Underplayed Gems

Luch Smerti (1925)

Luch Smerti poster
Original title
Луч смерти
Directed by
Lev Kuleshov
Genre
drama film, action film, silent film, science fiction film
Country
Soviet Union
Runtime
2h 05m
Rated
0+
Rating
5.2 of 10 from 12 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A Soviet inventor creates a death ray weapon during the 1920s. The film follows efforts to use or stop this powerful new technology.

fast-pacedadventurousdatedpioneeringsuspensefulpropheticrough-edged

What happens

The Death Ray (Russian: Луч смерти, romanized: Luch smerti) is a 1925 Soviet science fiction film directed by Lev Kuleshov. The first and last reels of the film have been lost. This film ran at 2 hours, 5 minutes, making this one of the earliest full length science fiction films. 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. Furthermore, the film has many similarities with a book by Valentin Kataev, called Lord of Iron, published in 1924. 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". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.