# 1920s style death rays? HALL OF FAME NOMINATIONS **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 19, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614 "2004-11-19T05:33:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/41 "2004-11-22T15:07:02Z")
**E** ighteen **I** nch **D** ouble **H** eaded **I** ce **B** lue **J** elly **D** ildo. So where does the I for one welcome our new \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ overlords. come from? I know it’s a Simpson’s quote but what thread started the fad. ---
**Author:** ![nocturnal\_tick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@nocturnal\_tick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nocturnal_tick)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/42 "2004-11-22T15:19:14Z")
> [@Shirt Ninja 13](#): > > But do you know what _bamf_ means? > _bamf_ Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me… _bamf_ originates from the X-Men comic book character Nightcrawler and is the word used to describe his teleporting away. It’s used here on the boards by dopers who usually will only make one appearance, say their piece and disappear. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/43 "2004-11-22T16:21:34Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > So where does the > > I for one welcome our new \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ overlords. > > come from? I know it’s a Simpson’s quote but what thread started the fad. Well, if we can impress upon **Hail Ants** to remove the original phrase from his or her sig (because any search is turning up every single post of **Hail Ants** ), we can do a reasonable search to see who was the first to use that Simpsons quote applied to something besides insects. Peace. ---
**Author:** ![ioioio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ioioio/32/316_2.png) [@ioioio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ioioio)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/44 "2004-11-22T18:11:46Z")
Here’s [a link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=266235) to the thread where the 18"DHIBJD :eek: :eek: was first mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/45 "2004-11-22T19:07:19Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > We have Tracy Lord and C K Dexter Haven in the same thread—anyone up to changing his name to Mike Connor? I admit it - I’m an ignorant prol. At first I was thinking - what does an admin and a hypothetical Doper named Mike Connor have to do with an ex-porn star who got started at 15? Then I remembered it was Traci Lords, not Tracy Lord. So I googled it and discovered [The Philadelphia Story](http://www.stationfive.com/Quotes.php?alpha=OR&movie=Philadelphia_Story_The). Now I can’t help thinking that Seth Lord is actually Darth Vader. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/46 "2004-11-24T05:35:00Z")
I have to share this, and this may be the best thread. I think I found the original 1920s Death Ray. Yea, the **original**. Spotted it in [Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future, by Joseph J. Corn and, Brian Horrigan](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801853990/qid=1101272158/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-5847194-1366364), a catalog to accompany the 1984 Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition of the same name. On p. 115 we get this caption: > [@](#): > > “Death Ray Discovered” ca. 1920 The idea that future wars might be fought with a death ray became increasingly popular in the twentieth century. Around 1920, a New York company [Artwin Service Corp.] produced “Death Ray Discovered” for distribution to subscribers who each week would get a new poster to use for promotion. The poster looks more like a newspaper editorial cartoon of the era. A “News Note” is in the upper left corner: “U.S., England and France interested in newly discovered “Death Ray”. What is this terrible mysterious force that can destroy battleships, bring airplanes crashing to the ground and wipe out whole armies at a distance of eight miles?” The inventor, helpfully marked Grindell Matthews - Inventor, and wearing a diver’s helmet on his head for no good reason, is firing his death ray, helpfully marked “death ray” in the beam, at an airplane that’s now on fire. He says, “See, Gentlemen - The mysterious “Ray” can be directed at will.” The stereotype of an Englishman, marked J. Bull for the really slow, says: “My word - It’s astounding!” Uncle Sam is stroking his whiskers thoughtfully and saying: “I’d like to have a little more **light** on the subject,” evidently having an understanding of lasers 40 years before his time. A tophatted gentleman sputters: “Mon Dieu! Ze spirit of Jules Verne re-incarnated.” His pants are labeled France for those who are really, really slow. A German scratches his head in perplexity: “Ach Himmel! Dot beats my poison gas, U boats und big berthas all to nuddings, yah?” His paunch displays the word Germany for any elitist anchorites who have never been subjected to dialect in their lives. Japan, Spain and Italy are also watching. I am unable to translate the Japanese, although it may be a transliteration of Mon Dieu! It’s not at all clear WTF the Artwin Service Corp. thought it was promoting with these posters, or if any others ever were produced. Nothing about them comes up on Google. But Grindell Matthews does. A 1924 movie short titled [The Death Ray](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303894/) exists. A comment is given by F Gwynplaine MacIntyre, a well-known science fiction writer and historian of the field. > [@](#): > > ‘The Death Ray’ is not a comedy: it’s a documentary film of what purports to be a genuine event. Unfortunately, we’ll never know how much of what occurs here is authentic science, and how much is hoax or outright fraud. ‘The Death Ray’ reminds me of that notorious