ridiculous rating

Just so...so bad

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Lambert Hillyer directed this science fiction story starring Boris Karloff as Dr. Janos Rukh, who organizes an expedition to Africa to locate a newly discovered meteorite of reputed power. Unfortunately, Janos becomes ill when exposed to it, though Dr. Felix Benet(played by Bela Lugosi) finds a cure for his radiation sickness. When they return to London, Benet uses the radiation to develop a cure for blindness, making him a hero, though Janos becomes embittered by what he considers the theft of his discovery, so uses his newfound power to kill by touch to avenge himself on his perceived enemies... Good film has a fine cast and interesting story, which makes inspired use of its familiar plot to create a moving tragedy.

Universal Pictures teamed their two titans of terror once again in The Invisible Ray. Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi teamed many times, not always in the best of films. But this one is carried along on the strength of both men.Karloff and Lugosi are a pair of scientists, Karloff regarded as a quack and Lugosi considered one of the best. Lugosi is one of several people invited to Karloff's home for a demonstration of the power of his new telescope which plots the origin of a meteor that originated in the Andromeda nebula. The meteor landed in Africa and Karloff wants in on an expedition that Walter Kingsford and Beulah Bondi are planning with Lugosi. Of course Boris goes to Africa and discovers the fragments which he labels as Radium X, one hundred times more powerful than the stuff Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered. But what eventually killed them gets a hold of Boris and he becomes poisonous to the touch. Lugosi finds an AZT like antidote, which controls the symptoms. But the stuff eventually reaches Karloff's brains with some nasty results all around.Karloff plays his usual well meaning scientist whose experiments go terribly awry, he did that in any number of films and the Citadel Film series book on his films says that this was the first time he essayed that type of character. But Lugosi was cast far more offbeat. He's the good guy in this, you could almost say he was a Van Helsing type character up against sinister evil.The Invisible Ray shows both of the Universal stars to good advantage. Later on when they worked together or apart at poverty row studios the results were not as good as The Invisible Ray.

Horror Gods Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi should be more than sufficient a reason for any Genre-lover to watch a film, and, even though the most convincing one they are not the only reason to watch this particular little Sci-Fi/Horror gem. While Lambert Hillyer's "The Invisible Ray" of 1936 does not nearly share the brilliance of other contemporary films starring Karloff ("Frankenstein, "Bride Of Frankenstein", "The Mummy",...) or Lugosi ("White Zombie", "Island Of The Lost Souls", "Dracula",...), or both ("The Black Cat", "The Raven",...), this is doubtlessly a highly entertaining film that no lover of cult cinema should consider missing. Compared to other Universal Horror pictures, the storyline seems a bit silly, but in a delightful manner. Karloff and Lugosi, of course, shine as always, and the film furthermore profits from great sceneries and an excellent photography. Karloff plays Dr. Janos Rukh, a brilliant scientist who has invented a technique to look into the past through a telescope, and finds out that a meteor has hit the earth thousands of years ago. Stunned by Rukh's invention, the celebrated French scientist Dr. Felix Benet (Bela Lugosi), invites him to join an expedition in to find the meteor. In Africa, Rukh makes a discovery that is capable of causing great beneficence and great destruction alike... It is somewhat odd that Karloff, who was in fact British, plays a Hungarian scientist here while Lugosi, who was Hungarian, plays a French Scientist, but they are both excellent as usual. As far as I am concerned, these two Horror Deities could have probably been filmed reading the telephone directory, and I am sure they would have made something out of it - either man is an icon of the Horror genre, and seeing them together is a treat for every fan of the genre. By the way, this is one of the few films, if not the only one, in which it is obvious that Lugosi was actually taller than Karloff. Frances Drake makes a very good female lead in her role of Dr Rukh's beautiful young wife. The rest of the performances are also good, if not particularly worth mentioning. Other than the casting of Karloff and Lugosi, the film's greatest qualities are probably the atmosphere due to great settings and photography, as well as the wonderfully cheesy and highly entertaining storyline. My main complaint is that I would have wished for more screen time for Lugosi, and for his role to have a bit more significance. He is fantastic as always, but his role could have been bigger, and more sinister. Otherwise, "The Invisible Ray" is a wonderfully entertaining film which should satisfy every lover of classic Horror/Sci-Fi cinema, and a must-see for all my fellow Lugosi/Karloff fans.

The third collaboration for Karloff and Lugosi sees a move away from Poe and into the realm of the science fiction serial. Karloff plays Dr. Janos Rukh, creator of a device that can capture light rays through his telescope in the Carpathian Mountains and translate them into pictures that form a visual history of the universe.Before several guests, including Lugosi as Dr. Benet, an astro-chemist who had previously scoffed at Rukh's theories, he demonstrates the existence of an unknown radioactive element, here termed "Radium X", contained in a meteor that fell to Earth in darkest Africa several thousand years ago. Karloff joins the expedition to prove his theories, but Radium X is a tricky compound - it levels mountains at long range, and cures blindness at short range. Rukh is careless, however, and poisons himself, glowing in the dark rather like those old Ready Breck commercials! Dr. Benet is on hand to devise a counter-active for the radiation, but combination of poison and cure drives Rukh insanely paranoid. Convinced he has been cheated, he seeks out the members of the expedition in Paris, including his estranged wife, and his very touch while in his radioactive state means death...Along the way we get the old pseudo-scientific idea that a dead person's eyes record the image of their killer (a remarkably distinct Karloff!) and the Radium X device used to symbolically melt statues that represent the expedition members. And even a touch of James Whale in a cockney landlady in Paris!The Invisible Ray is great fun, aside from the Gothic opening it's interesting to see Universal move the action around to Africa and Paris. The film lacks pace, but is always absorbing. Karloff slightly overdoes his performance but Lugosi is terrific. Universal used the basic story outline again in Man Made Monster, this time with Lon Chaney Jr. as the glowing menace (this time caused by electricity) and Lionel Atwill as a much madder doctor than Lugosi is here. The Invisible Ray is a sombre and clever little film with much to admire. Not as famous as other Universal Horrors, perhaps, but it works and is highly entertaining.