The Bela Lugosi Collection (Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Black Cat / The Raven / The Invisible Ray / Black Friday)
by Edgar G. Ulmer, Arthur Lubin, Lambert Hillyer
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DVD details
Actor: Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, David Manners, Egon Brecher, Julie BishopDirector: Arthur Lubin, Edgar G. Ulmer, Lambert Hillyer
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 337 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-06
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of The Bela Lugosi Collection (Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Black Cat / The Raven / The Invisible Ray / Black Friday)
DVD Review: MUST HAVE/ Black Cat, horror/ Invisible Ray, sci-fi, UNIVERSAL Style
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the one with the right films. THE BLACK CAT would likely still bother the censors and is a great remake of the OLD DARK HOUSE but more stylish and satanic than the studio hoped for and a wonderful film to see on Halloween or a full moon. There is also THE INVISIBLE RAY a SciFi'ish horror film with special effects that cut to today. The rest of the set is great and are others faves. I would pay 5 times the price for this set. It's not just Bela; it's great Universal Horror that I waited for.DVD Review: Simply, Superb !
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent collection for Bela Lugosi's fans. We see our famous Holywood's Dracula, a very professional actor, in different roles but always involved in mystery, murders ans suspense. I recommend and enjoy so much this five films, in particular "The invisible ray", based on the spectacular properties of the radioactive chemical element the "radium", so interesting but only as a science-fiction proposal. The Raven and the Black Cat are also magnificent. The participation of Mr. Boris Karloff gives a special touch to these horror series.DVD Review: Some details and positive comments on "The Invisible Ray"
Summary: 5 Stars
I just wanted to drop in here and voice my profound enthusiasm for "The Invisible Ray" (1936), which is perhaps the most obscure film of the entire package, and which stars both Boris Karloff (as Dr. Janos Rukh) and Bela Lugosi (as Dr. Felix Benet).
This one is an actual treasure among B-films -- it's a sci-fi, jungle movie, murder mystery all in one! And you'll never see either Karloff or Lugosi look better than they do here. In fact, Lugosi (with his goat-tee beard) looks astoundingly like the handsome Robert De Niro in the wedding scene of The Deer Hunter! This is also one of the few films where you'll see Lugosi playing the good guy.
THIS STORY is a lot more complex (but very coherent) than what we're accustomed to in comparable old sci-fi films. It begins in Dr. Rukh's mansion observatory in the Carpathian Mountains where he resides with his blind mother (Violet Kemble Cooper) and with his lovely young wife, Diane (whom they mostly call "Diana" throughout the film, played by the lovely Frances Drake). It's a dark and stormy night when guests arrive to whom Dr. Rukh has a visionary theory to prove.
Dr. Rukh's guests include Sir Francis Stevens (Walter Kingsford, Algiers), his wife Lady Arabella Stevens (Beulah Bondi, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), Dr. Benet, and Arabella's nephew, Ronald Drake (played by Frank Lawton). Rukh's wife and Mother Rukh are both very supportive of Dr. Rukh's incredible theory while the newly-arrived house guests are initially all skeptical.
Dr. Rukh guides the entire group into his observatory where, as they look on, he "captures" a ray of light which ultimately reveals, in a hologram show (in his adjacent lab where there is all manner of cool Frankenstein-ish electronic gewgaws), past astronomical events concerning the Earth, and specifically that a significant meteor once came from the Andromeda Nebula and impacted the Earth in the wilds of Africa! (The special effects on this are incredibly well-done.)
Having impressed his guests with his astounding results, Dr. Rukh agrees to accompany an already planned expedition of Benet's and Stevens' to Nigeria in an attempt to locate a sample of "Radium-X" which was the powerful atomic element in the meteor. All present go on the expedition except for Mother Rukh who ominously warns her son against the trip.
In the African Jungle, Dr. Rukh leaves the main camp to search for the Radium-X impact site, a spot which he locates in 8 weeks while the others remain at the main campsite, carrying out their own priorities. With the aid of his native assistants he rigs up a pulley system in which he can be lowered into a cave of flaming Hellfire to possibly collect a sample, fully protected in a radiation-proof suit. He gets his sample but he somehow still receives radiation poisoning -- in fact, any living thing he touches dies immediately as Dr. Rukh glows brightly in the dark! Dr. Rukh also develops an atomic ray gun at his campsite which he demonstrates for his native helpers by "melting" a huge rock, mostly in an effort to coerce them into not running away.
