The Invisible Ray (1936) - Movie Review
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- Опубліковано 20 жов 2024
- #BorisKarloff #BeluLugosi #UniversalMonsters
It's a dark and stormy night, we're in a big mansion somewhere, with characters awaiting the arrival of some scientists. They are going to visit with Dr. Janos Rukh, played by the always awesome Boris Karloff, who's early on we can suspect is clearly nutty. "they'll never laugh at me again!" That kind of thing.
Frances Drake plays Diana Rukh, his neglected wife. Not to be confused with Frances Drake, who was the English sea captain best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580. And yes, I think I used the same gag when I reviewed Mad Love, so I'm sorry. She was in that film as well, opposite of Peter Lorre. That film was amazing, by the way ("it is not I who am crazy...")
Wow, I'm way off topic and just getting started. Ah, it's my channel, I'll do as I please.
Anyhow, a group of scientists show up at Janos' house, one of whom is Bela Lugosi as Dr. Bennet. Frank Lawton plays Ronald Drake who you think might be interested in Diana, but she reveals she's marries to Janos.
They all gather around a big telescope and look at a nebula. Janos then returns in a silly welder-outfit and starts up a cool planetarium thing where he shows the scientists all of the planets zooming by, and a demonstration of a big space rock landing in Africa.
The scientists are all impressed by the show, and they change their tune about him, and invite him to go exploring for this space rock.
Off in Africa there's research going on looking for the mysterious "Radium X", something that Janos finds, and uses in a demonstration to melt a giant rock, to the horror of the natives watching, and he threatens to blast them is they don't keep working.
Seems like Janos has turned to the dark side at this point.
Later, Janos is in his tent having a snack and realizes, as do we the viewer, that he now glows in the dark. And you know what, Janos - if you're glowing with radiation, probably not a good idea to pet your dog.
Anyhow, his wife comes by to check on him and he tells her to leave, so she plans to depart the next day.
Janos seeks after Dr. Bennet (Lugosi) and yeah, it's always cool when these two share screen time. Janos appeals to Bennet to help him out with his weird glowy-poison-touch issue, and he agrees. Come on, Universal monsters stick together! Bennet helps with a cure and gives Janos careful instructions, with the dire warning that the condition can still return without his medication. Meanwhile, Ronald professes his love for Diana (you know, Janos's wife.) I don't think that's gonna be a good idea buddy.
Janos continues his research when Bennet visits, and tells him they've decided to share his discovery (giving him the credit of course.)
Janos gets the news his wife is in love with someone else. Annoyed, he yells and tells him to leave.
Later, he tries out the invisible ray on his mother to heal her blindness. A silly side note, but she reminded me of Whistler's mother.
So soon we see headlines, and Dr. Bennet is putting "Radium X" to use to heal patients with blindness. As someone with crappy vision, I can appreciate the doctor's efforts here. Janos shows up, sees what's going on, and seems bugged. Sure, he won a nobel prize and all, but he doesn't think people are using Radium X to it's full potential. He's walking along, finds someone of his similar build and...
the next day, the papers report that Janos was found dead, burned beyond recognition.
Ronald and Diana waste no time getting married but, lurking in the distance is Janos, who has faked his death!
Dr. Bennet is on to the fact something fishy is going on, and is able to do some detective work and show the radiation handprint on the victims. So people are dying and at a medical conference Dr. Bennet suspects that Janos will appear and, he's ready for him. But will he fall into Bela's trap? Well, check out the film to see how it all ends.
Some closing thoughts: I liked this one. It's less horror focus and more scifi, even though both leads were horror icons. Also, I always grew up believing the two were rivals but the little bit of research I've done showed that both Lugosi and Karloff were actually friends, and that any "rivalry" was just something generated by the studios. Honestly, I'm going to dig up some books on this to research this because I like both of these actors a great deal and I'd like to know the full story.
I believe this makes the second or third film I've seen both of them in. I saw them both in Black Cat, but not the Raven yet (it's on my list) and I think it's great when they share screen time. And just a note, even though Karloff gets top billing in the credits (in bold print!) it was cool seeing Bela Lugosi get plenty of screen time here, and not as the bad guy either. It felt like a fair balance of both actors.
Best movie review yet!!!!!!!!!!
WOW WHAT AN OUTSTANSING MOVIE REVIEW! I SHOULD SHOW ALL OF MY FRIENDS!
The Invisible Ray is a Very Underrated film.
Both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi were Great In It.
Thanks for maintaining the correct aspect ratio.
One of Karloff's very best roles .. made up to look like Poe I read .. not cheesy at all, to me
They found vibranium, lol
Great review --especially showing the theater posters along with clips.
Actually a superior sci-fi movie for its time with a touch of cosmic horror (an unknown super radioactive element from very deep space or another dimension).
Thanks friend! I'm trying to get better at including things like move posters and film stills, and even in some of my recent reviews, street views of filming locations. It's all a learning process but I'm just having fun with it.
Boris Karloff invented LASIK? Ha.
Good review.
Both Boris daughter and Belas son were freinds and they have both confirmed that their was no rivalry between them.
What about "there" instead of "their". Still both were often.