By way of exploiting Universal's Golden Age horror assets with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, Scream Factory also give a high definition overhaul to one of the studio's expressionist masterpieces with the UNIVERSAL HORROR COLLECTION VOLUME 1.

Following the successes of Tod Browning's DRACULA and James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN that made stars of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff respectively, their careers diverged significantly with Karloff proving his ability in mainstream efforts for other studios while also starring in Universal's MASK OF FU MANCHU and THE MUMMY while Lugosi was primarily exploited as a horror star in Universal's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE and a series of lesser independent films (as well as a memorable supporting role in Paramount's ISLAND OF LOST SOULS) before the studio attracted the actors back with idea of pairing their two horror stars in the first of five genre collaborations for the studio before the pair reunited on at RKO for THE BODY SNATCHER.

The first of their collaborations was THE BLACK CAT in which American honeymooning couple Peter (David Manners, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD) and Joan Allison (Jacqueline Wells, NORTHERN PURSUIT) are on a train bound for Visegrád, Hungary when a mix-up with the booking finds them sharing a compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi) who is headed in the same direction to visit an "old friend." The trio share a bus along with his majordomo (Egon Brecher, REBECCA) but they get into a crash when the road crumbles away and the four seek shelter in the home of architect Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff) who built his Bauhaus ultra-modern monstrosity atop the ruins of Fort Marmaris which he once commanded and where are entombed the bodies of ten thousand men killed during the first World War. With Joan sedated and Peter tucked in for the night, we learn that there is no friendship between Werdergast and Poelzig who betrayed the fort to the Russians leading to Werdergast's imprisonment for fifteen years during which Poelzig made off with his wife and daughter both named Karen (Lucille Lund, BLAKE OF SCOTLAND YARD). Poelzig reveals not only that Werdergast's wife and child are dead but also that he has preserved Karen's beauty through embalming. Werdergast means to kill Poelzig but he must bide his time, even if it means that the Satanist might make Joan the centerpiece of a midnight Black Mass.

Made just before the Hayes Production Code became more of a limiting factor in Hollywood films, THE BLACK CAT is one of the studio's darkest works of the Golden Age thanks primarily to the direction of Edgar G. Ulmer, a German immigrant who had studied under theater director Max Reinhardt and worked as an uncredited set designer on a number of German expressionist films including METROPOLIS, M, and THE GOLEM during the Weimar Republic when a combination of artistic experimentation and production budgets allowed for creative free reign. THE BLACK CAT is an art directed movie with every shot a striking compositional arrangement of performers, props, decoration as well as shadows creating geometric patterns slashing across the frame vertically or diagonally. Sometimes the film dispenses with characters altogether and explores the sets through moving camera carried along by Karloff's voice alone. The Black Mass is a wonderful set-piece that surely must have influenced later cinematic visualizations including one such sequence in Sergio Martino's ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK. While the film follows Universal's practice of scoring with arrangements of classical music, THE BLACK CAT extends the scoring beyond credits accompaniment to mood and thematic commentary. Rather than featuring two monsters, the film positions Lugosi atypically as a sympathetic character, hell-bent on violent retribution but concerned for the safety and survival of the honeymooners while Karloff conveys a modicum of sympathy in his own obsession with Werdergast's wife and what the loss of her has lead him with his occult interests. Wells is hamstrung by the script which allows her moments of mysteriousness early on but falls back upon a lot of screaming, while Manners on the other hand gets to be a more active hero than DRACULA's Harker. While Ulmer had enough of a budget to realize the impressive sets, he proved equally adept at using the most minimalist elements of set design to convey atmosphere in his Poverty Row features and even lower budget films that came later, most notably the noir masterpiece DETOUR. The film's concession to the Edgar Allan Poe story is Werdergast's crippling fear of cats which on one occasion saves Poelzig's life.

