The Invisible Ray *** (1936, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Frances Drake, Frank Lawton, Walter Kingsford, Beulah Bondi) – Classic Movie Review 2,675

‘Beware the Luminous Man!’ Universal Pictures’ 1936 movie The Invisible Ray teams the great horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in one of their eight films together.

Beware the Luminous Man!

Director Lambert Hillyer’s 1936 movie The Invisible Ray teams the great horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the fourth of their eight films together. It is made and released by Universal Pictures, is written by John Colton, and is shot in black and white by George Robinson.

The Invisible Ray is an intriguing, pretty effective Karloff-Lugosi fantasy sci-fi horror thriller, with Karloff as Dr Janos Rukh, a visionary scientist experimenting in Africa, who turns killer when irradiated by a meteor that he has found on an expedition co-led by his colleague Dr Felix Benet (Lugosi). Dr Rukh begins to glow in the dark, is going mad, and has become murderous by touch after being exposed to the radiation of a powerful new element called Radium X.

The nifty stars are backed up by female co-star Frances Drake as Dr Rukh’s wife Diana Rukh, the involvingly bizarre plot, the decent special effects (for their day of course) and loyal support acting from Frank Lawton, Walter Kingsford, Beulah Bondi, Violet Kemble Cooper, Georges Renavent, Paul Weigel, and Frank Reicher.

The visual special effects are by John P Fulton and the special effects by Raymond Lindsay.

Franz Waxman provides an original score, though there are cues from his music for The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

It was shot from 17 September 1935 to 25 October 1935 and released on 20 January 1936.

It had a sizeable B-movie budget of $166,875, but it ended up $68,000 over budget after filming over-ran.

Karloff and Lugosi were to have followed up their 1935 film The Raven with Bluebeard, but there were script problems and Universal put it on hold. Director Stuart Walker was unhappy with John Colton’s script, asked for a short delay, and was replaced with Lambert Hillyer.

Dr Rukh’s lab is also Ming the Merciless’s in Flash Gordon (1936) and Countess Zelaska’s castle in Dracula’s Daughter (1936).

The Church of the Six Saints where Frank Lawton and Frances Drake marry is the Notre-Dame Cathedral set from Universal’s 1923 The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The Invisible Ray is directed by Lambert Hillyer, runs 80 minutes, is made and released by Universal Pictures, is written by John Colton, based on an original story by Howard Higgin and Douglas Hodges, is shot in black and white by George Robinson, is produced by Edmund Grainger, and is scored by Franz Waxman, and designed by Albert S D’Agostino, with visual special effects by John P Fulton and special effects by Raymond Lindsay.

The cast

The cast are Boris Karloff as Dr Janos Rukh, Béla Lugosi as Dr Felix Benet, Frances Drake as Diana Rukh, Frank Lawton as Ronald Drake, Violet Kemble Cooper as Mother Rukh, Walter Kingsford as Sir Francis Stevens, Beulah Bondi as Lady Arabella Stevens, Frank Reicher as Professor Meiklejohn, Paul Weigel as Monsieur Noyer, Georges Renavent as Chief of the Sûreté, and Nydia Westman as Briggs.