's career, as well as many shorts featuring Buster Keaton. The 1950 film, Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion, was only the second time Lamont worked with Bud and Lou, but after Meet the Invisible Man, he would direct most of their last batch of movies for Universal.

As was common in their later movies, Abbott and Costello go by their real first names here, and what's more, their characters' respective surnames, Alexander and Francis, are their real-life middle names. Here, they're two private detectives who have just graduated from school and set up their own office at a respected agency. They're both eager to get their first case and listen in some police calls, hoping to get a tip. Much to their surprise, their first case walks right into their office when Tommy Nelson shows up, on the run from the police. Although Lou quickly realizes who he is from a description given out by a police bulletin, Bud doesn't put it together until he sees his picture on a TV set at Helen's house after Tommy has hired them to take his case. Hearing of a $5,000 reward for his capture, Bud decides to turn him over to the police to collect the money. That scheme seems to go out the window when the cops arrive at the house on their own, but Bud decides to try to catch Tommy before they do, and when he hides in the same room as them, Bud goes to fetch the police and leaves Lou to watch him. That's when the invisibility serum kicks in and Tommy vanishes right in front of Lou, who then faints when he seems him remove his clothes. When Bud brings Detective Roberts into the room, Lou, after they've snapped him out of his stupor, tells them what happened. Roberts declares Lou to be insane and takes him to see a police psychiatrist, while Bud is mad at him for apparently letting Tommy escape. At the station, Lou about drives the psychiatrist, Dr. James C. Turner, batty. Their first bit of questioning goes like this: "Do you always see things?" "Only when my eyes are open." "And have you ever seen anyone disappear before?" "Well, my brother and I, we were walking down the street... all of a sudden, he disappeared." "Into thin air?" "No, into a manhole." "How about voices? Do you ever hear strange voices coming out of the air?" "Yes, sir." "Uh-huh. When does this happen?" "When I get the wrong number on the telephone." It gets even worse when Turner tries to hypnotize Lou, only for it to not work when he first tries it with eye contact and then, when he tries it with a swinging watch, Lou is too dumb for it to work. He himself then takes the watch and ends up accidentally hypnotizing Turner with it. On top of that, people keep coming in to see what's going on and Lou shows them what Turner was trying to do, and by the time Bud and Roberts check on him, he has a bunch of cops and two cleaning ladies out cold. When Turner is awakened, he promptly throws both Lou and Bud out. 

When they're back at their office, they're surprised to find Helen there. She asks them to help Tommy prove his innocence, giving them a retainer of $500 and a suitcase of clothes to take to Tommy at a nearby park. After she leaves, Bud becomes confused as to why a man who's supposedly invisible would want clothes and thinks Lou's in on it and that Tommy paid him off to help him escape. Following a moment where Bud finds $500 in Lou's pocket, not knowing it's the very money Helen just gave them, as

Lou slipped it into his pocket behind his back, and takes it from him, only for Lou to continuously take all or some of it back, they head out to meet with Tommy. However, Bud calls the police to meet up with them so he and Lou can claim the reward money. Lou's the one who takes the case of clothes into the woods so Tommy can dress and he then appears to both of them in the usual Invisible Man disguise of bandages and goggles. Bud, still unaware that he really is invisible,

promises to help Tommy, when the police show up. Like before, Tommy removes all of his clothes and appears to have fled the scene. After an irritated Roberts and the police leave, Bud is about to beat on Lou for, again, seemingly letting Tommy escape, when Tommy makes his presence known, threatening to beat the hell out of them if they ever double-cross him again. He basically takes them hostage, but when he tells them the story of how he found his manager dead in the dressing room, they begin to believe he didn't murder him and

decide to help him prove his innocence. They go to the gym frequented by Rocky Hanlon, the boxer whose gangster promoter, Morgan, is believed to have murdered Tommy's manager, and Tommy makes it look as if Lou is a spectacular boxing prodigy. With the press coverage eating up his apparent skill, Lou is then granted an actual fight with Hanlon, part of Tommy's plan to prove Morgan's guilt. Between that, their having to help Tommy evade Roberts, Morgan using his moll to convince Lou to throw the fight, and Tommy's growing megalomania from the serum, the boys have found themselves in quite the pickle. At one point, they try to get a phonograph recording of the moll, Boots Marsden, trying to talk Lou into taking a dive, but Lou accidentally destroys the record.

Tommy's rash plan to double-cross Morgan puts Bud in danger as well, since Morgan is likely to try to kill Bud since he's acting as Lou's manager and have Lou framed for it. Lou doesn't have it so good either, as the night of the fight, Tommy is detained from getting there on time, prompting him to try to keep the match from happening. When they're given $15,000 to throw it, Bud considers doing it, only for Tommy to show up and persuade them not to. The fight doesn't go off 100%

smooth, as Lou accidentally knocks Tommy out at one point, and another time, Tommy momentarily leaves the ring, both making Lou a sitting duck for Hanlon. Plus, every time Hanlon gets a punch, Bud can feel his own life shortening. Of course, Tommy helps Lou win the fight and also gets confirmation that Morgan does plan to try to pull the same scheme he did with Tommy and his manager. When Bud and Lou get back to the dressing room, they find Morgan and one of his men waiting for them, but Tommy intervenes and they're able to capture them. Tommy is badly wounded in the fight but survives due to a blood transfusion from Lou, although the transfusion results in some of Tommy's blood going into Lou, leading to some surprising consequences.

Like I said in my review of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, even though this isn't a real sequel to that, I think it would have been nice if they'd kept Vincent Price as the Invisible Man after he'd voiced the character in his brief appearance at the end of that movie. It wouldn't have been as big of a coup at the time, as Price wasn't yet the big horror star we all remember him as, and since this movie has the same basic plot of The Invisible Man Returns, which he starred in, it might have truly felt like a repeat, but I think I would have preferred him to the Invisible Man we do have here: Tommy Nelson (Arthur Franz). As much as I enjoy this movie, I'm not too fond of this character, not because of Franz himself, as he was a capable enough actor, but because Tommy, after starting out okay, becomes rather unlikable as the film goes on. Like Price's Sir Geoffrey Radcliffe in The Invisible Man Returns, Tommy is a man who's been accused of a murder he didn't commit, in this case, the death of his manager, and uses the invisibility serum to try to find the real killer. When he's first introduced, he comes off as desperate, having just escaped from jail and getting Bud and Lou to drive him to his girlfriend's house under the pretense of hiring them for a case. He comes off as a bit brutish in his attitude toward both his girlfriend, Helen, and her uncle, Dr. Gray, whom he's counting on to make him invisible, but it's understandable, given the stress he's under. It gets even worse for him when Gray is reluctant to use the serum for fear of him going insane like Dr. Griffin did, but Tommy is willing to take that chance, seeing as how he'll get the electric chair if he doesn't clear himself. When Gray leaves him alone in the lab, Tommy takes matters into his own hands and injects himself, eventually becoming invisible and discarding his clothes in front of a terrified Lou. Later, when Bud and Lou are talked into meeting up with him to help clear himself, bringing him a case full of clothes, Tommy, already aware that Bud was planning to turn him in to the police before, becomes even madder when he tries it again and threatens to beat them senseless if they double-cross him again. Like I said before, he basically takes them hostage, but when he convinces them of his innocence, they decide to help him.

Tommy's plan is a reckless one, as he puts Bud and Lou in the sights of both boxer Rocky Hanlon and his gangster promoter, Morgan, arranging it so Lou ends up in the ring with Hanlon and making Bud a target for Morgan when they double-cross him on the dive he wants Lou to take. He even has them stay a high-class apartment and eat at a fancy restaurant to make sure they get Morgan's attention, and while they're at the restaurant, he causes trouble for them by adding a steak to Lou's order of spaghetti,

munching on a piece of celery in full view of the waiter, and even eating from Lou's plate. On top of that, he gets progressively drunk and belligerent as the evening goes on, becoming loud and obnoxious and drawing attention to them, as well as becoming meaner. He also starts taking other people's drinks and gets Bud punched in the face and Lou knocked over the head with a mallet. Worst of all, his drunkenness aggravates the negative effects of the serum, as he becomes more

and more gripped by power, talking about having followers and worshipers and saying that friendship isn't all it's cracked up to be. Eventually, he himself gets knocked unconscious and is carried out by Bud and Lou. He still plans to go through with his plan, although he runs into a momentary snag when he finds Gray has strapped him to a table in his laboratory, unwilling to let him go out of fear of what this could do to his standing in the medical profession. He manages to break his straps and joins Bud and Lou at the fight, just in time to overhear

Bud contemplating taking the fall and collecting the money. Threatening to make Lou fight Hanlon alone, he gets them to go through with it, regardless of the increasing threat towards Bud's life. Early in the fight, he threatens to let Hanlon beat on Lou for the whole ten rounds if he tries to throw it, and he even leaves the ring at one point to listen in on a conversation Morgan has with his boys, leaving Lou defenseless and allowing Hanlon to beat the crud out of him. In the end, though, Tommy does help Lou win the fight and comes through for them when Morgan and one of his goons corners them in the dressing room, but he's more intent on getting Morgan to confess his guilt and gets overly confident in his invisibility. Eventually, he gets a knife to the chest, but his life is saved through a blood transfusion and they're then able to restore him to visibility.