Dr. Rukh's wife, Diana, rushes through the wilds to his side when she hears where he is located but he immediately tells her to go away as he remains hidden and glowing in the dark of his tent's interior. She returns to the main camp, emotionally devastated and Dr. Rukh also sneaks back to the main camp to seek Dr. Benet's assistance in developing a cure for his radiation poisoning. Dr. Benet bails him out but the cure is only a temporary one and Dr. Rukh has to inject himself regularly to keep from exuding the poisonous atomic rays and killing whomever he touches. And there's another caveat -- while Dr. Rukh returns to his discovery site for a few weeks to recover more Radium-X, his wife (Diane) and Arabella's nephew (Ronald) fall in love. Diane remains faithful to her husband but she is clearly unhappy.
The group eventually returns to civilization and Dr. Rukh immediately uses a tiny exposure of his Radium-X ray to cure his mother's blindness. Then the scene switches to Paris where, knowing of Dr. Rukh's success with his mother, Dr. Benet begins curing thousands of people with various afflictions (including blindness) with the atomic ray. Dr. Rukh also goes to Paris and there he begins to go a bit mad. He had been warned of this possibility by Dr. Benet back in Africa. In any case, Dr. Rukh sees it that people have "stolen" from him. Dr. Benet has heisted his secret ray and Ronald Drake has stolen the love of his wife... in fact, Dr. Rukh suspects his wife of having cheated (which she did not).
So, in a mad, paranoid scheme, Dr. Rukh lures a man away from a pub who is about his own size, and then he fakes his own death by killing this unfortunate fellow, mutilating the body beyond clear recognition. The funeral is held and it's not long after this that we see the widow Rukh and the young and handsome Ronald Drake getting married! Dr. Rukh watches the ceremony from a dark corner and it's clear that he's going to seek vengeance. The first to die from Dr. Rukh's poisonous touch is Sir Francis Stevens. All Dr. Rukh has to do is to avoid injecting himself and when he begins to glow, it's "LOOK OUT!" for anyone he touches.
I absolutely must stop there to avoid a revelation/spoiler of the ending which is just as good as the body of the film. It all sounds far-fetched, I realize, but this one really flows with plenty of activity and enough action to keep it from dragging. The sets and locations are especially excellent.
This movie is, of course, in black-and-white, full-frame, and runs for 80 minutes. It was directed by Lambert Hillyer, (a prolific and talented director who did over 160 films and wrote the screenplays for many more.) The Screenplay was written by John Colton, based upon an original story by Howard Higgin and Douglas Hodges. The Musical score is a very good one and was composed by Franz Waxman. Finally, all the superb special effects were pulled off by John P. Fulton (special cinematographer) and Raymond Lindsay (who was uncredited.)
If this film has a weak link it's simply that Frank Lawton was perhaps poorly cast as he's just too diminutive a character to ever convincingly steal a wife away from the imposing persona of Karloff. But still, Lawton played his role to the pinnacle so this is a very minor criticism. There is also the scene of the meteor entering Earth's atmosphere and striking southern Africa, a good 1000 miles from Nigeria which is where the expedition supposedly went -- but again, this is nothing more than minor impedimenta.
I was especially impressed with the beauty of the brunette Frances Drake (Diane) with her slightly droopy and wide-set bedroom eyes and perfect features. She reminded me quite a lot of the striking and renowned Marie Windsor (Outpost in Morocco.)
As to the other films in this package, it's been awhile since I've seen them but I recall that they are all top old B-films that I liked. My chief point here was to draw folks' attention to "The Invisible Ray" which I highly recommend to appropriate audiences.
