Willard's Wormholes

“X” – THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES (1963) Ray Milland (a.k.a. Ray Bland) is a do-gooder X-ray scientist whose research goes awry. A well-made Roger Corman film, using a variety of camera angles and effects, that looks good despite its low-budget and three-week shooting schedule. Before you ask, that’s not a young Sally Kellerman as Milland’s assistant, it’s actress Diana Van der Vlis. Other casting finds in “X” include Don Rickles, perfect as a scheming carney, 70s television mainstay Harold J. Stone and Morris Ankrum, as a medical board member, in his final film cameo. When Milland tests his new eye drug on himself, he develops X-Ray vision, and experiences everybody’s base juvenile fantasies – peering through women’s clothes, winning at a Vegas casino, playing the geek at a carnival, but he’s noble (at first) and fails to take full advantage of his new-found powers. Watching Milland attempting The Twist during the 60s party scene is a hoot. Les Baxter composes the music score, which is effectively spooky during the X-Ray sequences. Dialog Alert: “This city… as if it were unborn, rising into the sky with fingers of metal, limbs without flesh, girders without stone, signs hanging without support, wires dipping and swaying without poles. A city unborn. Flesh dissolved in acid of light. The city of the dead.” Find “X” – The Man With The X-Ray Eyes cheap at Amazon, HERE.  New Movies, Fridays ‘Round Midnight.