Bigfoot footage (Bigfootage?) photographed by Roger Patterson, which appears to be a flat-out hoax except for the clever detail that Patterson was sincerely duped into believing he was photographing an authentic Bigfoot. > > Some background: from 1906 until his death in 1941, English scientist Harry Grindell Matthews made some small but genuine contributions to electrical engineering and radio technology. Matthews was England’s answer to Nikola Tesla: like Tesla, Matthews produced some legitimate inventions, but (in both men’s cases) the most ambitious creations never seemed to get beyond the planning stage. For HG Matthews, the greatest (and most notorious) of his ‘almost’ inventions was his death-ray machine. Matthews always asserted that this was a genuine invention: he also insisted that it was a beam, not a ray … because it consisted of a modulated particle wave rather than a natural radiant emission (such as sunlight). > > ‘The Death Ray’ is a 25-minute film made by the Pathe newsreel company in April 1924. Ostensibly, this is a straightforward record of a legitimate scientific experiment … but Matthews controlled the circumstances of the filming, and he had wide opportunity for fraud. > > In the film, Harry Grindell Matthews bears no resemblance to a crackpot or ‘mad’ scientist. He appears onscreen – slim, handsome, dignified – wearing a spotless lab coat and spats. His laboratory, indeed, looks like a genuine place of scientific research. There are no hunchbacked assistants, no bubbling alembics, no Strickfaden paraphernalia. The only oddity on offer in this place is the death-ray machine itself, which looks like one of those ‘what the butler saw’ contraptions at Blackpool Pier. > > On a tabletop bearing a metal plate, an assistant places a small cage containing a live rat. Matthews peers through the eyepiece of his death machine, pulls a few levers … hey presto! The rat twitches, then falls dead. We never actually _see_ a deadly ray, but that’s scientifically plausible: visible wavelengths of radiant energy aren’t fatal, so a genuine death ray would have to be invisible. Or maybe the rat was actually killed by an electric current in that metal plate. > > The faithful assistant (careful to keep clear) suspends an incandescent light bulb in the path of the death ray, turning it to reveal that there are no electrical wires attached. Matthews pulls his levers, and the bulb lights up … with no discernible power source. Again, this could be faked. Next, an assistant sets a bicycle wheel spinning. One zap from the invisible ray, and the wheel stops in its tracks. > > For his grand finale, Matthews aims the machine at a tray of gunpowder … which explodes with a satisfyingly large cloud of smoke. Judging from the reactions of the onlookers in this silent film, there must have been quite a bang too. > > Genuine or fake? Matthews appears to have been a highly eccentric man who nonetheless was more interested in legitimate scientific inquiry than in charlatanism or personal publicity. In my uninformed opinion, I suspect he was like those Victorian spiritualists who claimed to be able to summon the spirits of the dead … and who were often caught faking their supernatural effects. Some of these people were outright frauds, but others seemed to be misguided individuals who sincerely believed in spiritualism … to the point where they saw nothing wrong in ‘helping’ the spirits along, with a few bits of fakery. It may be that HG Matthews believed in his own death-beam technology so sincerely that he resorted to ‘helping’ it by means of some fakery. I’m forced to conclude that the death-ray energy never existed, as someone else would have discovered it independently by now. As such, I’ll rate this movie ‘The Death Ray’ 6 points out of 10, as a fascinating bit of fakery. **Eve** , any comments? Anyway, apologies if this was brought up in some earlier thread. I skimmed through half of the linked 20s style death ray thread and caught a couple of mentions to Grindell Matthews but not of the movie or poster. And, hey, this might clear up a puzzling point in my thread [Chandu the Magician - 1930s-style death rays](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=283128). I was wondering why the mad scientist wore a diver’s-like helmet on his head. He must have been imitating the real Grindell Matthews, assuming the helmeted guy on the poster was an accurate depiction! It all comes together! ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/47 "2004-11-24T14:34:33Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > I have to share this … It’s interesting stuff like this that needs to be documented somehow as ancillary information in the Hall of Fame. I suddenly envision a Wikipedia style Hall of Fame. Alas, that would require someone with a lot of time on their hands to build a database and website. Ah well, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/48 "2004-11-26T15:55:39Z")
**Exapno** , I might as well warn you that F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre is not particularly trushworthy as a source, as he is notorious for claiming to view films that have been lost for many years. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2004, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614/49 "2004-11-26T23:07:09Z")
I’m just repeating what’s publicly posted on IMDB. I don’t have any expertise on the movie side, so I have no comment on the review’s veracity. For the purposes of 1920s Death Rays background, however, this description appears to be more than adequate, whether it’s first hand or not. Grindell Matthews is real, his activities in 1924 are well documented, and the movie exists independently of the review. Other than reputation, what might be untrustworthy about this particular report? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-style-death-rays-hall-of-fame-nominations/275614.md?page=2)