Only once in the movie does Tommy appear in the classic Invisible Man getup of a suit combined with bandages and dark glasses to cover the face and eyes, and after he discards it to hide from the police for the second time, he stays fully invisible for about the entire movie, save for a scene where he wears a robe and when his silhouette becomes visible through some steam. During filming, Arthur Franz had a stand-in, actor James Best, and I'm not sure which one of them appeared in the bandages

or wore the suit of black felt necessary for the scenes where the invisible Tommy is partially clothed, but for much of the movie, Franz merely had to speak his dialogue from offscreen. What's really crazy is that, unlike Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein's dubious at best connection with its monsters' past films, this is very much in canon with the original Invisible Man from 1933. Not only are Jack Griffin (or John Griffin, as he's called here and in some of the other films) and the events of that movie mentioned, but a picture of Claude Rains is seen hanging on Dr. Gray's laboratory wall. And surprisingly, this isn't as hard to swallow as you might expect, mainly because that movie is a very funny film in its own right, as are many of the other invisible movies produced by Universal afterward.

Unfortunately, another thing this movie shares with the original Invisible Man is a very weak female lead in the form of Tommy's girlfriend, Helen Gray (Nancy Guild). Like Gloria Stuart's character of Flora in that film, Helen (which is also the same first name as that of Radcliffe's girl in The Invisible Man Returns) doesn't have much to do except be concerned for Tommy, both over his rash decisions before he becomes invisible and the signs of insanity that start manifesting shortly

afterward. The same goes for her uncle, Dr. Philip Gray (Gavin Muir), who was willed the serum by Griffin (that doesn't seem like something Griffin would have done, but whatever) and is reluctant to inject Tommy to begin with, given the risk of madness and because he hasn't found a method of restoring visibility yet. When Tommy injects himself with it anyway, Gray works tirelessly to find a reagent, but after Tommy gets knocked out at the restaurant and Bud and Lou bring him to the laboratory, Gray, unbeknownst to everyone else, straps him to a table. He intends not to let him go, fearful of what the medical profession will do if they find out he's behind the creation of an invisible man, a plot-point that doesn't go anywhere, as Tommy escapes offscreen and, by the time Helen and Gray make it to the arena, the fight is over and he's nowhere to be found. Gray reveals he's found the reagent, but their presence attracts the attention of Detective Roberts, just as Helen did earlier when she went to see Tommy at the apartment. Eventually, they find the badly wounded Tommy after he's proven his innocence and, at the hospital, Gray is able to restore him to visibility following a blood transfusion from Lou.

Throughout the movie's first half, Detective Roberts (William Frawley) finds himself frustrated and exasperated by Bud and Lou and their apparent interference in his attempts to nab Tommy. After Lou claims that Tommy disappeared into thin air right in front of him, Roberts, convinced he's a nutjob, has him see the police psychiatrist, only for that to go absolutely nowhere. He's doubly furious when Bud calls him to the spot where he and Lou are to meet up with Tommy, only for him to seemingly escape capture again, and he leaves the spot in anger, hating himself for even listening to Bud. He meets up with the boys again when he trails Helen to the apartment they're staying at with Tommy, knowing she went there to see him. Of course, he finds no sign of Tommy, even when he yanks off a tablecloth covering the figure of a man sitting in the room, and he still doesn't think there's anything to their claims of invisibility, despite his sitting in on Dr. Turner talking with a cop who saw a car being driven by no one. He also sees Bud and Lou carrying Tommy's invisible body out of the restaurant, prompting him to see Turner as a patient himself, and comes to think it's just his mind playing tricks on him. Eventually, Roberts ends up at the arena the night of the fight and, knowing that Lou couldn't have defeated Rocky Hanlon by himself, confronts Helen and Dr. Gray. They take him to Lou's dressing room, only to be stonewalled by one of Morgan's men, who's dressed up as a cop to keep anyone from interfering with Morgan rubbing Bud and Lou out. Eventually, Roberts is able to get past the fake cop and have him arrested, and he also gets into the dressing room in time to do the same to Morgan and another of his goons, but still doesn't know what to make of the others' talking about someone he doesn't see. He's not present when Tommy is restored to visibility, and at the end of the movie, he sees Lou's own invisible antics, prompting him to run back upstairs, yelling for the doctor.

Dr. James C. Turner (Paul Maxey), the police psychiatrist, becomes part of a running gag following his first exasperating meeting with Lou, where Lou gives dumb answers to his questions, doesn't respond to his attempts at hypnosis, and even hypnotizes him... twice! When a motorcycle cop tries to pull over Bud and Lou, only to find the car is being driven by the invisible Tommy, the cop is then seen undergoing hypnosis by Turner, saying, "I saw a car with nobody drivin' somebody." And later, after Roberts sees Bud and Lou carrying Tommy's unseen body, he undergoes hypnosis himself, telling Turner, "I saw two men carrying no man," as the doctor looks more bewildered than ever.

Sheldon Leonard, whom we saw in Zombies On Broadway as gangster Ace Miller, plays a similar role here as Morgan, boxer Rocky Hanlon's promoter who fixes it so Hanlon's opponents throw the fights. Having killed Tommy's manager, O'Hara, and framed Tommy for the murder when he didn't throw his fight with Hanlon, he makes the same deal with Bud and Lou when the latter is set to fight Hanlon under the title of "Louie the Looper." Morgan is a much more dour and no

nonsense character than Miller, telling one of his men in his first appearance to make sure the manager of Hanlon's next opponent knows his fighter is to take a dive in the sixth round, adding to remind him of what happened to O'Hara as added encouragement. Once Lou becomes Hanlon's next opponent instead, Morgan has his moll, Boots Marsden (Adele Jergens), come on to and try to seduce him into throwing the fight, saying the right punch at the right moment could ruin his "profile." She allows Lou to pick the match in which he's to take the dive, with Lou trying to record their conversation with a phonograph, only to accidentally sit on and crush the record at one point. During the climactic boxing match, Morgan glares at Bud as Lou continues to seemingly deliver blow after blow to Hanlon, while Boots cheers on Hanlon to kick Lou's ass. Knowing there's something not right about what's happening, Morgan decides to lay the same trap he did for Tommy and O'Hara, but this time, Tommy is able to use his invisibility to save Bud and Lou, managing to disarm Morgan so Bud can knock him out. Though one of Morgan's men manages to stick Tommy with a knife, Morgan and his gang are arrested in the end.

In terms of look and tone, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man is fairly average when compared to some of these other movies. I don't mean that as a con, I'm just saying that it doesn't have what made the two previous ones more unique, be it Meet Frankenstein's legendary gimmick of the boys encountering three classic monster or The Killer, Boris Karloff's macabre edge and black humor. There is something of a hardness to this story in that it deals with gangsters and an innocent man trying to clear his name, but after

a movie that had dead bodies onscreen for extended periods of time, this feels like nothing. Speaking of which, the comedy and humor is more typical of Abbott and Costello, with a lot of wordplay and snappy exchanges rather than them freaking out and running from monsters or having to deal with hiding and propping up corpses. Also, with Charles Van Enger no longer the cinematographer, the movie has more of a straightforward, stark black-and-white look, with few instances of the deep shadows and moody lighting

from the previous ones (although some of the exterior nighttime scenes do have a kind of eerie glow to them), and none of the sets are anything to write home about. The art direction certainly shows off nice production values, with the interiors of Helen's large home, Bud and Lou's fancy apartment, and the restaurant they eat at all looking nice, as do the less fancy sets like the interior of the police station, the gym, the boxing ring, and the fighters' dressing rooms, but they're commonplace

locations rather than unique settings like Sandra Mornay's island castle and they don't have the feel to them that the Lost Caverns Hotel did. Also, since he's not a mad scientist, Dr. Gray's laboratory is small and low-tech, rather than big and Frankenstein-like. That said, there are some noteworthy exteriors, like the outside of Sandra's house, which has an old-fashioned, creepy mansion vibe (it was later refurbished for the Munsters' home), and the fog-filled woods where Bud and Lou meet up with Tommy, complete with an old-fashioned streetlamp on the edge of the road right outside it, but for the most part, this movie, while well-produced, is fairly standard.

While we're on the subject of that wooded area, I have a feeling one of the reasons why they made that set was so they could match it with stock footage from The Invisible Man Returns, specifically a bit that shows the suitcase with the clothes and bandages being opened by invisible hands, as well as possibly shots of Tommy walking through the brush. It's one of several instances where shots from that film are used, the others coming earlier in Dr. Gray's laboratory, where Gray shows Tommy he's developed the invisibility serum by injecting a guinea pig that then

disappears, first by its flesh becoming transparent, followed by the bones. That's a shot from the earlier movie of Frank Griffin restoring an already invisible guinea pig to visibility, just played in reverse. And when Gray takes the guinea pig and puts it in a cage, the shot of its little harness seemingly wandering around the inside of its cage is also from the older film. Even though The Invisible Man Returns doesn't seem to be canon here, this reuse of footage does make it

relevant, along with the original Invisible Man, but it also suggests that the budget may have been a little on the low side. The fair amount of original, complicated effects shots that are here does hint at a decent budget, but the use of this stock footage, along with how Tommy's presence is mostly indicated by just his voice, says they didn't exactly have money falling out of their pockets, either (and, upon looking it up, this one seems to have had a budget that was at least $100,000 less than any of the other Abbott and Costello horror-comedies, save for Hold That Ghost).

Going back to what I said about the movie being "average," while it may not have the elaborate sets, moody cinematography, and classic gimmick of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein or the uniquely macabre tone and black humor of The Killer, Boris Karloff, what it does have over both of them is a simple and concise story. It's not as overstuffed or buckling under its own weight as I felt Meet Frankenstein was at points, and it's not as complex or hard to follow as the murder mystery in The Killer, Boris Karloff. Instead, the plot is to the

point: Tommy has been sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit and needs the boys to help clear his name, while also using the invisibility serum to get information by spying on people. Granted, you have the complication that arises from Tommy's plan being so reckless that it puts Bud and Lou in serious danger, so much so that they sometimes try to run out on him, but it doesn't make it hard to follow. The only hitch in the story is that, unlike in The Invisible Man

Returns, the maddening effects of the serum don't ever become truly significant. After the stretch of the movie where Tommy begins to show the first signs of insanity and is then gripped by megalomania when he becomes drunk at the restaurant, it goes away during the third act when he helps Lou win the fight against Rocky Hanlon. He just goes back to being the same reckless, brutish, and intimidating guy he started out as, with the only hint of that insanity being when he grows overly confident during the confrontation with Morgan in Lou's dressing room, leading to him being stabbed.