After the theatrical success of THE BLACK CAT, Universal was eager to put Lugosi and Karloff in another Poe venture with THE RAVEN, but various production troubles including multiple rewrites of the script pushed the production back a year. In the film, retired surgeon Dr. Richard Vollin (Lugosi) is a Poe aficionado who has a valuable collection of his works and has even gone so far as to build devices of torture described in the stories and poems for display in the basement of his isolated mansion. He is contacted by Judge Thatcher (Samuel S. Hinds, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE) when his dancer daughter Jean (Irene Ware, ORIENT EXPRESS) is injured in a car accident and needs a life-saving operation. Vollin initially refuses until his ego is stroked by the desperation of Thatcher and Jean's surgeon fiancé Jerry Halden (Lester Matthews, THE SON OF DR. JEKYLL) that he is the only one capable of saving her. Jean dedicates a Poe-inspired dance to him, but she does not return his affection in spite of her fervent admiration for him. Thatcher becomes concerned about Vollin's interest in his daughter and tries to warn her and Jerry away from him. Thatcher's threats to Vollin to stay away from Jean coincide with the arrival of escaped murderer Edmond Bateman (Karloff) who appeals to Vollin to change his face so he will not be recognizable. Vollin offers to do so if Bateman will commit a murder for him. When Bateman refuses, Vollin still carries through with Bateman's request, doing so without plastic surgery by surgically manipulating the nerve endings in his face, disfiguring Bateman and refusing to fix him until he meets his demands. Vollin invites Jean and Jerry to a weekend house party with some other guests, including Thatcher who comes at his daughter's request. Thatcher remains suspicious of Vollin, and Jerry's and Jean's efforts to humor the older man result in them stumbling upon the true nature of Vollin's madness as he submits them to the horrors of his Poe-inspired high tech dungeon.

Having nothing to do with Poe's poem other than Lugosi's frequent quotation of it throughout, THE RAVEN is in some ways a much more conventionally gothic but less compelling film than THE BLACK CAT. Directed by serial specialist Lew Landers – whose only other horror films were the Poverty Row quickie THE MASK OF DIJON and his final feature TERRIFIED for Crown International – the film is at its best in scenes between Lugosi and Karloff or those in which Lugosi's mad doctor dominates while the dull romantic leads are less interesting than Hinds' paternal character, the comic relief is stilted, and the climax is not so much horrific as reminiscent of an action serial. When Universal returned to horror in the fifties, they announced a remake of THE RAVEN which may or may not have evolved into THE STRANGE DOOR as conjectured by the commentators on Kino Lorber's Blu-ray of that title.

THE INVISIBLE RAY: High in the Carpathian Mountains is the castle of the Rukh family where discredited scientist Janos (Karloff) has developed a telescope that is able to draw light from Andromeda and project images from deep in space captured millions of years ago, toiling away alone since early experiments blinded his mother (Violet Kemble Cooper) and incinerated his colleague whose young daughter Diana (Frances Drake, MAD LOVE) Janos would later marry. He summons esteemed scientist Sir Francis Stevens (Walter Kingford, THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK) for a demonstration and he brings along with him Dr. Benet (Lugosi) to determine if the demonstration is real, his wife Lady Arabella (Beulah Bondi, PENNY SERENADE) who spins his expeditions as adventures for the popular press, and her aimless nephew Ronald Drake (Frank Lawton, THE SKIN GAME). They are stunned not only by the demonstration but by Janos' proof that a meteor carrying an element a hundred times more powerful than Radium crashed into the Earth in Africa millions of years ago. Stevens and Benet invite Janos along on an African expedition to search for the element that Janos has already named "Radium X." His mother's warning that Janos is "not used to people" and never will be turns out to be true when Janos separates from the expedition a few weeks in, leaving Diana in the company of Ronald. Janos finds the element in a crater and is able to harness its energy into a powerful laser but then discovers to his horror that he has become contaminated and glows in the dark with a radioactive touch. He rebuffs his wife's attempts to contact him and secretly goes to Benet who creates a counteractive drug that he must take daily for the rest of his life. Despite his promises to finish his experiments and return to camp, Janos puts off his return until Benet comes to find him and announces that not only has Diana fallen ill and returned to England with Lady Arabella and Ronald, but that Stevens and himself are preparing to take Radium X to Paris and the Academy of Sciences. Rukh takes a sample back to his castle and works on it, eventually managing to restore his mother's eyesight. Upon arrival in Paris, he discovers that Benet has opened a clinic and is also using Radium X to do similar things. Despite Benet's assurances that Janos received all credit for the discovery and was even awarded the Nobel Prize, Janos is embittered not only by what he considers thievery but also by the betrayal of his wife who is in love with Ronald. He finds a French hobo of similar build to himself and fakes his death in an apparent mishap with Radium X before setting about to use his killer touch to avenge himself on those who have wronged him: the thieves Stevens and Benet, the matchmaker Lady Arabella, and the newlyweds Ronald and Frances. As the killings start, Benet quickly suspects the truth and sets a trap to expose the killer while evading his touch.

