The Death Ray (1925 film)
The Death Ray (Russian: Луч смерти, translit. Luch smerti) is a Soviet science fiction film, made in 1925.[1] It was directed by Lev Kuleshov. It features Porfiri Podobed, Vsevolod Pudovkin and Sergei Komarov. It is often known as The Death Ray in English.[2] The first and last reels of the film have been lost. Despite the fact that many sources claim the inspiration for the film to be the novel The Garin Death Ray by Aleksei Tolstoy, this is not the case. It is impossible, since the book was published two years after the film, in 1927.[3] Furthermore, the film has many similarities with a book by Valentin Kataev, called Lord of Iron, published in 1924.[4] Moreover, the theme of death rays was very popular at the time because of the 1923 claim of British inventor Harry Grindell Matthews to have created a "death ray".
Cast
- Porfiri Podobed as Eng. Podobed
- Vsevolod Pudovkin as Father Revo
- Vladimir Fogel as Fascist Fog
- Aleksandra Khokhlova as Sister Edith
- Leonid Obolensky as Mayor Hard, Boss of the Fascists
- Sergei Komarov as Thomas Lann
- Andrei Fajt
- Mikhail Doller
- Lev Kuleshov