hrkepler 'X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes' - one can expect everything from a movie with such title, a superhero tale, a man turned some vicious monsters, an alien visiting earth etc. Especially when the film is directed by no other than Roger Corman. But no, this is not another cheesy exploitation flick. 'X' is much more visceral and lurid, sometimes even disturbing science-fiction horror than usual Corman's productions.Ray Milland gives powerful and balanced performance as Dr. James Xavier, a scientist obsessed near insanity for developing eye drops that can give X-ray vision. When he finally decides to try the new invention on himself, soon things start to get awry. Luckilly the film doesn't turn into mad scientist grounds, but stays till the end as a story of a man who does it for good, not for self beneficial purposes. 'X' manages to stay true to its serious tone established in first quarter of the film. Not cheese, but chills. Visual effects are quite effective even by today's standard and nice touch was to see things (and people) through Xavier's eyes. All this is fantastically tied together with powerful finale where Xavier gives speech before pastor about seeing things at the edges of the universe.First-rate Corman production and deservedly fortified its place in cult classics arena.

Leofwine_draca Ray Milland stars in this excellent science fiction/horror film, still as frightening and spellbinding today as it was when it was first released. The theme of x-ray vision had been done before, but never in such a scientific, thought-out way. Roger Corman did a good job in eliciting excellent and worthy performances from the likes of Milland, Rickles and Van der Vlis. For the time, too, there are some rather good special effects used where we see through Milland's eyes, and you can really believe that he's a man possessed by an otherworldly sight.The film starts off typically enough with experiments on a monkey, but you just know that something's going to go horrifically wrong if you're a fan of '50s science fiction. At first Milland's new sight enables him to save lives on the operating table, but he comes to realise that it is in fact a curse, not a blessing, and he'll never be able to see normally again. By the end of the film, Milland's eyes have turned black with gold irises, and finally completely black, a wonderful effect achieved just by using some different coloured contact lenses. I'm still of the opinion that the most simple special effect can go a long way, and this film proves me right.It's Milland (previously in Corman's THE PREMATURE BURIAL) who we follow on his hideous journey, and obviously the right actor was needed for the job. Milland brings a charm and sophistication to his role, and getting a distinguished actor for the job was a clever stroke. We really feel sorry for Milland as he begins to fall apart mentally, unable to cope with what he sees. Diana Van der Vlis fits the part of 'blonde female assistant and love interest' admirably, even if she is given relatively little to do, and it's nice to see a supporting actress do some brain work for a change (she traces Milland to his latest hiding place). More scene-stealing comes from Don Rickles, who enjoys himself as a crooked side-show host who just wants to milk Milland for some money.The running time is low, meaning that there's never time to become bored or restless while the story unfolds. There's a lot of action, such as cars being chased by helicopters, and the film looks much more expensive than it actually was to make. It's moving and sometimes horrific, especially in the last freeze-frame moments where a demented preacher and his congregation egg Milland on to rip his eyes out, following the old adage of "if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out!", the camera lingers on the bloody sockets for a split second before the credits roll. As I'm sure you already know, there's a lot of speculation as to a final unuttered line which was cut from the movie, along the lines of Milland saying "I can still see!". This would have been a master stroke and it's just a shame it never came through, nevertheless THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES is a classy sci-fi horror concept executed in a brilliant way.

classicsoncall This movie premiered on the Turner Classic Movie channel a few weeks ago as I write this, and the intro was handled by host Ben Mankiewicz doing an interview with Roger Corman himself! Corman looked positively great at ninety years old!, and the interview was definitely a recent one as Mankiewicz mentioned Corman's influence on Quentin Tarantino and cited "The Hateful Eight" as an example. Regarding his cult status as 'King of the B Movies', Corman was somewhat blasé about it since he can't change other people's opinions, but he did say he didn't go for the term 'schlockmeister'. So if you run into him, keep that in mind.There was also a brief mention of getting Ray Milland to accept the part of Dr. Xavier in this picture. Milland went for it right out of the gate, it was Milland's agent Corman had to sell on the idea. With a Best Actor win in 1946 for "The Lost Weekend", there were moments in the picture when it looked like his Dr. Xavier character could have used a good, stiff one but the story never went there. Wouldn't that have been something? For a bit of sci-fi whimsy, this one almost sounded like it could have had a credible premise. The idea of seeing beyond the surface of things with X-ray like vision doesn't seem too far fetched, but I guess if it was that easy we would have some real live results by now. The opening scene eyeball just hanging there for about a minute was kind of creepy, but served admirably for the tone of the story to follow.But say, did grown men and women actually dance like that in the early Sixties? Talk about an 'X' effect, that scene just took the cake with me. It was right about that time in the film when I started wondering when Xavier would begin experimenting with his vision to see what people looked like underneath their clothes, and I must say, that aspect was handled rather tastefully. Done today, well one can just imagine.Can't forget to mention Don Rickles in my comments, he showed some of his stand-up persona doing the carnival barker bit and over all he did a pretty good job in a straight role. I had to do a double take though, there was that one scene with patients coming in to see 'Mentallo' when he was caught reading a paperback 'Laugh Book'. I wonder if he ever used any of those jokes.

DKosty123 In 1963, no one ever imagined a film which predicted the future the way this one did. Ray Milland's great performance here is way ahead of it's time. When you see him wearing the dark glasses he very much looks like a person today wearing Virtual Reality Glasses. No one making the film at the time could even imagine that. Roger Corman was on TCM recently saying that at almost $300,000 dollars this was one of his biggest budget films. I am not even sure that money would pay for the poor lab monkey who gets too much of an eye full early in this one now. This movie has a cult following today for some very good reasons. The old carnival scenes are a throwback to simpler times with the kind of carnival thrill rides that existed before the huge theme parks that came later.Don Rickles is a perfect example of the early 1960's as his 2 desires are lust of all women and money, and more money. A small amount of his stand-up humor getting into this script does not hurt the film either. To me, the iconic scene is the end one, which has rarely been duplicated in Sci-Fi. Milland wanders into an old fashioned religious tent revival (these still happen), and walks up to the fire and brimstone preacher. He tells the preacher what he sees as God due to his X-Ray eyes. The preacher tells him it is "because he has sinned." There are several ways to interpret this depending on your point of view, but it leaves one of the deepest closing messages ever put into a Sci-Fi film.