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(More customer reviews)These represent the Universal films outside the "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" franchises that starred Bela Lugosi--or more accurately, Karloff and Lugosi in all but one. Once Karloff entered the Universal scene a few months after "Dracula" (1931) and created such a hit with the Frankenstein monster--eclipsing Lugosi's Dracula, the studio wasn't keen to feature Lugosi as their horror star any longer: very ungrateful of them. So it leaves a "Lugosi Collection" from Universal largely as pairings with Karloff. "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1932) is exclusively a Lugosi vehicle. In "The Black Cat" (1934), the two are matched. Lugosi dominates in "The Raven" (1935), while "The Invisible Ray" (1936) is more a Karloff vehicle. "Black Friday' (1940), by far the weakest film, shouldn't be here at all, as Lugosi only has a small role.
Since others have already spoken at length about the films, and since most people buying this two-sided disc know what they're getting, I want to address the DVD mastering problems experienced. Many have noted that, regardless of player, films on the disc pixelate and freeze at random points. This is a problem with Universal's DVD-18 mastering process, which has flaws that have since caused Universal to return to their earlier, more reliable DVD-9 process.
In the meantime, both this disc and the 2-DVD "The Hammer Horror Series" have more than their share of bad discs. Contacting Universal itself will serve no purpose: even though they are aware of the problem, the pressings are out there and are not being remastered. You just have to be persistent and keep exchanging defective copies at retailers--even if you have to get a refund and start again with another dealer; the films are worth it. Eventually, you *will* get one without glitches. It took me three copies from two places for both this and "The Hammer Horror Series." Importantly, you don't have to play through all the films in real time to know if you have a flawed copy: just scan through the films in the player at 4x-10x speed (no faster), and if there is a glitch, the player will freeze at the spot. That way, you don't have to watch through eight 90-minute movies on every copy you try out; it will take only 10% of the time to check the set, and you don't even have to be in the room. If you come back and the image is frozen, rather than having finished the film being scanned and having returned to the menu, then you have a bad one.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Bela Lugosi Collection (Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Black Cat / The Raven / The Invisible Ray / Black Friday) (1934)
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