All of the Invisible Man movies produced by Universal are well known for their amazing and groundbreaking special effects, with two of them having been nominated for Oscars, and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man is no exception. As I've said, a number of times when Tommy Nelson is completely invisible, the effect is achieved through nothing more than Arthur Franz delivering his dialogue from offscreen, whereas other times, they either have the other actors mimic being punched by unseen fists or use simple physical

effects to simulate parts their clothes being grabbed or objects being moved. The most impressive example of the latter is at the beginning of the third act, when Tommy is strapped to a table in Dr. Gray's lab and they have these individual straps that slowly move back and forth, simulating the effect of an invisible body rocking back and forth within them, as well as a headpiece on the pillow that makes it seem as though Tommy's unseen head is lying back with an ice-bag on it that's being held in place by bandages. But, you do get instances of

an Invisible Man who's either half-dressed or taking off his clothes, and the effect is just as cool to look at as it always was, as are the shots of someone turning invisible. I always remembered the moment when you first see Tommy disappear, where he throws back his head and laughs, his entire face becomes invisible, save for his upper teeth, and then they disappear as well. (That latter part is a curious detail, but a memorable one.) Tommy re-materializing at the end of the movie is

another effect that was first seen in The Invisible Man Returns, only it's much more detailed, with the blood vessels and veins appearing in a manner that makes it look as though you can first see the blood itself running through the veins before they actually become visible. And as has also been seen in previous movies, there's a moment where Tommy's silhouette is visible when he's enveloped in steam, making for another interesting effect. Where the effects become dated, however, is

whenever practical elements, like Tommy's clothes, other objects, or even other actors' hands interact with the parts of him that are matted out, as the whites and outlines become noticeably sharper and more pronounced. Sadly, the poorest effect is one the movie ends on, where Lou, after becoming invisible himself when some of Tommy's blood goes into him during the transfusion, re-materializes a few moments later and is seen running back and forth down a hallway. The long shots, with the very last one being him running backwards and smashing through a door at the end of a hall, look very wonky in their compositing, and yet, it oddly fits, since it's meant to be a funny moment.

Unlike the fully animated opening credits sequences of their previous horror-comedies, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man instead has a series of drawings depicting caricatures of Bud and Lou dressed up as detectives who then encounter the Invisible Man, only for him to disappear while standing between them. You then see them examining his footprints and a final image of them strapped to a psychiatrist's couch, with Bud making a gun with his hand and putting it to his temple,

while Lou lies beside him, his finger to his mouth. When the movie truly begins, even though you're watching a series of feet as they walk up an aisle, you know when you're introduced to Lou, as he walks in a skipping manner and nearly trips on the hem of the graduation gown he's wearing. He and Bud head to the front of the room as they prepare to graduate from Dugan's Detective Training, when Lou, after nearly tripping again, falls over with the chair he sits on. He quickly gets

back up, then sees he somehow ended up with a derby instead of his cap and promptly replaces it. The graduates then stand, as do everyone in the audience, and they begin singing, while Lou is moved to tears. He wonders how he graduated and Bud whispers, "I slipped the guy twenty bucks," telling him to be quiet. While the song goes on, the camera pans across a blackboard detailing various crimes and aspects of detective-work, with the last being a "payoff." The song finishes and everyone sits down, as Dugan tells them, "Men, I have taught

you all I know. You've studied hard and learned well... most of you." He begins handing out diplomas, first calling Bud up. Handing the diploma to him, he tells him that he, like the rest of the graduates, will receive a trial with a recognized detective agency. He then calls on Lou, who happily takes his diploma and unfurls it, looking at the text that certifies him as a private investigator with awe.

The scene transitions with Lou putting his diploma on the wall of his and Bud's office, as he's dressed in a stereotypical, Sherlock Holmes-style detective outfit with the hat, large pipe, and a big magnifying glass. Bud tells him a detective has to dress in a way that it's inconspicuous, and is even more confused when Lou licks his magnifying glass as though it were a lollipop. He tells him to turn on the police calls, hoping that they get a tip on a robbery or a murder, and they imagine what it

would be like to follow the culprit to his hideout, search it, and then confront him. Just as Lou exclaims, "And suddenly, the murderer comes in!", a man in an overcoat and hat steps into their office, closes the door, and turns out the light. After peeking out the door, he goes to the window, looks out, and brings down the blind. He then asks Bud and Lou if they're interested in a case, when they overhear the police calls mention a bulletin for Tommy Nelson, an escaped murderer, and give out

his physical description. Lou quickly notices that the description describes their new client, right down to the clothes he's wearing, while Bud absentmindedly remembers that Nelson was the boxer who killed his manager and tells the man he'd grab him if they weren't taking his case. While the man makes a phone call, Lou tells Bud, "Excuse me. I don't think you have to look very far," but he ignores his warning, writing down the description. Lou gets a closer look at the man with his magnifying glass and, at one point, he glares

right at him, his face distorted by the glass, which freaks Lou out. He runs beside Bud and tells him, "If that ain't Tommy Nelson, it's Frankenstein. Frankenstein!" The man makes his call, speaking with someone named Helen, and tells her he needs to see "the doctor." Hanging up, he tells the boys to take him to 823 Maple Street, where he'll give them the details of the case. As they're about to head out, their clock suddenly dings (even though it's 8:30) and he suddenly goes into a boxing stance, acting like he's going to punch Lou, who quickly ducks behind Bud. He tells him the man is definitely Tommy Nelson but Bud still doesn't listen and they leave with the possible murderer.

Arriving at the large house at 823 Maple Street, there's a moment where Lou, holding a flashlight, says he can't see anything and Bud points out that he's holding it the wrong way and doesn't even have it turned on. When he does turn it on, he's horrified when he sees the shadow of what looks like a bat in the flashlight's beam, but Bud looks at the lens to see that the shadow is being cast by a moth sitting on it. He tosses the light back in the car, while Tommy, after ringing the door, motions

for them to come on up. Inside, Tommy is greeted by Helen, whom he embraces. He tells her he needs to see the doctor and asks Bud and Lou to wait in the library. The guys watch the couple go up the stairs, when Lou swings around and accidentally smacks Bud in the face. He, again, tells him the guy is the escaped killer, seeing as how Helen called him Tommy, but Bud asks, "What would an escaped killer want two private detectives for?" Lou's answer: "So he can catch

himself?" With that, Bud drags Lou into the library. Upstairs, in a small laboratory, we have the scene where Dr. Gray uses a guinea pig to prove he's managed to recreate Dr. Griffin's invisibility serum but also warns Tommy that he could potentially go insane from it the way Griffin himself did. Back downstairs, in the library, Bud and Lou are watching a football game on a TV set, when another bulletin comes on about Tommy Nelson, this time with a picture of him. Realizing Lou was right, Bud decides to turn Tommy in to

the police and collect the reward of $5,000. Lou argues that Tommy hired them but Bud says, "Nevertheless, he's a rat... Because he didn't tell us there was a reward for him." Both they and the people upstairs then look out the window to see the police arrive. For some reason, Lou thinks they're after them and suggests they sneak out, when Bud stops him. He asks, "What am I running for? Am I crook?", and Lou responds, "Do you want me to answer that?" Up in the lab, Tommy sends Helen and Gray down to stall the police while he tries to

escape through the back. Alone in the lab, he spies the syringe containing the serum and injects himself. Hearing the door ring downstairs, he walks to a mirror and waits to see himself disappear. Downstairs, Gray tells Helen that, because the cops have a legal search warrant, they can't do anything to stop them. Detective Roberts decides to search upstairs with one of his men, tells another to cover the back, and another to stay downstairs. Bud and Lou watch through a crack in the door to the library and then close it, only to mash Lou's fingers in it; Bud has to pull his hand out while also trying to keep Lou quiet. Helen and Gray can only follow the cops as they head upstairs, while Tommy, who still hasn't turned invisible, hears them coming and slips out a back door in the lab.

In the library, Bud paces back and forth, frustrated by the situation, while Lou nervously mimics his gestures. He tells Lou they need to somehow catch Nelson before the cops in order to get the reward, and attempts to watch out in the hall while leaving Lou in the room by himself. Tommy then walks into the library through a door on the opposite side of the room and Bud takes the opportunity, slipping out the door and locking it behind him, despite Lou protesting about being

locked in there too. As Tommy stumbles around, not paying attention to him, Lou walks up to him, tells him he doesn't want the reward, and says he's on his side. He shakes his hand, when it suddenly disappears. Tommy begins laughing as his entire head becomes invisible, save for his upper row of teeth, and Lou looks up to see the floating teeth disappear into thin air as well. Speechless and terrified, Lou backs away, falling over a table and trying to get out, as Tommy begins

removing his clothes. When he gets down to his pants, unbuttoning and dropping them, Lou promptly faints up against the door (invisible or not, you'd probably do the same). Outside, Bud leads Roberts and the others down the stairs, telling the detective that they get the reward, adding, "My pal's got him covered. That boy is always on his toes!", but when he opens the door, Lou falls backwards onto the floor. Walking inside, they're shocked to find nothing but Tommy's clothes in a pile on the floor. They rush back to Lou, get him on his feet, and try to rouse

him, with Roberts giving him some smelling salts, which cause his cap to pop off his head. He's so rattled that he starts talking to Roberts as if he's Bud, when Bud himself corrects him and asks where Tommy went. He says he disappeared, and when Roberts asks how he got out, Lou says, "In installments... He did a Gypsy Rose Lee." He leads them into the room and back to the pile of clothes, saying it's all that's left of him. Roberts believes Nelson changed clothes, but when asked what he was wearing when he last saw him, Lou answers,

"Air. Nothing but air. And then, he asked me how he looked." In the hall, Helen and Gray overhear this and realize what it means, while Bud elaborates, "He was standing right here. And then, I shook hands with him, his hand was gone. And then, I went to speak to him... his head was gone. Then he took off his shirt, his body was gone! He took off his pants, his legs were gone! And then, he spoke to me... I was gone." Deciding Lou's crazy, Roberts asks him to come along to the station and tell it all to a "real nice man." Placating him, Roberts says stuff like that happens all the time. Lou asks, "They do? Where've I been?", and Roberts says, "I don't know where you've been, but I know where you're going." 

