‘Beware the Luminous Man!’
The Invisible Ray is a 1936 Universal Pictures American science fiction film starring Boris Karloff (billed merely as “Karloff”) and Bela Lugosi.
A visionary doctor, Doctor Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff) invents a telescope that can look far out into space — into the Andromeda Galaxy — 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 Doctor 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. Doctor Benet (Bela 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.
