Film 24/52: X (1963)


When it came to the letter x, under consideration were the Hammer film X The Unknown, the 80s sleazy sci-fi Xtro, Ti West's recent horror film, and this one. Well, the presence of Don Rickles, and its reputation as a Roger Corman classic led us to selecting X (aka X - The Man With X-Ray Eyes, though that more recognizable title doesn't actually appear onscreen). 

Ray Milland plays a scientist interested in pushing man's ability to see beyond a limited 10% of the light spectrum. When his funded research kills a hapless monkey, he decides it's time to try his serum on himself. Sure enough, he soon sees the world in psychedelic colors, and then through specific objects.

My favorite bits were those with Don Rickles, a carnival barker to Milland's Mentallo (undercover after accidentally bumping a doctor pal out a window — oops!). And it doesn't hurt that Corman regular Dick Miller shows up in one of the scenes.

I hadn't realized going in that the film was written by Ray Russell, writer and long-time fiction editor for Playboy, who published both Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont in the zine; Beaumont being the author of the magazine's first published fiction). Russell would also write my favorite William Castle film, Mr. Sardonicus, based on his story "Sardonicus." While it contains sufficient trappings of a fun chiller, it's more of a message movie than the average Corman film (but unlike Corman's major message movie — The Intruder, based on the Charles Beaumont novel of the same name — this one actually made money). 

While I enjoyed the film, it did suffer by my coming at it with such high expectations based on its reputation. And though I liked the concept of the ending, the execution left a bit to be desired. Though had I seen it in the middle of the night on Creature Features  as a kid, I'm sure I would have been appropriately traumatized. Still, nice to have checked this one off the list as part of this series!


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers/Return of the Musketeers (1973/1974/1989)

Image
In a coincidental tribute to Raquel Welch following her passing a few weeks back, over the course of a few nights we watched  The Three Musketeers ,  The  Four Musketeers , and Return of the Musketeers  in The Slaughtered Lamb.  The first two films were shot as a single feature, and subsequently split and released a year apart (much to the chagrin of cast and crew members who were paid for a single film!), with the third film reuniting the cast and director fifteen years later. Produced by the Salkind's (who would go on to produce the original Superman films a few years later), and directed by Richard Lester (who was responsible for the classic Beatles films A Hard Day's Night and Help! ), I will admit that I went in with pretty high expectations. In retrospect, coming from the Salkinds I think I was looking for the tale of the Three Musketeers by way of Richard Donner (director of the original Superman and far too many great films to list here), rather than Richard Lester (
Read more

Film 49/52: Warlords of Atlantis (1978)

Image
Growing up, Doug McClure was a staple of weekday afternoon television thanks to three Amicus Studios fantasy films he starred in based on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs ( The Land That Time Forgot , The People That Time Forgot , and my favorite,  At the Earth's Core , in which he starred opposite Peter Cushing and Caroline Munro). I was surprised years later to discover that he did a fourth fantasy film (not for Amicus, and from an original screenplay), Warlords of Atlantis . I've had a copy in the library for years, but after showing Vonna the trailer (which showcases several of the films interesting creatures), we selected this one for our 'W' film. McClure is the creator of a diving bell helping a scientist and his son interested in finding the lost city of Atlantis. On their first dive, they're attacked by a sea creature, and after a narrow escape they find a golden statue — an artifact of Atlantis. The ship is attacked by a giant octopus, and several of the
Read more

Film 7/52: The Green Slime (1968)

Image
We've been singing The Green Slime theme song around The Slaughtered Lamb since first considering this as our 'G' entry in the 52 Pick-Up (if you've got an Amazon Echo, ask Alexa to play "The Green Slime"). That may have been one of the reasons why Vonna ultimately decided she could sit this one out, so I was left to face the green slime all on my own. I had a vague awareness that the film was a Japanese co-production, but I wasn't aware that it featured no Japanese actors in the cast! It does have the hallmarks of my favorite Japanese sci-fi films of the era, including cool (if not convincingly filmed) miniature ships and sets, and rubber men-in-suit monsters. Years later, director Kinji Fukasaku would go on to direct the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series (which I have yet to see), and his final film was the very influential adaptation of the novel  Battle Royale . The Green Slime setup is this — an asteroid (Flora) is on a collision course wi
Read more