Included in the Bela Lugosi set (the B-sides you could call
them) are two lesser films among the Lugosi/Karloff team. The Invisible Ray
[1936] switches roles again where Lugosi is the doctor/scientist looking to use
“Radium X” (found from a meteor in Africa, discovered in a highpowered
invention by Karloff’s Janos) for the betterment of mankind while Karloff has
had direct contact with the material, poisoned by it with only a counteractive
formula (developed by Lugosi) keeping him from dying (he’s gradually going mad).
Karloff is pissed off that Lugosi and those among his entourage are using the
Radium X to heal sick folks, feeling as if it was stolen from him. And also his
wife falls in love with an adventurer (and vice versa) as the two no longer deny
their feeling for each other…it didn’t help that Janos devoted more time to
Radium X than her. The movie lights his face and hands up white when he’s in
the dark to emphasize his “killer touch” and Radium X sickness. That poison
hand kills upon touch and Karloff starts executing those on the expedition he
considers thieves. Lugosi aims to stop him but Karloff has an advantage. This
is more or less sci-fi. I used to watch these films in the early 2000s on
Saturday mornings. Watching it tonight, I think it is more suited for the down
months of January and February. I see why I don’t typically watch this every
October. Not saying it isn’t fun, because Karloff does “mad genius out to get
revenge” well. Warner Bros damn near cast him in this role frequently. Many
know Frances Drake, the wife of Karloff in the film, as the object of Lorre’s
affections in Mad Love (1935).
Black Friday [1940] is really a showcase for Stanley Ridges,
who is allowed to play dual roles as a kindly, soft-voiced professor of English
Literature and a mobster out for revenge against former gangster associates
(headed by Lugosi). Ridges, with slicked back, black hair, emerges as the
mobster thanks to Karloff who encourages that part of the brain (Karloff is a
master surgeon, performing complex brain surgery that allows both the professor
and mobster to live within the same head, after a car accident critically
wounds both) so he can get his hands on hidden stolen money (half a million) to
fund a lab, equipment, and items for research. Lugosi is positively wasted
while Ridges takes full advantage of the opportunity for this unique role(s).
Karloff, truthfully, doesn’t have a significant part, but his surgeon does
appear noble except for his role in bringing back the personality of Red Cannon
who, in turn, executes those who attempted to kill him (and did, for the most
part). Adopting the gentle voice and unimposing manner, Karloff is but a
scientist/surgeon overcome by his desire to have the necessary tools to help
him be more successful. Ridges, though, when returning to the professor (and
long-time friend of Karloff’s surgeon) out of the mobster personality is done
serious harm by his friend’s pursuit of the loot. Lugosi influences Red’s
squeeze into helping him gain access to the money but his role in the film
couldn’t be any more minor. At least on the Poverty Row sets Lugosi was most of
the time given star treatment. I think this film really is the black sheep of
the set, because Lugosi’s namesake should really feature work that features him
more prominently.
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