Produced for more money than any of the earlier Universal horrors, and looking it with some gorgeous photography by George Robinson (who lensed Universal's Spanish adaptation of DRACULA lensed simultaneously with the Tod Browning film and went on to shoot some of the studio's forties horror films), sets by future RKO regular Albert D'Agostino (THE CAT PEOPLE), and some of the best mattes and miniatures so far in the series by John P. Fulton (VERTIGO) along with an original score by Franz Waxman (SUNSET BOULEVARD). While Lugosi and Karloff were constantly in danger of upstaging one another in their earlier collaborations, they are more evenly matched here with Karloff sympathetic even at his most monstrous and Lugosi as the good guy who is just as clever and self-sacrificing. Kingford's comic relief is flat and Lawton seems more whiny than gallant; Drake, on the other hand is both alluring and compelling while Cooper and Bondi are also able to bring dignity to sympathetic characters given less screen time. Director Lambert Hillyer would next direct DRACULA'S DAUGHTER before production code concerns and the British horror ban made the genre fall out of favor for a few years with the studio. Karloff would become another radioactive, phosphorescent killer in the climax of American International's DIE, MONSTER, DIE! (an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space").

Last and certainly least is BLACK FRIDAY in which mild-mannered English literature professor George Kingsley (Stanley Ridges, SERGEANT YORK) is gravely injured when he steps into the path of a car chase between gangster Red Cannon and the members of his group trying to rub him out: Eric Marnay (Lugosi), Frank Miller (Edmund MacDonald, DETOUR), William Kane (Paul Fix, RED RIVER), and Louis Devore (Raymond Bailey, later greedy banker Drysdale of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES). With Cannon paralyzed and Kingsley braindead, Kingsley's best friend Dr. Ernest Sovac (Karloff) decides to perform a bit of experimental and illegal brain transplantation, both to save his friend and to further science. Noticing Kingsley's erratic behavior as he convalesces, Sovac believes that Cannon's memories are still present in his brain. Learning that Cannon's gang was after five hundred thousand dollars he had hidden away, Sovac decides to take him to New York under the guise of a recuperative holiday and trigger his memories to find the money which he wants to use to build his own laboratory and continue his experiments. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Cannon's personality has been lying dormant and he emerges when Kingsley is asleep to avenge himself on the four members of his gang. As the police investigate, Sovac agrees to help Cannon become Kingsley permanently but his is under threat of exposure when Kingsley's concerned wife (Virginia Brissac, THE SCARLET CLUE) and Sovac's daughter (Anne Gwynne, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) come to town and Cannon's old flame Sunny (Anne Nagel, MAN MADE MONSTER) plots with Marnay to get the stolen loot from the man who claims he is her dead lover.

