- The Invisible Ray (1936 film)
Infobox Film
name = The Invisible Ray
caption =
director =Lambert Hillyer
producer =Edmund Grainger
writer =John Colton
narrator =
starring =Boris Karloff Béla Lugosi
Frances DrakeFrank Lawton Walter Kingsford Beulah Bondi
music =Franz Waxman
cinematography = George Robinson
editing =Bernard W. Burton
distributor = Universal Pictures
released = flagicon|USAJanuary 20 ,1936
runtime = 82 min.
country = USA
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:25338
imdb_id = 0027800"The Invisible Ray" (1936) is a
Universal Pictures science fiction film starringBoris Karloff -- credited merely as "Karloff" -- andBéla Lugosi .A visionary doctor, Dr. Janos Rukh (Karloff) invents a telescope that can look far out into space -- into Andromeda -- and pick up rays of light that will show the earth's past. Looking at the past on a television-like screen, a group of assembled doctors as well as Dr. Rukh see a large meteor hit the earth thousands of years ago. Rukh convinces the doctors to go on an expedition to find the meteor that appeared to land in Africa. While in Africa, Rukh finds the meteor but is exposed to strong radiation ("Radium X") from the rock. Dr. Benet (Lugosi) takes a piece of the stone back to Europe and uses the meteorite to heal people -- including curing the blind. Rukh, suffering from the radiation, glows at night when not treated and is slowly losing his mind.
The film features music by film composer
Franz Waxman .Cast
*
Boris Karloff as Dr. Janos Rukh (as Karloff)
*Béla Lugosi as Dr. Felix Benet
* Frances Drake as Diana Rukh
*Frank Lawton as Ronald Drake
*Violet Kemble Cooper as Mother Rukh
*Walter Kingsford as Sir Francis Stevens
*Beulah Bondi as Lady Arabella Stevens
*Frank Reicher as Professor Meiklejohn
*Paul Weigel as Monsieur Noyer
*Georges Renavent as Chief of the Surete (as Georges Renevant)Trivia
In the
Tim Burton film "Ed Wood" about the director of the same name, an eager stagehand approaches Lugosi and requests an autograph. Lugosi complies until the young man remarks that in "The Invisible Ray", he was "great as Karloff's sidekick".Karloff's character, Janos Rukh, may have been modeled in part after
Nikola Tesla a Serbian-born inventor and scientist whose claims about inventing a "death ray" in 1934 were widely circulated and exaggerated by the press.ee also
*
Boris Karloff filmography
*Béla Lugosi filmography External links
*imdb title|id=0027800|title=The Invisible Ray
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