On the way out, Bud kicks Lou, admonishing him for letting Tommy get away, when Tommy's voice snarls, "Double-crosser!", and kicks Bud in the rear. Recoiling from it, Bud thinks Lou somehow did it and prepares to backhand him, when he gets kicked in the shin. He lunges at Lou, but Roberts comes in, breaks up the argument, and escorts them both out, telling Lou, "Now, don't keep the nice man waiting." When the room is seemingly empty, the newly invisible Tommy takes a cigarette out of a case, lights it, and smokes a little bit. Still holding and puffing the cigarette, he heads out the front door.

At the police station, Lou has a session with the police psychiatrist, Dr. James C. Turner, and the answers to his questions nearly drive the doctor bonkers, to the point where he's placing his hand on his forehead, which Lou takes as a sign that he has a headache. Turner tells him, "Suppose you go over there and lie down," and Lou says, "Why? Don't you believe me sittin' here?" Turner makes him go over to the couch, only for Lou to make him lie down on it while he sits on

the chair, asking, "Now, uh, tell me: what's wrong with me?" That's when Turner realizes what just happened and makes Lou switch places with him. He tells him they can get the truth through the subconscious mind and asks if he knows where it comes from. Lou's response: "The subway?" Letting out an exasperated sigh, Turner tells Lou to look into his eyes and tells him he's going to sleep. He repeats his instruction to do so, and Lou starts saying the same, only to randomly start counting,

leading to this exchange: "What are you doing?" "I'm countin' cows." "Cows?!" "I'm allergic to sheep." Turner, again, tries to get him to go to sleep, but the way he's saying "sleep" has a detectable air of aggravation and he's clearly just restraining himself from choking him. It seems to work, as Lou slumps down on the couch. Turner tells him he's now asleep, only for Lou's head to jerk up and he asks, "I am?" Becoming more frustrated, Turner pulls out a watch and tells Lou to concentrate on it as he twirls it in midair in front of

him, saying, "Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock," only for Lou, who looks like he is being hypnotized, to gasp and comment, "You forgot to say, 'The mouse went up the clock.'" Turner tells Lou he needs to go to sleep but Lou, taking the watch, says he's too busy looking at it. He twirls it absentmindedly in front of his and Turner's faces, only for Turner to end up being hypnotized and falling asleep when he makes the mistake of looking at the watch.

Outside in the police station, Roberts asks an officer to go check and see how Turner's session with Lou is going. He goes into Turner's office to find Lou desperately trying to awaken the doctor from his trance and, when asked, describes what Turner was doing, right down to twirling the watch and how he was saying, "Sleep, sleep," and, "Tick, tock, tick, tock." The officer ends up focusing on the watch and promptly passes out on the couch, with Lou panicking even more when he sees he did

it again. Out in the hall, two more officers see that the light is on in Turner's office and walk inside, curious as to why he's there so late. Meanwhile, Bud is with Roberts, who's trying to make a call to Turner's office but can't get anyone to answer the phone. By this point, Lou has the two officers from before, as well as two cleaning women seen outside in the hall, passed out in the office and is desperately trying to find a way to wake them up. Roberts and Bud walk in to see what's happened and Roberts wakes Turner up. The doctor asks

what happened and Lou reminds him of how he was trying to put him to sleep with the watch, only to twirl it in front of his face again while saying, "Tick, tock, tick, tock," causing him to conk out once more. Lou quickly whistles, awakening Turner, who yanks the watch out of his hand and yells for him to get out. When he and Bud are gone, Roberts asks Turner if he found out anything and Turner growls, "Yes. Once before, he saw his brother disappear... into a sewer!"

Back in their office, Bud chides Lou for messing up their first case and for proving to the cops that he's an idiot, to which Lou clarifies, "I did not; they did." The sudden sound of the window's blind flying up nearly sends Lou running out the door, but it turns out to be Helen. She tells them that Tommy wants them to help prove his innocence and she has a $500 retainer for them. She then tells them they're to take a suitcase to the woody south end of Riverside Park, where Tommy will

meet up with them, and she then gives Bud the $500. Bud goes to put it in his right coat pocket, only for Lou to stretch out his own, causing him to put it in there instead. On her way out, Helen tells Bud to tell Tommy that Gray is working on the reagent. When she's gone, Bud inspects the suitcase and finds it's full of clothes. Wondering why someone who's invisible would want clothes to be taken to him, he then thinks Helen and Lou are in some conspiracy, demanding Lou say

how much Tommy paid him in order to allow him to escape. He pats him down and finds the $500, thinking it's the answer, not knowing it's the money Helen just gave him. Telling him he's not going to get any part of the $1,000 he thinks he now has, he goes to put the 500 into his pocket, when Lou pulls the same trick he did before. This time, he figures it out and takes the money back. He slams it on the table, telling him to leave it alone, but Lou takes one of the bills when he's looking away. Bud still spots him and demands he give him

back the bill. Lou feigns handing it to him, keeping it in his own hand when Bud tries to take it, and Bud, again knowing what happened, tells him to put it in his hand and leave it there. Lou does put it in his hand, but then reaches under with his other hand and takes it. Aggravated, he takes the bill back, puts it in Lou's hand, and tells him to put it in his hand and leave it there. This time, Lou does leave it there, but he picks another bill out of the wad Bud is holding in his other hand, which he doesn't notice. He then takes the suitcase down to the car, while Bud calls the police.

At Riverside Park, Bud waits for Lou, who walks into the misty woods, calling for Tommy. Hearing footsteps behind him, he stops and sees the impressions of invisible feet walking through the grass. Gasping, he drops the suitcase on the ground and ducks behind a nearby tree, where he watches the case seemingly open up by itself and the clothes inside lift up into the air. Lou runs back through the woods and to Bud, telling him that Tommy is there, describing the

scene as, "An empty woods full of Tommy Nelson." Bud, again, scoffs at the notion of Tommy being invisible, when he walks up to them, dressed in a suit, wearing bandages around his head, dark goggles, and gloves. Seeing him, Lou's cap pops off his head again and he crawls right under the car, popping up on the other side. Tommy tells Bud he's counting on them to help him and Bud says he can trust him, with Lou running up and adding that he can trust him as

well. Tommy says, "Let's shake on it," and Lou, after making sure his hand is solid, does so. At that moment, Roberts and the police pull up. Lou and Tommy get into the car, while Bud runs up to the cops, only to be met by an irritated Roberts, who says he wouldn't have come had he know it was him who phoned. In the car, Lou tries to get the keys out of his pocket, telling Tommy not to lose his head, when he looks and sees Tommy disrobing, much to his horror, as he groans, "Oh,

Tommy, not again," and passes out. When Bud brings Roberts and the other cops to the car, they open it to find only Lou inside. Now especially angry, Roberts orders his men to take him back to the police station. Lou asks, "Are you gonna see that nice man again?", and Roberts answers, "Yes, and I'm gonna have my head examined!" One of the officers mentions that he thought he saw someone else in the car when they first pulled up, to which Roberts says, "And I'll have your head examined too!" Once they've left, Bud, again, yells

at Lou for seemingly letting Tommy escape, not noticing the open passenger door slowly shut by itself. When Bud goes to climb in, he gets a kick to the rear and, like before, thinks it was Lou. He warns Lou, "Now, don't be so smart!", when his hat gets jerked down over his head. Straightening it, he starts to take off his coat, saying, "Now, I'll show you who is the boss," when his coat is shoved back on him from behind, as Tommy says, "No, I'll show you who's boss!" Bud asks, "Who said that?", and Lou says, "The voice is familiar, but I can't quite

place the face." Tommy grabs Bud by his coat, as he finally realizes he is invisible. Reaching out, he says, "I think I touched him," and then receives a pop to the jaw, to which Lou says, "I think he touched you back." Tommy warns them not to try to double-cross him again and orders them to get into the backseat, while he gets up front and demands the keys. Bud tosses them to him, and as he puts them in the ignition, Bud says to Lou, "Fine pal you are. Stand there and watch me get beat up." Lou responds, "Bud, believe me, I didn't see a thing."

After Tommy nearly causes a large truck to run off the road when the driver sees no one driving the car, the three of them agree to work together. Tommy explains how he found his manager dead on the floor of his dressing room and that the cop at the door said no one else entered, therefore he was blamed for the murder. Bud delivers the message Helen had about the reagent and Tommy tells them that, without it, "I could become a raving maniac, with an uncontrollable

urge to kill," just as he drives in the path of another truck and nearly collides with it. At that moment, they realize they have a motorcycle cop on their tail. Motioning at Tommy, Bud says, "I hope he has his driver's license," while Lou adds, "I hope he's in the car!" As the cop pulls up alongside the car, he talks to the boys through the back window, telling them to pull over to the side. Lou tells the cop to talk to the person who's actually driving and he goes to do so, only to be caught totally off-guard when he sees no one behind the wheel. He stops and watches the car drive on, while checking his pulse. After that, the cop sees Dr. Turner, who's using the watch on him and has him describe what he saw to both him and a very confused Roberts.