A mashup of medical science gone wrong horror film and gangster flick, BLACK FRIDAY's concept would not have been a bad idea for a Poverty Row quickie but seems trashy for a studio picture, even an economically-made one. Not only do top-billed Karloff and Lugosi not share any scenes, but Lugosi is miscast as a gangster and Karloff's is only good when his character is well-intentioned but not when trying to justify his treatment of someone who is supposed to be his best friend. Ridges comes off best despite the contrivance of a supernatural transformation from Kingsley to Cannon with the actor shedding his old age make-up through editing and later opticals (which seems at first to be in his own head since people who know him do not seem to recognize him while others later do appear to see the difference). The moments of horror in the kills are little more exciting than a stock shot-heavy shootout, and the fates of Sovac and Marnay are also less horrific than that of Ridges. It is no surprise that the film did not make a splash theatrically and that it marked the end of Karloff's and Lugosi's tenures at Universal. In spite of BLACK FRIDAY, jobbing director Arthur Lubin would be brought back to helm the studio's Technicolor PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943).

Released theatrically in 1934 and reissued a handful of times after that, THE BLACK CAT first arrived on home video as an MCA double feature VHS and Encore Edition laserdisc with THE RAVEN in the mid-eighties and then both as individual sell-through Universal VHS editions in the nineties when they started digging into their back catalogue. The first DVD release came as part of the BELA LUGOSI COLLECTION in 2005 pairing the film with MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, THE RAVEN, THE INVISIBLE RAY, and BLACK FRIDAY and then a later BORIS KARLOFF & BELA LUGOSI 4-MOVIE HORROR COLLECTION in 2018 that dropped RUE MORGUE since Karloff did not appear in the film. THE BLACK CAT was the only title in the set not to have received a new 2K scan because an HD master already existed, and the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen sports some instances of speckling but looks cleaner and crisper than the DVD transfer, so much so that the stock footage no longer seamlessly blends with the original footage when it comes to the opening montage (from memory, the first bit of obvious stock footage was the night shot of the speeding train on the DVD). The heightened resolution reveals rock steady focus during the tracking shots while the bottomless blacks are no longer just shadows but major sections of some of the set backdrops like the room used for the Black Mass. THE RAVEN's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen transfer benefits from the HD resolution in lending the more blandly-lensed film a greater sense of texture and depth with the blacks of the set design and the less frequent shadows and gobos aiding the atmosphere. The Universal logo is preceded by a production code approval card. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks are almost as "noiseless" as the advertised Westrex recording during silences while the dialogue remains clear and the scoring is free of distortion. Optional English SDH subtitles are included with some small errors.

Reissued by Realart in 1948, THE INVISIBLE RAY was easiest to see on television through a deal with a pre-Sony Screen Gems until MCA released it on VHS in 1987 followed by a digitally-remastered version in 1992 on MCA/Universal VHS and Encore Edition laserdisc, followed by the aforementioned DVD sets. The 2K-mastered 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen Blu-ray is probably the best-looking transfer in the set with virtually no damage, nice detail in close-ups of hair, clothing, and sets – which do not give away the joins between real set and matte portions – while the blacks are bottomless from the set shadows to the deep space opticals. The Westrex noiseless recording is fairly clean on the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track and English SDH subtitles are included. Like THE RAVEN, BLACK FRIDAY's 2K-mastered 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen transfer looks great for a visually-uninteresting film. The English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is relatively clean but may have a bit more digital clean-up applied than necessary in one or two spots where the hiss-free silences seem unnatural. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

