MANIACAL MAYHEM (Three films starring Boris Karloff) (1936-1951) (Eureka Entertainment Blu-ray Review)

MANIACAL MAYHEM

(Three Films starring Boris Karloff) (1936-1951)

Label: Eureka Entertainment
Region Code: B
Rating: PG
Audio: English PCM 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: B&W 1080p HD Full Frame (1.37:1)

Three more tales of terror from the vaults of Universal Pictures, all starring the iconic Boris Karloff on 2-disc Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment with new extras.

THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936)
Duration: 79 Minutes I Director: Lambert Hillyer I Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Charles Laughton, Frances Drake, Frank Lawton, Violet Kemble Cooper, Beulah Bondi

The melodramatic sci-fi film The Invisible Ray (1936) begins with a far-fetched bit of techno-wonder as astronomer Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff, Black Sabbath) invents a telescope that can peer deep into space and photograph light rays, enabling him to display millions of years old cosmic happenings on a TV display, allowing viewers to watch ancient happenings as if they were on a movie screen. It's during such a viewing with his colleague Dr. Benet (Bela Lugosi, The Island of Lost Souls) that they witness an ancient meteorite smash into the African continent billions of years ago, inspiring them to launch an expedition into the heart of Africa to find this ancient cosmic relic.

Once there Dr. Rukh is insistent that he alone set out to find the impact site, and when he finds it he is exposed to it's peculiar radiation, dubbed "Radium-X", which renders him luminous with contaminated lethal radiation. On the edge of death he seeks the help of his colleague Dr. Benet who easily (of course) concocts an elixir that holds the ill-effects of the Radium-X at bay, but he must dose himself regularly or the effects will return. Both Rukh and Bennet devise ways to harness Radium-X's healing properties, with Rukh curing his mother's blindness, but when his wife leaves him for Bennet the jilted astronomer's motives turn from the altruistic to murderous, as he begins to track down those he feels have wronged him and uses his lethal-radiation powers to kill them, leading up to his mother having to take matters into her own hands to stop her son's murder-spree. There's a lot of interesting oddball stuff happening here, the science is all wrong-headed, but it's still fascinating in a pulpy sci-fi sort of way, plus we get Lugosi sporting a suave goatee and a deranged, and curly-haired irradiated-killer by way of Karloff - what's not to like? 

BLACK FRIDAY (1940)
Duration: 70 Minutes I Director: Lew Landers I Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Stanley Ridges, Anne Nagel, Anne Gwynne

Black Friday (1940) is the probably the strangest of the trio of films on this set, a genre mash-up that's half 40's gangster film half a mad scientist thriller; starring Boris Karloff as Dr. Ernest Sovac, a doc who performs a strange operation that involves putting brain-tissue from a recently murdered bloodthirsty gangster named Red Cannon into the brain of a critically injured college professor (Stanley Ridges, Each Dawn I Die), which creates a sort of Jekyll & Hyde duality transforming the well-read professorial sort into a bloodthirsty gangster from scene to scene. When the Red Cannon side of the professor's personality alludes to a substantial sum of money he has stashed away in the city Dr. Ernest begins to exploit his patient so that he can get his hands on that cash.

Where's Bela Lugosi in all this? In a small role as the gangster who ordered the hit on Red Cannon, and it's a pretty terrible role with Lugosi miscast as a gangster, his overly thick Hungarian accent not doing him any favors. It's a bit of a bummer that this nutty flick is such a letdown, Karloff is good, but it's a role he could sleepwalk through, with the real star being the split-personality of Stanley Ridges who does a bang-up job in the role. I do give a tip of the hat to the film for the bizarre gangster/mad scientist hybridization - it's not a bad film, but it's not really a true Karloff/Lugosi team-up either.

