The Invisible Ray

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The Invisible Ray
Directed by	Lambert Hillyer
Produced by	Edmund Grainger
Written by	John Colton
Starring	Bela Lugosi Frances Drake Frank Lawton Walter Kingsford
Music by	Franz Waxman
Cinematography	George Robinson
Editing by	Bernard W. Burton
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	January 20, 1936
Running time	82 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
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The Invisible Ray is a 1936 Universal Pictures science fiction film starring Boris Karloff (credited as just Karloff) and Bela 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 from film composer Franz Waxman.

[edit] Cast

• Boris Karloff as Dr. Janos Rukh (as Karloff)
• Bela Lugosi as Dr. Felix Benet
• Frances Drake as Diana Rukh
• Frank Lawton as Ronald Drake

[edit] 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.