DVD Review: Death by flaying and death by ape; there's a lot of pleasure here
Summary: 4 Stars
The five movies on one DVD disc that make up The Bela Lugosi Collection are great fun and a great bargain. The price is worth it even if you're only interested in one or two of them. The two for me are The Black Cat and Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Black Cat, The (1934):
"I go to visit an old friend," says Dr. Vitus Werdegast to Peter and Joan Alison, the young newlyweds he meets on the train moving through a rain-swept night. Their destination is the picturesque village of Vizhegrad that had been the site of a horrendous battle during the Great War. They board a bus and the driver tells them, "Tens of thousands of men died here. The ravine down there was piled twelve deep with dead and wounded men. And that high hill yonder where Engineer Poelzig now lives was the site of Fort Marmorus. He built his home on its very foundations. Marmorus, the greatest graveyard in the world." Then the bus swerves and crashes in the driving rain, leaving the driver dead and the young wife injured, Dr. Werdegast takes them to Hjalmar Poelzig's home...his "old friend." Just who are these two men?
Werdegast (Bela Lugosi), says Poelzig, "is one of Hungary's greatest psychiatrists," He was captured in the Great War and thrown into a dank prison to rot for 15 years. He lost his wife, his young daughter and, as we shall see, his sanity. Yet he will be deeply touched by the newlyweds.
Poelzig (Boris Karloff), says Werdegast, is "one of Austria's greatest architects." He designed the great house that sits atop what was Fort Marmorus. Poelzig has a slab of a face and a widow's peak that would make Robert Taylor cry with envy. We also will learn that he is a traitor, a murderer, a seducer, a Satanist and a talented embalmer.
That this story takes place in a stylish art deco setting keeps us smiling...but down in the dungeon, where we meet the wives of Engineer Poelzig and watch how a keen scalpel can slowly flay the skin from a man's face...well, we don't turn away.
What makes this movie one of my favorites is the character of Dr. Werdegast and the performance of Bela Lugosi. Werdegast may go mad, but he's been driven mad by terrible injustice, by the loss of those he loved and by the final knowledge that their fate was worse than he ever believed. "Is she not beautiful?" says Poelzig to Werdegast, deep in the preserved caverns of Fort Marmorus. "I wanted to have her beauty, always. I loved her too, Vitus." Lugosi is quite touching in those moments he shows tenderness to young Peter and Joan. And Boris Karloff? He was a fine actor, and studying his style is time well spent. All this in just 65 minutes, and with art deco, too.
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932):
"I'm not a side-show charlatan...I'm not exhibiting a freak, a monstrosity of nature, but a milestone in the development of life," says the intense Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi) to the gape-mouthed ticket buyers seated in the small tent. "The shadow of Erik the ape hangs over us all...I tell you I will prove your kinship with the ape. Erik's blood shall be mixed with the blood of man!" Or, more precisely, with the blood of luscious young Parisian ?clairs. It's Paris, 1848. A mad scientist has been abducting young women and injecting them with blood from his ape. They die soon after and are dumped in the Seine. Dr. Mirakle is determined to prove Darwin was right...that young women crave apes. No, no, I mean the other theory, which Dr. Mirakle says can be proved by mixing the blood of ape and human.
This early Lugosi horror movie has a lot of charm, even if at only 61 minutes it doesn't have much time for characterization, plot development or subtlety. It makes up for this by its style. Dr, Caligari could have been the set designer and photographer. (Karl Freund, the cinematographer, had worked with Murnau and Lang in Germany). Freund and the director, Robert Florey, are expert in layering moody, threatening, off-kilter shots that range from Paris street scenes and roof tops at night, to Dr. Mirakle's dungeon of experimental science (featuring a semi-crucifix on which his assistant strings up the young women), to the dank morgue, to the gaslit side-shows, to the...you get the idea. Lugosi does a fine job as the unctuous, mad Dr. Mirakle. His under-the-chin lighting and the Unified Theory of Bushy Eyebrows Growing Together make Dr. Mirakle a medical man to avoid. The standout actor after Lugosi for me is the amusing, pungent performance of D'Arcy Corrigan as the morgue keeper. Corrigan plays him as aged, gaunt, with a long nose and a sunken mouth, and with long hair parted in the middle and oiled down on either side of his head. He has an unpleasant habit of inspecting his handkerchief every time he blows his nose.
DVD Review: Bela Lugosi Collection
Summary: 5 Stars
For Bela Lugosi fans this is a great DVD including some of his best classics. The Black Cat is particularly eerie and showcases his talents.
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