The next day, Bud and Lou arrive at a gym, with Lou forgetting the invisible Tommy is behind them and allowing the swinging door to hit him. They walk over to a guy who's rowing in place, as he explains, "I gotta be at Staten Island in twenty minutes," and Lou comments, "You better hurry. The tide's goin' out." The gym's owner, Stillwell, then introduces Rocky Hanlon as, "The leader contender for the middleweight crown," and, "The East Side's favorite son," although someone

comments, "He couldn't lick Tommy Nelson." Hanlon, not happy with that remark, angrily grabs his helmet out of another person's hand. As they watch while he begins a sparring match in preparation for an upcoming match, Tommy tells Bud and Lou he believes his manager was murdered because he went against taking a dive arranged between O'Hara and Hanlon's gangster promoter, Morgan. Tommy then tells them to tell Stillwell they want to train there and Bud comes up

with a plan. While they go to see Stillwell, Tommy eavesdrops on a conversation between Morgan and one of his men, as they talk about arranging for Hanlon's next opponent, Malloy, to take a dive in the sixth round. Meanwhile, Stillwell allows Bud and Lou to train there, even though he says Lou doesn't look like much of a fighter. To Lou's horror, Bud agrees to allow him to stand in as a substitute fighter in case one is needed. Lou tells Bud he's no fighter and tries to prove it

with a punching bag, only for the thing smack back and forth wildly when he doesn't even touch it. They realize it's Tommy, and he tells him to continue acting like he's punching the bag. As he punches it, he's able to make Lou look like a real champ, as the thing appears to smack back and forth with a lot of force, even though Lou's not even really touching it. Although he gets smacked in the head with it a few times and goofs around a bit, the sight draws a crowd, particularly from the newspapermen. Even though Hanlon lays out the guy he's sparring with, he finds no one's paying attention to him, which doesn't sit well with him. When the reporters go to get a picture of Lou when the bag stops smacking, Hanlon climbs out of the ring and demands the reports pay attention to him. 

Seeing this, Tommy tells Bud to begin needling him, and he tells Hanlon that Lou could, "Smear you all over the map." Lou, however, isn't interested in talking himself up, but when Hanlon tells them to "shove off," Bud keeps pushing him, saying, "'Shove off?' That's sailor talk. Yeah, like, 'Takin' a dive.'" That really steams Hanlon, as he grabs Bud and tells him he can beat anyone in his weight class, including him. Lou then grabs Bud and suggests, "Let him smear your map all over the

place." Bud, however, tells Lou to take a poke at him, which Lou isn't keen on doing. Hanlon declares he could take them both but Bud says he couldn't even take Lou, telling him to take a punch at him, following that up with a couple of dares. Hanlon goes in for the punch and Lou braces himself, when his punch is suddenly blocked and he's knocked to the floor. The reporters are impressed, talking about how they couldn't even see the blow, and when asked what kind of punch it

was, Lou tells them, "It was a sort of half-Nelson. Maybe a whole Nelson." He tells them his name and they come up with the nickname of "Louie the Looper," before asking him where he's fought. Struggling to come up with something, and almost blowing it by calling Bud Tommy, Lou decides to go by the fights he had while in school. He says, "I can remember the classes, but I can't sort of remember the names. I... lemme see, oh, yes. I licked Chuckie Lamonche in the fourth, and I licked Chuck Grant in the sixth, and the teacher

licked me in the eighth." Bud quickly says that by "teacher," he meant "trainer," and when asked if he would consider a fight between Lou and Hanlon, Bud goes for it, despite Lou frantically shaking his head. Hanlon's manager, however, reminds everyone he's going to fight Malloy the following week but one reporter remarks, "Not after the story I'm writing. A Hanlon-Malloy waltz wouldn't draw flies." Sure enough, the next scene shows a sports commentator announcing that a fight between Hanlon and Lou has been set and declares that Lou is someone to watch.

In a fancy hotel room, Bud, Lou, and Tommy are playing cards, and Tommy ends up beating them with a hand of three tens. They start another game, Lou telling Bud to cut the cards, only to immediately stop him, asking, "What's the matter? Don't you trust me?" Tommy then does something to Lou that makes him drop the cards, which he proceeds to cut himself. Lou comments, "I think somebody's cheating," and Bud says, "You can say that again." As he deals the cards, Tommy tells the

boys his plan of making it seem as though they're free-spenders in order to attract Morgan's attention and get him to contact them so they can lead him into thinking they'll agree to Lou taking a dive. Lou is nervous about having to get into the ring with Hanlon but Tommy assures him he'll be with him every minute, saying, "I'm dyin' to take a crack at Rocky," to which Lou adds, "And I'll be in there just dyin'." The game goes on for a little bit, and there's a moment where Lou reaches around his

back with his hands and then feels the air around where Tommy's sitting, explaining he's trying to make sure he's not peeking at his cards. There's a knock at the door and Bud answers it to find it's Helen. He lets her in, but when they tell Tommy, they learn he's gone into the next room, as he tells Helen he'll be out in a bit. Bud says to Helen, "I guess you two want to be alone," only for Lou to comment, "Oh, no, Bud. Not Helen and me; Helen and Tommy." Bud drags Lou into another room, stopping at the door to wave at Helen, but when

Lou waves, some cards fly out of his sleeve. He says, "I still think somebody's cheating," and Bud yanks him into the room. Tommy then joins Helen, wearing a robe, and tells her she might have attracted the cops by coming there. She tells him she was worried about him, not just because it was foggy the night before but that both she and Gray are concerned about the effects the drug may have on his mind. Tommy tells her, "I've never thought more clearly in my life. I've never felt so free. Invisibility gives me a sense of power, for good, or

for evil." Now worried he may already be showing signs of madness, she asks him to come back to the lab but he refuses, saying he needs some time to clear himself. Unbeknownst to them, Bud and Lou are listening from the nearby doorway. Helen says goodbye to Tommy and heads to the door. Before leaving, she signals for Bud and Lou, telling them, "If he starts acting strangely, call me." Though Lou says, "If he starts acting strangely, I won't be able to open up my mouth," Bud assures her that they will.

Once Helen's gone, Tommy grabs the boys' hats and hands them over to them, saying they're going to the Bubble Room, a fancy restaurant where Morgan hangs out, as he's anxious for them to make contact with him. There's another knock on the door and, this time, it turns out to be Roberts. Lou quickly takes Tommy over to a table, yanks the cloth off (like in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, he does this without spilling everything on the table), and puts it over Tommy to make him look like

another piece of furniture. Seeing that Tommy's invisible legs aren't covered, Lou quickly tells him to get down on his knees, and when he does, he puts a cup and a saucer on his head. Bud lets Roberts in and he jokes to Lou, "I just wanted to check up on what you've seen today. Are you still seeing men disappear into thin air, or is today Flying Saucer Day?" Roberts then gets serious, saying he trailed Helen there and knows Tommy has to be around. He demands to know where he is and Lou tells him, "You can believe me, I have not

seen him since last night." Bud seconds that but Roberts, eying the suspiciously human-shaped piece of "furniture" they're standing next to, pulls out his gun and yells for Tommy to put his hands up. He yanks the cloth off, but finds only the robe lying on the floor. Lou says, "My laundry. I'm sendin' it out," and Roberts storms out of the room. On his way, Lou tells him, "Oh, don't forget to say hello to that nice man with the watch."

At the Bubble Room, a waiter pours some champagne for Bud and Lou, but Tommy, who's sitting in-between them, keeps pulling Lou's glass over to him, despite the waiter moving it back, saying it belongs in a particular spot. The third time, Lou stops the glass and slaps his hand when the waiter looks at him. Tommy then picks up a piece of celery and munches on it loudly. When the waiter looks, Lou quickly grabs the celery and starts eating it himself. The waiter hands Bud and

Lou their menus but they both quickly order, with Lou saying he wants a plate of spaghetti. Tommy cuts in, saying, "And a steak," and when the waiter asks Lou to clarify, he says, "Spaghetti," only for Tommy to, again, ask for a steak. The waiter tells Lou to make up his mind and he, once more, asks for spaghetti, then quickly silences Tommy and adds a steak as well. Tommy picks up the celery again and the waiter just catches a glimpse of it, when Lou sticks his hand in and acts like he's

balancing it on his finger, saying, "I used to be a juggler." Not thinking, he takes his finger away from the celery, only to quickly put it back, while the weirded out waiter asks Bud if he wants anything else. Bud, pointing at a woman sitting next to Morgan across the way, says, "You can get me that good-lookin' dish there as a side order," and Lou jokes to the waiter to bring him a "dish" as well. When the waiter walks off, Tommy tells them the woman in question is Boots Marsden, while Morgan tells Boots to go over and do

her stuff. As she walks over, Bud thinks it's because of him, but when she gets there, she asks Lou if she can join them. Bud tries to get her to sit on his side but Boots asks Lou to move over instead. She sits next to Lou, telling him she has two reasons for wanting to meet with him, the first being that she read what he did to Rocky Hanlon, saying it made her think, "There's a man," to which Lou says, "That's the first time anybody's ever said that about me." Her seconds reason is simpler: "I'm a woman," and Lou comments, "That's even better

than the first." Both Bud and Lou offer her a drink, but Boots says she likes privacy, seductively telling Lou, "There's nothing like wearing something comfortable, and turning the lights down low, and having a nice, cool drink with a nice, warm person." Lou mentions his place at the Colton Towers is overcrowded, but Boots exclaims that she just happens to live there as well; Bud also pipes up and says he lives at the Colton Towers, but Boots dismissively says, "I hope you like your room." She gets up and leaves, but not before cupping Lou's chin and telling him, "I'll be home all evening." Lou dreamily exclaims, "Boots!", again and again, but Lou growls, "Ah, shut up! You sound like Gunga Din."

