Can’t really have a horror “festival” without Karloff or Lugosi, can we? Consequently, let’s have them both together! This was the third, and I think the last, of their jointly starring vehicles for Universal, with Karloff slightly taking the lead in this one; he’s the not-yet-but-eventually-will-be mad scientist who uses the titular ray to look back millions of years in time to observe a meteorite crashing into Africa, which he deduces contains a new form of power, which leads him to join Lugosi in an expedition to Africa to find the thing. Unfortunately, as Orwell observed nearly a decade later, power corrupts, and while Lugosi uses the power for good, Karloff is more inclined the other way… The pseudoscience in this film is particularly pseudo, with Lugosi’s own work on “astro-chemistry” being something that could’ve made a film of its own, and the pacing feels odd in a way I can’t quite describe, like the film’s in two parts but the connection between the two isn’t as strong as it could be. I don’t know. But look, it’s Karloff and Lugosi in their peak period, which is not a bad thing at all (the latter could struggle as an actor, but he’s pretty solid here); and while the production seems to have been difficult (with original director Stuart Walker harrumphing off the lot when Universal wouldn’t give him time to do rewrites) and went massively over budget, you can see that money in the finished product, particularly the amazing laboratory set in the beginning of the film. The Invisible Ray is basically a superior B-film with two genre icons in the main roles, some vintage pseudoscience, and happily little comic relief, and I am very much in favour of that sort of thing. Enjoyed a lot.
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