Alas, we have entered a sad new era with the passing of Michael Weldon's great
Psychotronic Video magazine, but we will attempt to continue to carry the torch with constant reviews of what I've been watching:
The
Richland County Public Library (Columbia, SC) for years has consistently had an amazing collection not only of weird never-published-in-the-USA books but also a video collection better than the local Blockbuster. Titles such as Al Adamson's
Uncle Tom's Cabin,
Peeping Tom, Fiend Without a Face, Gimme Shelter, The Pit and the Pendulum, Hour of the Wolf, The Prisoner, 3 Women, I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Naked City, The Invisible Man, Devine/Trash, Un Chien Andalou, Fear Strikes Out, Pretty Poison, Head, Homicidal, Hullaballoo, Frankenstein, Scream Blacula Scream, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Night of the Living Dead, Luis Bunuel's
Fall of the House of Usher and
The Films of Kenneth Anger are on the shelf.
I hadn't seen
X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes since I was 8 years old at y grandparent's house. They were one of the first to get cable, which meant they could get great far-away stations like WOR from Secaucus, NJ and WGN from Chicago, which always showed great horror movies.
The beginning starts out with a close-up of a bloody eyeball, then a bloody eyeball floating in a solution in a beaker
as the credits roll. Ray Milland is getting his eyes checked because he is about to embark on an experiment to change his vision to see all of the electromagnetic spectrum, not just the visible part. Aaaah, the ambitions of science in the old days.
Anyway, he puts these eyedrops in his eyes that give him x-ray vision. What kid wouldn't want that. I never raged for anything more than those x-ray glasses in the comic books that would let you see bones and through girl's clothes.
Did I mention that Ray M. is a doctor in this? It's important because, of course he says he wants to use his newfound powers to see into patients to diagnose 'em. He does, but no one believes him.
This hot mature blond who's hanging on him the whole movie long takes him to one of those '60's cocktail parties where guys in skinny ties drink martinis and do the twist. Then Ray's vision kicks in and everyone's naked!? Because this is the early 60's you don't actually get to see anything. I can't wait for the remake. But I digress...
His boss doctor tries to shoot Dr. X up with downers and gets accidentally thrown through a (very flimsy) 49th story window. AW FUG!
Now Dr. X is on the lam and where does he go to keep out of site and maintain a low profile? He becomes a sideshow psychic at the fair and appears in a gold lame robe and a headband over his eyes with a single eye drawn on it.
The best part is, Don Rickles is the barker! Yeaah!
And he insults the hell out of hecklers Jonathan Haze and Dick Miller.
Don Rickles figures out that this guy has powers for real, and turns him into a back-alley faith healer, that doesn't last when the blond shows up. He splits. Don sics the cops on the doc. They head for Las Vegas where he cheats at slot machines by looking into them and predicting when they will hit. (Could you really do that?) Then he cheats at blackjack, attacting with ire of the floorwalkers. When they close in on him, he throws money into the crowd. Greedy women stuff the bills into their brasseires as he makes his escape into a tent revival meeting.
Now his x-ray vision is so powerful he can see through everything into the center of the universe! In the beginning he was experimenting on a monkey who died of shock after what it saw with its x-ray vision. Now Ray is seeing the same thing.
The moron preacher finding a quick an easy solution from the mouth of Jesus quotes the sermon on the mount , "If thy left eye offend thee, PLUCK IT OUT!!" His face comes up with empty bloody sockets.
THE END
I thought this would be an excellent candidate for a remake with new digital effects, but they'd screw it up. This is on an MGM DVD with commentary from the master of low budgets himself--Roger Corman. Groovy swingin' bachelor pad music by Les Baxter.