Tommy tells the boys that Morgan has just made his first move, adding, "Tonight, he'll make his second, or, I should say, she will." The boys' dinner is then brought to them, but they seemed to have just brought the spaghetti without the steak. As Lou prepares to eat, and is still fawning over Boots, saying, "Boots, spaghetti, what a combination," Tommy pulls the plate over to him and starts eating it. Lou is so gaga that he unknowingly starts munching on his napkin, and

doesn't realize what's going on until Bud asks, "What are you stuffing into your mouth?" He takes the napkin out of his mouth and pulls the plate back over to him. He starts eating it himself, but Tommy isn't done stealing his food, as he gets some of the spaghetti and starts sucking it up into his invisible mouth. Unfortunately, the strand he has happens to be the same one Lou is sucking up, and they get to the point where it looks as if their mouths are about to meet (you may think this is meant as a deliberate send-up of Lady and the Tramp, but this was a few years before that movie). Fortunately, Lou keeps the situation from becoming even more awkward by snapping the noodle in two and they both slurp up their respective halves.

Right when he gets to the door of Boots' apartment, carrying a big pot of flowers, Lou gets cold feet and tells Bud he doesn't want to go through with this. Bud, in turn, tells him they're just trying to get evidence that Tommy was framed and shows him a phonographic recording machine hidden in the flowers, saying, "We'll get a record of what she says," only for Lou to grumble, "Then you'll have a record of what I say." He tries to leave but Bud stops him and knocks on the door. From inside, Boots tells Lou to come in and, after

getting a shove from Bud, he walks through the door. But, he takes one look at Boots in her nightgown, as she stands there saying, "Good evening," in a sultry manner, and ducks back out the door, saying, "Good night." Bud asks him, "Why'd you say 'good night' for?", and Lou answers, "I think she's gettin' ready to go to bed." Boots opens the door and pulls Lou inside, as Bud hides along the wall next to the door. When it closes, Bud goes to look through the keyhole, only to get sprayed in the face with water, courtesy of a water-pistol Lou

has on him. He then tells Boots, "I'm just a little squirt." She's a bit taken aback by the pot of flowers and has him take it over to the table, where he sprays a little water on the flowers and then starts the recording machine. Boots describes flowers as being like true friends, commenting, "They see so much and hear so much, and yet, they never talk." Lou comments, "It sure would surprise people... if they did," when Boots suddenly tells him not to move. At first, Lou thinks he just gave

himself away, but then, Boots starts fawning over him, talking about how the light on his profile captures his "iron will," "rugged individuality," and "indomitable courage." She moves him over to her loveseat, talking about how one punch from Hanlon could ruin his profile and that she would lose all interest in him. That's when she brings up the idea of him agreeing to take a dive, saying he could even name the round in which he's to lose. She starts kissing him, naming

off the rounds and stopping when they get to the third. She says a "nice friend" will make a deposit in the bank for him and she agrees to arrange a meeting with him. She goes to phone him, reminding Lou, "All of this is off the record." When she's out of the room, Lou takes the record from the machine and desperately tries to hide it on his person, but can't find a pocket big enough. Hearing Boots coming back, he hides it in the back of his pants. She tells him they're to go back to the Bubble Room, but Lou asks to "fight another round." He sits down, and she sits in his lap, when they both hear a loud crunch. She asks what it was and he simply answers, "That's off the record," knowing he just blew it.

At Dr. Gray's lab, Helen is on the phone with Tommy, trying to make him understand the danger of him going mad, but Tommy, who's still at the Bubble Room and is rather drunk, tells Helen he doesn't care if he never becomes visible again, saying he feels like no one can touch him and that it makes him a "nemesis." Bud takes the phone from him and reassures Helen that everything's fine, saying Tommy's just drunk. He hangs up and Tommy says he's drunk on the power of invisibility, declaring, "I am the ruler of an

invisible empire. My loyal subjects I will reward, my enemies I will destroy," before laughing loud enough to get the attention of the waiter from before. Trying to deflect suspicion, Bud starts acting like he's drunk and quoting Shakespeare. The waiter goes to remove the champagne bottle but Tommy orders him to put it down and pour a drink, with Bud then acting like he was the one who said it. He pours some champagne into his glass, when Tommy pushes another glass towards Bud and he, in turn, asks the waiter to fill it, too, saying,

"I'm a two-fisted drinker." Meanwhile, Lou and Boots return to the Bubble Room and are met with some reporters. The photographer talks Lou into doing a picture as he drinks champagne out of Boots' slipper, and they snap the picture as he pours the stuff into it. Unbeknownst to him, it drains out of the slipper's toe and all over a man at the table next to him. When the reporters leave, the man grabs Lou and is about to fight him, when Boots informs him he's "Louie the Looper."

The guy immediately backs down and Lou is good enough to wipe him down and apologize for spilling on him, but he comments, "Oh, that's nothing... compared to the blood that Rocky Hanlon's gonna spill all over you!" Lou turns to Boots and says he'd sock the guy if she weren't there, when she suddenly says she's leaving. He tries to go with her, but she tells him to stay, as she's made contact with the money person. Lou heads back over to the table he and

Bud were at with Tommy, unknowingly sitting on the latter, and says he did everything he was asked to do. Bud asks him if he got the record and he says he did, adding, "And very fast, too, I broke a record," tossing the pieces onto the table. Tommy complains about what lousy detectives they are, and when Lou says they're also good friends, Tommy sneers, "Did it ever occur to you that friendship is, at its best, a rather doubtful asset? I don't want friends. I shall have followers.

Worshipers! People who will obey because they were real..." The waiter then comes by and Bud, again, acts like he's the one who's exclaiming drunkenly, with Lou joining in. When he's gone, Lou tells Tommy that Boots is contacting the money man, which only encourages Tommy to drink more and laugh uproariously again. Elsewhere, Morgan is shown meeting with his gang, including Boots, about the intended dive. He also tells Boots that Lou will meet him... if he tries to double-cross him.

At the Bubble Room bar, Bud and Lou catch Tommy drinking another man's drink and the latter takes the glass out of the air and puts it back. Unfortunately for Lou, the drinker turns to see his hand on the glass, and even worse, it's the guy he accidentally poured champagne on earlier. This time, he attempts to go for the punch, regardless of the fact he's fighting Louie the Looper, but Tommy sends him falling to the floor with an invisible blow. The guy who was drinking with him sees to his friend and they both flee. The bartender

suggests Lou save for his punches for the next night's bout, when Tommy's voice asks for a nightcap, which the bartender sees to. Lou tells Tommy he's had enough to drink but Tommy doesn't see it that way and, unbeknownst to them, walks away. He bumps into the waiter from before, who apologizes before it hits him that he didn't walk into anything. The waiter also happens to pass by Lou right when he tells Tommy he's doing it for his own good, confusing the poor man even more. Bud then sees Tommy take another man's

drink when his back is turned and start downing it. They rush over and Bud takes the glass and puts it back down. Like before with Lou, the guy just happens to turn and see his hand on the glass. He then threatens to punch him, and Lou tries to intervene, but Bud, counting on Tommy, dares him to do it. He promptly gets clocked in the jaw and falls into a chair behind him, as Tommy laughs nearby, with Bud growling, "Double-crosser." Lou grabs the guy, when the bartender tries to curb the

fight by grabbing a mallet and accidentally bops Lou on the head, knocking him unconscious. Tommy then smacks the bartender, who thinks the other guy did it, and smashes the mallet over his head as well. Bud tries to wake Lou up, and Tommy attempts to revive him by spraying him with seltzer water, but nothing works. He then helps Bud pick Lou up and they walk him to the door, as the befuddled bartender watches and wonders if that punch knocked him senseless. When they get to the

revolving door, Tommy knocks into it and falls unconscious himself. At that moment, Lou revives and Bud tells him what happened to Tommy. They feel around for him, then pick his invisible body up and carry it through the revolving door, which proves to be quite a chore. The whole time, Roberts, who was coming in through the door from the other side, watches in disbelief. The scene then ends on him seeing Dr. Turner and describing what he saw, like the cop from before.

Tommy wakes up in Gray's laboratory the next day, surrounded by Gray, Helen, Bud, and Lou as he lies on a table with an ice-bag strapped to his head. Groaning from what has to be a massive hangover, he's surprised to see Helen, and then, when talking with Bud and Lou, admits he barely remembers anything, including taking other people's drinks. However, he does remember Lou's deal with Boots and urges them to close it. He goes on to say they're going to double-cross Morgan and knock Hanlon cold in the

ring, figuring Morgan will then try to murder Bud and frame Lou for it, just as he did with Tommy and O'Hara. That knowledge makes Lou murmur, "Fight postponed," but Tommy assures Lou he has nothing to worry about. Lou then takes out a sprayer and spritzes Tommy with something that has a strong smell. He tells him it's perfume, adding, "If I can't see you, at least I'm gonna smell you." Bud and Lou then leave, Helen showing them out, leaving Tommy alone with Gray. Suddenly, Tommy yells for Gray, saying he

can't move. He thinks he's paralyzed but Gray tells him he's strapped to the table, removing the sheet covering him to show him. He then tells Tommy he can't afford any risks, but Tommy sneers, "You can't take any chances? What about the chance I took? Helen said you were afraid. You're not afraid for me, you're afraid for yourself. Afraid of what the medical profession would do to you. You want to keep me chained up like a mad dog to save your good name, but you won't give

me a chance to clear mine!" The film transitions to the sportscaster from before giving his prediction for the upcoming fight between Hanlon and Lou, commenting, "Louie the Looper was still in training late last night." See-through images of newspapers with pictures of the bar-fight Lou got caught up in are then laid over the screen, as the caster says, "Evidently, he ran out of sparring partners." Another paper shows him down on the floor, the caster adding, "Midnight found him completely exhausted. Perhaps this accounts for the wise money being switched over in favor of Hanlon late this afternoon. Both men lack defense, but are strong on offense. Therefore, I predict this will be the most offensive fight of the year."