Scream Factory has commissioned a pair of commentaries from Universal horror experts for THE BLACK CAT. On the first track, author/film historian Gregory William Mank provides a linear history of the production from conception to reception, providing details on the fifteen day shoot (at a quarter of the budget of DRACULA and a third of that of FRANKENSTEIN), Lund's horrific experience on the set, identifies the source of the opening stock footage in the Conrad Veidt film ROME EXPRESS, and the various classical cues rearranged by music director Heinz Roemheld, Ulmer's contributions to the sets and costumes – the surname of Karloff's character is a reference to Hans Poelzig, production designer of THE GOLEM – as well as the contributions of others like cameraman John J. Mescall (NOT OF THIS EARTH) and uncredited make-up artist Jack Pierce (FRANKENSTEIN). Most interesting are his descriptions of the screenplay including scenes shot but cut to introduce Lugosi and Karloff as early as possible, vivid descriptions that sometimes differ from what is onscreen – as well as Joan's character as "hypervirginal" – as well as producer-mandated reshoots to the film the cast Lugosi's character in a more positive light as he had originally wished. The second track features Steve Haberman whose track is more scene-specific, noting the need to convey Joan's virginity without overt references in keeping with the production code, the film as one of the first American horror films to address the psychological damage wrought by World War I, the softening of Lugosi's character – Haberman likens Werdergast to a Byronic antihero – also providing an interpretation for Peter's passive reaction to waking to Werdergast stroking his bride's hair, Ulmer's twists on conventions of the gothic as well as Universal's approach to the genre, as well as his direction of Karloff's physical performance.

"A Good Game - Karloff and Lugosi At Universal Part One: The Black Cat" (23:34) is the first part of a documentary on the Karloff/Lugosi paring featuring comments by Mank and Gary D. Rhodes who discuss how Karloff's and Lugosi's post-FRANKENSTEIN/DRACULA careers diverged with Karloff going onto character performances in bigger productions and Lugosi going bankrupt, how both actors thought highly of THE BLACK CAT, and countering the popular report of a rivalry between the two actors (while noting that Lugosi was concerned early on about Karloff upstaging him), and the adulation and abuse the two actors received as horror stars in their lifetime. "Dreams Within A Dream: The Classic Cinema Of Edgar Allan Poe" (56:02) is a fairly comprehensive look at Poe in cinema narrated by Doug Bradley (HELLRAISER) starting with D.W. Griffith's 1909 short EDGAR ALLAN POE which told a story in four static shots and his later THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE in which he employed more advanced cinematic devices to tell a version of "The Tell Tale Heart" followed by a number of films not based on Poe but showing his influence like Fritz Lang's THE PLAGUE IN FLORENCE and the Lon Chaney PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with the former's plague and the latter's Red Death, the two filmings of THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE based on E.T.A. Hoffmann but also Poe's "William Wilson," THE BLACK CAT segment of the German silent anthology UNCANNY TALES (the adaptation of which was surely an influence on Corman's take in TALES OF TERROR), Universal's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, THE BLACK CAT, and THE RAVEN, Jean Epstein's THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER and the later British independent production by Ivan Barrett, THE MAN WITH A CLOAK in which Joseph Cotten's writer detective turned out to be Poe, and the biopic THE LOVES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. Discussion also encompasses the Brian Clemens-scripted British adaptation of THE TELL TALE HEART which pushed the envelope with a heart ripping gore scene, Corman's Freud-influenced American International series, AIP's subsequent Poe in-name-only films in the aftermath of releasing the French/Italian anthology SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, the influence of the AIP Poes in Italy and Spain with CASTLE OF BLOOD and THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER, along with Juan Lopez Moctezuma's MANSION OF MADNESS (a surreal adaptation of "The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather"), and Italian takes on THE BLACK CAT by Sergio Martino, Lucio Fulci, and Dario Argento. No mention is made of the Harry Alan Towers productions for Menahem Golan's 21st Century Film Corporation, although they would have fit just as much into the discussion as other loose cash-in adaptations discussed therein. Also included on the disc is "The Black Cat Contest" (0:49), vintage promotional footage for the film, and a stills gallery (8:47).

