Universal Classic

THE INVISIBLE RAY-1936-This was the third teaming of Karloff & Lugosi. It's more science fiction than their previous two outings (THE BLACK CAT and THE RAVEN) which emphasized horror.

Karloff (in his last role when he was billed just by his last name) is Janos Rukh, a scientist who's a bit loony because he blames himself for his mother's blindness. At special meeting he uses a kind of "magnetic ray" to show that a meteorite landed in Africa a million years ago. Lugosi is the skeptical Dr. Benet who invites Rukh to join him on an African expedition funded by Sir Francis (Walter Kingsford) and his dowager wife (Beulah Bondi) so he can find the meteorite and extracted the mysterious "Radium X".  Unfortunately he becomes radioactive, glows in the dark and his touch kills (his first victim is his dog). Seeking help he goes to Benet who concocts a serum that works temporarily. Rukh returns to his research and "harnesses" the radium in a ray gun that can destroy anything. He gets crazier when Benet says he will reveal Rukh's discovery when he returns to France.

Things don't get any better when Rukh learns Diane has left with Ronald. Later Rukh returns to France and cures mom's blindness. And then another shock! Although Benet promised Rukh would be credited with the discovery of Radium X a newspaper article makes it sound like it's Benet's find. Rukh decides on an evil plan then fakes his death. Diana marries Ronald and Rukh plots his revenge. He imagines some stone statues are his intended victims. After killing Sir Francis, he destroys a statue. Benet suspects Rukh immediately and sets up a scientific gathering to trap him (just before he's killed). The trap doesn't work but Mrs. Rukh (Violet Kemble Cooper) shows up at the climax to do her son in. Frank Reicher has one short scene as a victim.

TIR is a pretty cool ahead of it's time story. The sequence where Rukh explains about the meteorite crashing on Earth is very well done.  Although director Lambert Hillyer made the stylish cult film DRACULA'S DAUGHTER the same year and would make the first serial version of BATMAN in 1943 he would become better known for the many westerns he did from the early forties till the earlier fifties when he went into TV.

Screenwriter John Colton (who died in 1946) was also a playwright (RAIN, UNDER CAPRICORN) wrote THE WEREWOLF OF LONDON  the same year.

PS: The scene where Karloff (with a helmet and visor on) is lowered into a crater to retrieve the Radium X was later used in a chapter of the Lugosi serial THE PHANTOM CREEPS!

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