THE STRANGE DOOR (1951)
Duration: 81 Minutes I Director: Joseph Pevney I Cast: Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Sally Forrest, Richard Stapley

Based on the short story "The Sire De Malétroits Door" by French author Robert Louis Stevenson  this flick features Karloff in a heightened supporting role, playing Voltan. He's a seemingly loyal servant to the sadistic Sire Alain de Maletroit (Charles Laughton, The Island of Lost Souls), a sadistic French nobleman who has secretly kept his younger brother Edmond (Paul Cavanagh, House of Wax) locked away in a subterranean dungeon for over twenty years. Alain a hell of a grudge holder, he's been mad at his brother for marrying the woman he loved, and who ended up dying while giving birth to Blanche (Sally Forrest, While the City Sleeps). The demented sire has raised his niece with her thinking that her father died years earlier, unaware that he's been rotting away in a basement dungeon of the mansion. The end game of Alain seems to be to debase his brother even further by ruining the life of Blanche by arranging for her to marry rogue scoundrel Denis de Beaulieu (Richard Stapley, The Girl in Rio), whom he tricks into going along with after framing him for a murder during a drunken bar room brawl.

It's a wonderfully twisted Gothic melodrama with Laughton camping it up as the deranged but oh-so charismatic schemer, but a wrench is thrown into the revenge-works when the rogue turns out to be a noble-hearted hero intent on saving not only his own skin but that of Blanche with the pair falling in love, much to the chagrin of the hand-wringing sire. This has some great set-pieces at the end involving a body-crunching water wheel that powers a room with walls that close-in at the end, it's a pretty action-packed bit of susoense from start to finish. Be on the look out both Michael Pate (Tower of London) as a deliciously dastardly henchman and Alan Napier (Alfred from the 60's TV version of Batman) as a doomed would-be savior of the young lovers. A totally terrific watch that comes highly recommended for fans of stuff like The Black Castle and The Tower of London. 

Audio/Video: The three Karloff films arrive on region B locked Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment framed in 1080p HD fullframe (1.37:1). All three films are advertised as new 2K scans from the ever-nebulous "original film elements". The source elements here are in pretty good shape, occasionally I spotted some scratches, dirt and debris but overall these are in fine shape with some healthy looking film grain, with some occasional softness popping up from time to time. Black levels are quite nice with measured contrast levels and strong shadow detail making for an optimal monochromatic viewing experience. They definitely look their vintage, but have been well-preserved and they look fantastic. Audio on all three films comes by way of English PCM dual-mono 2.0 with optional English subtitles. They sound their vintage but the uncompressed audio is string with only minor issues of hiss occasionally.  

Extras include brand new audio commentary tracks on The Invisible Ray and The Strange Door with author Stephen Jones and author/critic Kim Newman, with Black Friday getting one with Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby, plus 

three different “The Sire de Maletroit’s Door” radio adaptations, galleries and trailer. All three of these films are available in the U.S., both The Invisible Ray (1936) and Black Friday (1940) are available on Scream Factory's Universal Horror Collection Vol. 1 and The Strange Door (1951) has a stand alone Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber that I have not seen, but it should be noted that this 2-disc set from Eureka has exclusive extras and commentaries. 

Special Features:
- Limited Edition O-Card Slipcase
- 1080p presentation of all three films across two Blu-ray discs
- All films presented from 2K scans of the original film elements
- Optional English SDH
- Brand new audio commentary tracks on The Invisible Ray and The Strange Door with author Stephen Jones and author/critic Kim Newman
- Brand new audio commentary track on Black Friday with Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby
- “The Sire de Maletroit’s Door” radio adaptations
- Stills Galleries
- Trailers
- PLUS: A Limited Edition Collector’s Booklet featuring new writing on all three films by film writers Andrew Graves, Rich Johnson, and Craig Ian Mann

Another wonderful 2-disc set of films from Eureka exploring the Universal film vaults that should be catnip for Karloff completists, this is a top-notch set for lovers of vintage Universal kitsch, and it makes a terrific companion piece to Eureka's previous Universal/Karloff compendium Universal Terror.