THE INVISIBLE RAY-1936-3 STARS

5. May 2008 by Ria.

Now I’m not a big fan of movies about meteors, and light beams, but hey, its Lugosi, and Karloff going up against each other in a subtle, and respectable way. Let’s meet Dr. Janos Rukh (Karloff), a scientist who invents a telescope that can shoot rays all the way to the Andromeda Galaxy, and through those rays, can see Earth’s past. Rukh invites a few people to watch the light show with him. Among those invited are Dr. Felix Benet (Lugosi) from the University of Paris, and Ronald Drake.

During this light show, they find out that a meteor fell in Africa thousands of years ago, so everyone packs up, and head on out there. While in Africa, Rukh goes off alone to look for Radium X deposits, and leaves his poor wife Diana behind with Benet, Drake, and the other scientists, who’ve set up camp in another area. This is a bad move, because Drake has his eyes on Diana. “Well Drake, Diana is a married woman, so you better just put your eyes back into your socket, before Rukh comes along and pound you into the ground!”

Speaking of Rukh, he finds the meteor, but then suffers from Radium poisoning, and glows in the dark as a result of it. Oh yeah, he killed a dog too, with one glowing touch of his hand. Diana follows Rukh to the camp, but he pretty much gives her the hand, and in so many words, tells her to get lost. “You know Rukh, you really can’t afford to kick your wife to the curb like that. After all, you are sub-par in the looks department, and I seriously doubt you’ll be able to replace her anytime soon, so chill out already!”

Of course he doesn’t listen to me, and sends Diana back to the other camp, right into the arms of Drake who admits to Diana that he loves her, and wonders what he’s gonna do. “Well first of all Drake, you can start by taking off that jungle hat, you look stupid in it, and if you continue to wear it, why should anybody take you seriously?” Meanwhile, Rukh sneaks back to Benet’s camp and tells him of the Radium poisoning. Benet conjures up an antidote, but its not a permanent cure, nor does he know how the disease will affect Rukh’s brain.

So Rukh takes the antidote, and now he’s alright. Well, maybe not, because then he finds out that another colleague took part of Rukh’s specimen back to the Scientific Congress in Paris, and Diana has run off with Drake. Now Rukh is pissed off at everyone and calls them thieves. Now these rays that Rukh found have the power to restore sight to the blind, and he uses those rays on his blind mother, who can now see, and back in Paris, Benet uses the rays on a blind girl who had her sight restored.

Wait Benet, why is the girl and her parents leaving? You better tell them to get back in there and pay your fee which should be no less than $100,000! If they don’t have it, take a lean out on their house until they can cough up the whole amount! Hey, this is a horror movie, and mean, crude, and greedy behavior is allowed!

Now Rukh has been able to keep his radium disease under control, but it affected his mind, and now he’s out to kill Drake, Benet, and company. One by one they all go down with the radium death touch, but when it came time to kill Diana, he hesitates. “That’s right Rukh, get that backstabbin’ witch, I know you didn’t treat her so well in Africa, but that didn’t give her the right to run off with another guy. KILL HER! If you can’t do it, give me a gun, and I’ll do it!”

Rukh’s mom comes along, and destroys the radium antidote that Benet fixed up for Rukh, who realizes that he’s now at the end of his murderous rampage, so he jumps out of a window, ending his life. Now the plot of this movie was a little weak, but I give 3 stars for fine performances by Lugosi, and Karloff. Okay, what’s next on the classic movie list, let’s see…………………….Okay coming this month, the Dead End/East Side kids, Charlie Chan, and some other stuff, I just don’t know what, so remember to subscribe to my feed, so you won’t miss a thing!

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