Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good concept, poorly executed.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Considering the pile of garbage Roger Corman produced and directed (and I include his Poe adaptations in that pile), this film is something of a miracle. It demonstrates that good films sometimes result more-or-less automatically from good scripts. The Dillon/Russell script is solid, with believable motivation and characterization, and not too many scientific errors.Ray Milland's restrained performance shows just what a good actor he was. It would have been easy to have a character who's going mad because he sees the universe differently from everyone else chewing the scenery. Instead, Xavier increasingly draws inward, until the very end.As to the missing "intended" ending in which Xavier tears out his eyes and proclaims "I can still see!", I'm inclined to believe it was shot. The script anticipates it, when Xavier remarks early on that the eyes connect directly to the brain.If there's any real failing, it's not showing what Xavier sees "at the center of the universe". An //intelligent// remake, with modern effects, might not be a bad idea.

I am a giant fan of Roger Corman's directorial work and have seen most of his output. This movie really stands out from the rest of his 60s material as an unusual and, ultimately, excellent part of his filmography. Corman is best known as the king of the quick b-movie, a director capable of pumping out movie after movie, with small budgets and mostly unknowns casts. What has always separated him from nameless hordes of similar directors is the quality of the work. He started off with throw away fluff. Some of those, like BUCKET OF BLOOD, are worthy examples of the beginning of his creative genius, but there are just as many like THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH that failed as well. He made his mark in horror history with the Gothic revival cycle that featured Vincent Price, a series of movies based on the work of Poe that included classics like MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. In the middle of these movies, though, during a decade where Corman was releasing movie after movie that was absolutely drenched in Gothic atmosphere, Corman releases this sci-horror gem, a movie that seems ripped from OUTER LIMITS or TWILIGHT ZONE, and stands out, truly, as one of Corman's best.The plot involves a scientist who develops a serum that allows him x-ray vision. As he pushes his exploration further and further, Dr Xavier (did Stan Lee rip this off?), goes far beyond the medical implications, or silly stuff like viewing nubile, young naked ladies, eventually descending into madness as he views what may be the center of life itself, but only after taking our plot to a carnival sideshow and a natural use of his powers at Vegas. What is so great, to me, about this movie is the way that it takes a deeper path into exploring this "super power". This could have been a movie about a man who uses a power for heroic purposes, or a silly movie that scratches the mere surface of what it would mean to have x-ray vision, but Corman takes this far beyond that, to a dark heart and a real exploration of what a power like this could do to damage the psyche of a man.Ray Milland really excels here. The effects are often minimal and, by today's standards, not that great. There is not much action to drive the plot, so the weight of the movie comes down on two things mainly -- the quality of the script in its' exploration of this power and performance of the man at the center of it. Milland (who horror fans may know from THE UNINVITED), really carries this movie. He begins as a likable doctor with a sincere wish to develop something that will benefit mankind. Through a courtship that unfolds with a fellow doctor, we get to know the doctor as a man beyond the doctor, but as the movie progresses, the doctor digresses further and further into his condition and as it impacts his grip on sanity, Milland really does a great job in the final acts.It took me awhile to track this movie down. Being such a fan of Corman, I had always looked forward to it, but wasn't sure what to expect, being so different from the Poe/ Price movies, but I was certainly not let down. This is an excellent early example of the mingling of science fiction and horror that can create such disturbing results and Corman handles it deftly.

Roger Corman has opened more doors for more filmmakers than I can recall; here, he opens the doors of perception (metaphorically speaking). "I'm closing in on the gods," Xavier boasts early on in the movie. When a monkey given the "X" eyedrops dies (apparently of fright), X decides it's time to experiment on himself (of course). "It's like a splitting of the world," he marvels: "More light than I've ever seen..." There's a neat POV shot in which his eyes are BANDAGED while he looks at and talks to someone else. "I like the way you look," a young woman tells him... just before the party they're at becomes, for him, a peep show. When his x-ray vision becomes too acute to control, he says of one woman: "She appears a perfect, breathing dissection." It's a gruesome observation, but the fx of the time didn't really allow for a viewer's peek at same. The "X effect" throughout is relatively simple, visually (it looks like a 3D image does without the glasses), but the gold and, finally, black contact lenses ARE effective. Milland's performance here is as tight as in THE LOST WEEKEND. Kudos to Corman.

The sad thing about the film X is that it was 40 years ahead of its time. Roger Corman should have done this or even redone this film in the age of computer graphics. Maybe at a major studio perhaps.But a major studio would never have taken a chance on a film like this. A science fiction movie without any horrific monsters or buckets of blood and gore, the moguls would reason who would want to see that? X could only be done at American-International Pictures and be done only with someone of the imagination of Roger Corman.Ray Milland as Dr. James Xavier is a research scientist doing work in the field of vision. Dr. Frankenstein only wanted to bring life back from the dead. Milland wants to improve vision so that we see with the eye of God. He develops a serum based on hormones and enzymes and you apply to the eyes. Milland sees things more clearly, but as was said in a film some thirty years after X, he can't handle the truth.After accidentally killing a colleague friend in Harold J. Stone, Milland goes underground still continuing his experiments and working first at a carnival and then at a diagnostic/healer under the tutelage of Don Rickles. All the while colleague Diana Van Der Vlis is looking for him because guilty or not of the homicide of their friend Stone, Van Der Vlis believes in Milland and his work.The climax of this film which takes place in a tent revival meeting is a sudden death one and unforgettable. Let's just say there are no good choices or fates left for Milland. And he's been given a clarity far beyond what any of these people in that tent can comprehend.Don Rickles will surprise many with his performance as this bottom feeding carnival hustler at how good he is. Actually he's not wrong in what he sees as a practical solution for all concerned, hiding Milland from the authorities, making money, and allowing him to continue his research. But no proper doctor wants a partner like Rickles. It's like Colin Clive teaming up with Dwight Frye. Also in a small role at the end of the film is John Dierkes as the small time evangelist with the tent show. He's also quite good.X does ask some interesting questions, much like the original Frankenstein movie. This film really deserves a remake.