I just caught a few minutes of Chandu the Magician on the Fox Movie Channel.
I managed to turn it on just as the mad - but good - scientist was in the final throes of testing, yes, his death ray, called thus in so many words. Every bit of sparking electrical equipment known to the clouded minds of 1932 Hollywood technicians were crammed into a tiny space. He threw switches, pulled levers, and had a complete and total lack of dials. But the ray flew out and disintegrated a block of stone! As soon as he tore off his breathing mask [?] and stepped through the door, a squad of turbaned dacoits (are we in Egypt or not??) seized him and lowered him to a waiting boat in the river, followed by the death ray. Oddly, they took none of the electrical equipment. Maybe they figured it would be easier to just plug it in.
We cut to his worried family, so clean-cut that they made Norman Rockwell look like a pedophile drunk. There are noises outside, but not to worry: it’s just a sandstorm in the garden. [???] Then Uncle Frank materializes. Uncle Frank is the mystic Chandu, given by yogis the world’s least effective superpower as he apparently can only dematerialize when it’s completely safe to do so and not to get out of a jam.
Princess Nadji has been summoned by the bad guy, Roxor, played by Bela Lugosi with an accent from the land of Palindrome almost as thick as his mascara. Chandu uses his hypnotizing power to enter his lair by telling the doorman that these are not the droids he seeks. Sorry, by opening his eyes really, really wide. He rescues the Princess by tipping over torchpots which instantly turn the floor into an inferno. You do not want to know what the dacoits have been doing on that floor.
From there we get camels, a girl named Betty Lou, cockney comic relief, and much more and we’re not yet halfway into the film. This much I know: That death ray’s going flare before it ends, boys and girls.
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E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
I swear to Roxor.