That night at the arena, with the fateful bout approaching, Lou wanders around his dressing room nervously, anxious because Tommy doesn't appear to have shown up. He calls for him, getting no response, then opens the door and calls for him out into the hall, but hears nothing there, either. Bud, who's smoking a cigar, isn't worried, assuring Lou that Tommy will keep his word and be there. Lou sniffs the air, trying to smell the perfume, when he hears something scratching at the small window in the back of the room.

Thinking it's Tommy, Lou goes to the window and opens it up, only for a black cat to hiss at him, causing him to panic, quickly close the window, and drop to the floor. He crosses his fingers in front of his mouth and seems to hiss back at the cat. (Whatever he's doing, this is one of the moments I mentioned that about had me on the floor when I first saw it.) Lou then goes to Bud, takes his cigar, and starts puffing smoke into the room, trying to see if he can make out Tommy's silhouette. Bud tells him if he smokes too much, he'll be sick

and won't be able to fight, which only encourages him to puff on the cigar rapidly, sending him into a coughing fit as Bud takes the cigar out of his mouth. There's a knock at the door and Lou thinks it's Tommy, only to open it to see it's one of Morgan's men, there to deliver a box of lilies. Also in the box is a card, which Bud reads, "You can smell them, or wear them. The fifth round will tell," and figures it's the round in which he's to feign getting knocked out. Still worked up, Lou

lays down on the table, when Bud removes the lilies and, without thinking, puts them on his chest. When he sees them, he jumps up and yells at Bud for it, but Bud then finds a lot of money in the box as well. Lou takes it and starts dividing up, only to set a really large share aside for "him," the income tax man. There's another knock at the door and Lou, again, hopes it's Tommy, but it's someone there to tell Lou his fight is next. Bud asks what the odds are and the man says, "Five-to-two

that Rocky smears him." At the sound of that, Lou almost runs out, saying he's going to find a cop because, "Somebody's going to get murdered!" Bud tells him, "People work a lifetime, and never get $15,000! You're getting it for just lying down," to which Lou responds, "The big question is will I be able to get up? Look, buddy, don't let me go in that ring without Tommy."

Bud lays out how bad Tommy's plan could turn out for both of them and that, since Tommy isn't there, he should lay down so they can collect the $15,000. Since neither of them noticed the door just open and close by itself, Lou mentions how they promised Tommy, while Bud says he ran out on them. Tommy, however, makes his presence known, explaining how he was tied up in Gray's lab, and makes it clear he's not thrilled to have heard them plotting to double-cross him again, asking if Lou wants to face Hanlon alone.

Lou tells him he's on his side, saying, "My heart's in the right place and I want to keep it there." The guy from before then comes in and tells them it's time. Tommy smacks Lou on the back, telling him to walk to the ring with his chest out and his stomach in. When he walks out the door, Lou gets it wrong and Tommy whips him into shape by pulling the band of his shorts and snapping them back at him.

The announcer introduces the fighters, first with Rocky Hanlon and then with Lou, the latter of whom he calls "that new sensation." Both of them get applause, and Lou stands up to soak it in, only to fall on his butt when the stool is removed from beneath him. Lou looks out into the audience and sees Morgan, who stares at him and holds up five fingers, reminding him of their arrangement. When Bud sees this as well, he considers going for the dive again, saying, "I'd rather argue with Tommy than try and outrun

Morgan's bullets." Lou says he is going to go out there and lie down, but then Tommy asks them what they're whispering about. Lou fumbles for an explanation, when the bell rings. Both fighters and their entourage meet in the center, where the referee lays out the rules before telling the fighters to shake hands. Lou goes to shake hands with the ref, who accidentally rips his glove off. Lou retrieves his glove and goes to shake with his other hand, but Hanlon turns away and the ref sends them into their corners. Back in his own

corner, Lou hears Tommy to simply "faint" for his chin and he'll take care of everything else. Lou, again, tries to sit on the stool that's no longer under him, when the bell rings. Panicking, he turns and swipes at the person on the other side of the turnbuckle, Bud having to point him in the right direction. Lou goes skipping towards Hanlon, who has the traditional boxing stance, and when Hanlon swings, Lou immediately drops to the floor. Seeing this, the sportscaster at ringside says

he didn't see Hanlon's punch connect, while Tommy asks Lou what he's doing. Lou says, "You told me to faint," and Tommy growls for him to get up. He does, the ref stops the count, and Hanlon comes in, punching Lou repeatedly in the gut. Lou stops him, saying it's not fair to hit him there, so Hanlon whacks him in the face, sending him tumbling backwards and falling to the canvas near the turnbuckle. Tommy warns him, "If you're trying to throw this fight, I'll hold you up for ten

rounds and let him cut you to ribbons. Now, get up!" He gets to his feet and agrees to do as Tommy tells him. When he says Tommy's name aloud, Hanlon thinks he's already taken too many blows and goes for another, when Tommy blocks the punch and sends him falling back to the canvas with a hard blow of his own. Having seen this, the caster comments, "Either those old eyes are failing or that boy hits like grease lightning!" The ref tells Lou to go to his corner, but instead, he skips

around behind the ref and stands over Hanlon as he begins the count. Again, he's told to go to his corner and does so this time, as a dazed Hanlon tries to shake it off; meanwhile, Bud is sweating bullets due to Morgan's threatening glares. Hanlon manages to get back on his feet at the count of nine and the fight goes on.

Tommy tells Lou the punches to feign, hitting Hanlon with four left jabs and following them up with a right cross that knocks him against the ropes. He collapses again, as Lou prances around and is sent back to his corner. In the audience, Morgan asks his man if he delivered the money and the guy says he did. Back in the ring, Lou asks Tommy to let him finish Hanlon off and Tommy allows it when Hanlon gets back on his feet. But, when Lou swings at him, Hanlon ducks and his fist flies around and strikes Tommy, who gets knocked

out. As the ref makes sure Hanlon is able to continue the fight, Lou desperately tries to rouse Tommy. Hanlon comes at him again and Lou steps over where Tommy's body lies, while Hanlon trips over it and face-plants. Lou is sent to his corner, while the ref starts another count. Desperate, Lou grabs a bottle of water from ringside, puts a bunch of it in his mouth, and runs, only to trip over Tommy and fall, spraying Hanlon with it. Lou runs back to his corner and guzzles some more water, while Hanlon chases him, only to trip over Tommy again,

clearly wondering what it is he's hitting. He hits Lou in the gut, causing him to spit the water right in his face. Hanlon stumbles away, as Lou gets some more water, walks over to where Tommy lays, and spits it in his face, telling him, "Open your eyes before he closes mine." Tommy tells him to watch where he's punching, to which Lou says, "Are you kiddin'?" Hanlon walks up and gets Lou in the throat, as Boots cheers him from the audience. Hanlon punches Lou again and again,

when Tommy blocks and whacks him, sending him tumbling back into his corner, just as the bell rings. The caster announces, "And so, the first round ends, and I'm frank to say that I don't get it." Lou goes back to his corner, falls over with the stool, and when he sits up, Bud tells him, "Do you realize that every punch Rocky gets shortens my life?" Tommy says, "Yeah, what about my life? Don't worry. Let me handle this." In the other corner, Hanlon has about been knocked senseless,

his boys having to use smelling salts to rouse him. Morgan, smelling a rat, sends one of his men to Hanlon's corner to see what's going on. Hanlon tells his trainer, "He hits from nowhere, and hard. I can feel the guy's knuckles comin' through the gloves. It's like I'm fightin' two guys! And I keep hearin' voices, like someone's talkin' to him." Hearing this, Morgan's man walks back over to his boss. Both Bud and Tommy wonder what's going on and Tommy climbs out of the ring. He sits right behind Morgan as he's told Hanlon's starting to hear voices. Realizing he's being had, Morgan asks for "The Torpedo."

The bell is rung for the second round and Lou, unaware that Tommy's not in the ring, goes in confidently. He gets knocked to the canvas immediately, desperately begging Tommy to start punching, only to get punched in the gut, smacked backwards against the ropes, and falls back down. The ref starts counting and Lou, again, calls for Tommy and starts sniffing the air; when the ref asks him what he's doing, he says, "I'm smellin'," and the ref comments, "It's poor English, but you sure do," before continuing the count. Lou gets

back up and stumbles towards Hanlon, but gets socked in the face again, falling against the ropes. Hanlon delivers a volley of punches, absolutely clobbering Lou in the face and the stomach. He collapses in front of Bud at ringside, asking him to throw in the towel, but Bud says, "Ah, it's too dirty. Besides, you're doin' great. He hasn't laid a glove on you." Lou says, "Keep an eye on the referee; someone in there's clouting me." Out in the audience, the man named the Torpedo meets with Morgan, who orders him to tell another of

his goons, Milt, to get into a cop's uniform, saying they'll give Bud and Lou the same treatment they gave Tommy and O'Hara if they double-cross him. Back in the ring, Lou gets knocked to his knees and crawls along the canvas. The ref tries to stop Hanlon from beating on him but Hanlon shoves the ref down and goes back to punching Lou when he gets to his feet, giving him a jab to the face and then an uppercut. Seeing this, Tommy heads back to the ring and rings the bell himself,

confusing the guy operating it. Lou stumbles into Hanlon's corner and gets thrown out of it, while Tommy climbs back into the ring, as the caster predicts that Lou won't come out for another round. About half-dead, Lou stumbles back to the corner and sits on his stool. Tommy has Bud give him some smelling salts and when Lou sniffs them, the ice-bag on his head explodes with steam. The bell rings again and Lou goes back in, although he's just about to collapse in front of Hanlon, who's being held back by the ref. Tommy then holds Lou up, telling him to snap out of it, and when Lou realizes he's there, he tells him, "You fight him for a while. I'm tired." He almost collapses, but Tommy grabs him and props him back up, yelling, "Get in there and make it look good!"

