Review – X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes

Roger Corman at his vintage best serves up the tale of a scientist who takes the dream of every kid who ever ordered X-Ray specs out of a comic book and makes it a horrifying reality. Ray Miland stars as a doctor who invents eye drops that give him the ability to see through solid objects. The initial results are that he becomes a better surgeon (because he can see into patients before he cuts them) and a bit of a perv at cocktail parties. From there, however, things get really weird. If only the effects had been a little better this might have been a better movie. The spectroscopic stuff isn’t bad by sixties standards (indeed, some of the shots reamin impressive considering how crude they are), but if Corman had only had 21st-century computer generated stuff he could have done something really innovative with this. As things stand, the plot’s not bad but the production is more than a little dated. That notwithstanding, the end still holds up after all these years, one of the few moments in movie history in which the last line of the production actually adds something significant to the overall experience (however, I note that on the DVD version the last line appears to be missing, which Corman discusses briefly on the commentary track). Mildly amusing