THE RAVEN is also accompanied by a pair of commentaries. The first track with Rhodes posits itself as a continuation of the Mank track from THE BLACK CAT, once again having more of a linear structure starting with the origins of the film as an intended combined adaptation of "The Raven" and "The Gold Bug" and a script that went through multiple drafts and writers – including Guy Endore who was adapting his novel "The Werewolf of Paris" for the screen (it would not be filmed until 1961 by Hammer as THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF) – and the studio's intention to mount it as an A-class production with a star cast and Kurt Neumann (THE FLY) in the director's chair. Once the final script by David Boehm (GRAND SLAM) was approved, production was further delayed by the Hayes Code office's concerns. Haberman appears on a second track that is once again more scene- and shot-specific, discussing the themes of film, likening Vollin's Jean to Poe's lost Lenore and the shared needs of doctor and author to understand and control death. Haberman also provides plenty of production trivia like Jean's dance act being shot on the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA sound stage and the use of the same recording of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" arranged by Roemheld for THE BLACK CAT as well as some other cues from that film recycled here.

The disc also includes "A Good Game - Karloff and Lugosi At Universal Part Two: The Raven" (17:24) in which Mank and Rhodes offer different opinions on the film. Mank notes that Karloff did not like the script and is of the opinion that it is not one of his better films but that it is at least a fun film. Rhodes is of the opinion that it is one of the top five Lugosi horror films, and that Lugosi may have been attracted to it because it allowed him to play the Dr. Frankenstein character to Karloff's "monster" (Lugosi having regretted turning down the role of the monster in Whale's film). The disc also includes "Bela Lugosi Reads The Tell-Tale Heart” (13:21), a vintage audio recording in which his delivery of the tale is as uninvolving as his quotations of "The Raven" in the film. Another large stills gallery (8:17) is also on the disc.

THE INVISIBLE RAY is accompanied by only one commentary, this one with authors/film historians Tom Weaver and Randall Larson which is typically informative but also subject to Weaver's recent tendency to include voiceover "impressions" when source material is quoted, as well as comic asides, sometimes with sound effects or sound-bytes. Weaver provides more information about what lead to the studio dropping horror with censorship issues and the wresting of control of the studio from Carl Laemmle senior and junior (the latter having been more of a force in the studio's genre productions). He discusses what he was able to glean of the source story "The Shining Spectre" from a scan of the first page found on eBay from a seller pricing the rare publication in the thousands as well as his draft of the script which he notes does not clarify any of the film's plot holes, most notably why Stevens and Benet would entertain the invitation of someone they have dismissed as a kook. He also discusses the cast, including Karloff's "adorkable mad professor" turn, Cooper who was only forty-something and still a looker under her old age make-up, and the Variety column that spoke of Drake as a "new Fay Wray."

"A Good Game - Karloff and Lugosi At Universal Part Three: The Invisible Ray" (16:35) brings back Mank and Rhodes in which they both agree that Lugosi might have thought he was a better actor than Karloff but could not at this point have though himself on equal footing professionally with him. They note the change in approach to genre production with the higher-budgeted film which was sold as a thriller rather than a shocker, and Mank provides some information from an interview he was able to conduct with Drake. The disc also includes a Realart re-release theatrical trailer (1:44) and a still gallery (7:00).

For BLACK FRIDAY, Scream Factory provides an audio commentary by Constantine Nasr who describes it as one of the most "bizarre missteps of the period" neither a good gangster film or horror film but not without interest. He notes that the success of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN revitalized the horror film and brought Lugosi back to Universal, while Karloff had already appeared in THE TOWER OF LONDON (he also notes that Karloff was meant to be in THE REVENGE OF DR. X in what proved to be Humphrey Bogart's oddest role). He traces the original concept of the film titled FRIDAY THE 13TH by Wyllis Cooper who had scripted SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and the "Lights Out" radio series, but that the censors rejected his original scenario which included medical experiments, grave robbing, and skinning, and that Rowland V. Lee was originally slated as the director, and that the script would see several more transformations until the completely unrecognizable final product credited to Kurt Siodmak (THE WOLF MAN) and Eric Taylor (SON OF DRACULA).