Alongside Karloff, the film's cast includes Bela Lugosi, Frances Drake, Frank Lawton, Walter Kingsford, Beulah Bondi, Violet Kemble Cooper, and Nydia Westman.

When that production did not start, Universal wanted a release by the end of 1935 with Karloff and Lugosi, and hired director Stuart Walker and screenwriter John Colton to make the film The Invisible Ray.

A visionary astronomer, Dr. Janos Rukh, has invented a telescope that can look far out into deep space, into the Andromeda Galaxy, and photograph light rays that will show the Earth's past.

Looking at the remote past on a planetarium-like dome in his lab, two of those ardently skeptical scientists, Dr. Benet and Sir Francis Stevens, watch a large meteorite smash into the Earth a billion years ago, in what is now the continent of Africa.

Benet develops a serum that holds the lethal element's toxicity at bay, but Rukh must take regular doses of the antidote or he will revert to being a luminous killing machine.

Benet takes a piece of the meteorite back to Europe, where he modifies its effects to help people, including curing the blind.

Credits adapted from the book Universal Horrors:[4] Nydia Westman, though billed on the film's poster, appears in an uncredited role as Briggs.

[4][6] Walker responded to trade papers on leaving the picture stating that he was enthusiastic about the film's story and the cast but he "did not feel that [he] could do the studio or [himself] justice under their conditions that came up suddenly".

[7] Frank Nugent of The New York Times stated that Universal had "made its newest penny dreadful with technical ingenuity and the pious hope of frightening the children... Boo right back at you, Mr.

"[7] From retrospective reviews, Kevin Thomas of The Los Angeles Times stated in 2005 that the film was "[s]ometimes amusingly dated" as well as that it was "also surprisingly poignant, building to a tense and dramatic climax... [A] handsome, ambitious production in which some stilted acting and dialogue add to, rather than detract from the fun".

[10] Footage of The Invisible Ray, specifically the scenes where a scientist descends into a fiery pit, was re-used in the Universal Pictures film serial The Phantom Creeps.