As Tommy continues holding him up, Lou starts dodging Hanlon's punches. When he gets cornered, he covers his face with his gloves, only for Tommy to block Hanlon's punch and lay him out. Hanlon gets back on his feet only after a count of two, but two of his punches get blocked and Lou feigns whacking him with a right cross. He follows up with a left cross, another right cross, a right to the stomach, and finally, an uppercut, a barrage that lays Hanlon down flat. As the count starts again, Morgan, knowing Hanlon's been beaten, gets

the word from the Torpedo that Milt's all set and the two of them head backstage. The count ends and the fight's over. As the press come in to photograph Lou, Tommy says he'll see them later and walks away. While Lou is all for getting his picture taken, Bud is terrified of getting murdered by Morgan and he and Lou quickly leave the ring. Backstage, Morgan and the Torpedo sneak into Lou's dressing room, telling the disguised Milt, to not let anyone but Bud and Lou into the room. Torpedo tells Milt he looks nice in

that uniform, but Milt says, "I hope my mother don't see me." Elsewhere, Bud and Lou run into Helen and Dr. Gray. Though they can't tell them where Tommy went, Gray tells them he's found the reagent. Bud and Lou head on back to the dressing rooms, while Helen and Gray are then confronted by Roberts, who overhead them and suggests they have a chat about "arithmetic." He says, "Every time I add up you two with those two guys, the correct answer comes out Tommy Nelson... Now, I

don't know how it was done, but if you think that I think Louie the Looper knocked out Rocky Hanlon, you must think that I'm a fool!" Gray remarks, "Again, you have the correct answer, lieutenant," and he and Helen walk away, as Roberts takes a second to realize what Gray just inferred. Bud and Lou run into Milt and tell him what's going on. Milt assures them Morgan won't be going into their dressing room and sends them on ahead. He's then met with a crowd of reporters, as well as Helen, Gray, and Roberts, and tells them no one's allowed in the dressing room except for Bud and Lou, starting a confrontation between him and Roberts.

Bud and Lou enter the dressing room, not seeing Morgan and the Torpedo standing to the side of the door. Bud starts removing Lou's gloves, as Morgan gives the Torpedo the signal and he removes a gun from his suit. At that moment, Lou spots them and tries to surreptitiously warn Bud, but he doesn't catch the signs and makes things even worse when he mentions how Morgan has no clue that they know how he framed Tommy and that they're detectives. Lou exclaims, "He does now!", and motions with his head, causing Bud to finally turn

and see them. Morgan tells them they won't get a chance to tell the cops anything and they close in for the attack. The Torpedo goes to bash Bud over the head with his gun, only for it to get knocked out of his hand before he's clobbered to the ground. Morgan catches the gun, but is too shocked to shoot at first when he hears Tommy's voice telling him he's going to take him to the cops. Tommy knocks the gun out of his hand and it flies across the room and into the slot below a water cooler's nozzle. While Tommy grabs Morgan and restrains

him, he tells Lou to get the gun. Lou fumbles around, having to pull the slot out and dump the gun, as Tommy tries to get Morgan to confess, saying he'll break his arm if he doesn't. Lou, after getting rid of his boxing gloves, gets the gun and points it at Morgan, only to spray him with water. Puzzled, Lou looks at the gun and pulls the trigger again. This time, it fires and hits a nearby radiator, which sprays hot steam everywhere. Startled, Lou fumbles the gun, while Morgan

breaks free of Tommy. He goes for the gun but Lou grabs it first, only to give it to Morgan when Bud yells, "Let him have it!" Armed again, he takes Bud hostage and threatens to shoot him if Tommy comes near. Tommy knocks over a chair and Morgan fires his gun, but Tommy loudly proclaims that he missed. Bud, seeing a bullet-hole in the wall near him, yells, "Tommy, don't laugh! If you get killed, it'll be through me!" Ignoring him, Tommy yells that Morgan only has two shots left and yanks another chair back. Morgan fires again, this time hitting a radio on a table, activating it on a station where a woman is singing. Lou promptly grabs something and smashes it over the radio, with the woman acting like she just got hit, as she yells and then goes, "Oooh! Uhhh!" (another moment that had me dying). 

When Tommy dares Morgan to try to shoot him again, Bud smacks the underside of his arm with his own, causing him to lose the gun. Tommy catches it and holds it on him, forcing him to put his hands up. Bud turns and belts him in the face, knocking him against the locker. Still holding the gun, Tommy moves over to the steam, confident that they've cleaned up his guilt, when Lou mentions that he can see him. Bud says the same, and it's shown that, due to the steaming radiator, Tommy's silhouette is now visible. At the moment,

the Torpedo comes to and, seeing the outline, he takes out a knife and throws it, getting Tommy in the chest. He collapses and Bud sees to him, while Lou grabs the Torpedo and punches him in the gut. Outside, Roberts has figured out that Milt is an imposter and has some real cops hold onto him. When he and the others walk inside, they find Lou having just beaten the Torpedo until he collapsed. Bud quickly explains to Roberts that Morgan and the Torpedo are the ones who murdered O'Hara and the detective orders them to be taken away. Helen

frantically asks Lou where Tommy is and he points out his silhouette lying up against the wall behind her. Though the others realize how badly injured Tommy is and that they need to get him to a hospital, Roberts is still unsure if there's anyone there. In any case, at the hospital, Tommy is given a blood transfusion from Lou so he can survive the reagent being administered  As Gray injects it into Tommy, Bud tells Lou it's lucky he and Tommy have the same blood type. Lou

moans to him, "Why can't you be lucky some time?" A few seconds later, Tommy slowly re-materializes and awakens. First, he sees that he's visible again and then sees Helen standing nearby. The two of them kiss, and Bud exclaims that he can see Tommy again, when Lou slowly realizes he's having the opposite problem, as his left hand becomes transparent and then completely disappears. His entire body follows, as he yells for the doctor in a panic. Gray tells him it's

just a result of some of Tommy's blood backing up during the transfusion, and Lou has suddenly changed his tune, as he gets out of bed, saying he'll now be the greatest detective ever since he's invisible. Bud tells him, "But you can't even find yourself!", but Lou ignores him, throws back the sheets, and walks out of the room. Gray tells Bud that Lou probably won't stay invisible for long.

Out in the hallway, Lou knocks Bud into an elevator full of nurses, and when it reaches the next floor, they're all screaming at Bud and smacking him over the head with their clipboards because of something Lou did. When they storm off, Bud tells Lou to come on but he says he has some "unfinished business" and proceeds to kiss a nurse who lingered behind. At that moment, the invisibility starts to wear off and the nurse runs screaming at the sight of a half-visible torso floating in front of her. Lou realizes what's

happening, and that he's about to be exposed, and runs to a nearby gurney, grabs a sheet, and ties it around him. Roberts walks down some stairs and watches Lou materialize, followed by him walking backwards down the hall. The frazzled detective yells, "Oh, no!", checks his pulse, and runs back up the stairs, yelling for the doctor. Lou, meanwhile, realizes that, inexplicably, his legs have re-materialized backwards! Bud, on his way out, turns and sees what's going on. He comments, "That's just like you: you get everything backwards! Come on!" Lou tries to follow him but, due to his backwards legs, he runs backwards and smashes through a door at the end of the hallway behind him.

Like the majority of Universal's B-level productions of the time, the movie's music score is a compilation of stock music and, what's worse, it's not all that memorable, either. There are some highlights, though, like the music that plays over the opening credits, which has a big, sensational sound to it, as well as a bit of mystery, before culminating in a final section that does have a humorous slant to it. Tommy Nelson's first appearance in the movie is scored with an overly menacing piece as he sneaks into and lurks about Bud and Lou's office, there's a memorable, whittling sort of bit that plays when Dr. Gray tests the serum on the guinea pig, and when Tommy himself becomes invisible, a similarly ethereal piece plays. The most memorable part of the music for me, though, is in the scenes with Dr. Turner, as his attempts at hypnotherapy are scored with various, silly-sounding instrumental versions of Rock-A-Bye Baby. Unfortunately, most of the music is functional rather than memorable, as per usual with scores that are made up of stock music. (Granted, I can talk about the scores for many of the sci-fi/monster movies they were producing around this same time, but that's because I've heard that music so much in other movies that I can easily identify it, which isn't the case here.)

While it may not stand out as much from its predecessors in a stylistic sense, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man is certainly one of the finest of their classic monster meetups. Not only are Abbott and Costello themselves, again, at the top of their game, but they're aided by some funny side-characters, a number of memorable bits and sequences, as well as some real laugh out loud gags, a nicely stark look to the black-and-white, the amazing visual effects that defined Universal's

Invisible Man movies as a whole, one of the best third acts out of any of these movies, and a simple, concise plot that makes it feel better written than those aforementioned earlier films. On the downside, though, the Invisible Man himself, despite being a wrongly accused man, has moments of being very unlikable, the characters of Helen and Dr. Gray don't have much to them, a couple of plot points that are brought up go nowhere, the music score is okay but hardly inspired, and the use of stock footage from The Invisible Man Returns and the simple method with which they often depict Tommy Nelson's invisibility hint at a slight cheapness to the film, even though it does manage to overcome it more often than not. But, despite those cons, there's no denying that this is one of the most enjoyable of Bud and Lou's horror-comedies and definitely one to check out and add to your collection.