Ray Milland thinks he's developed a chemical that will allow human eyes to see beyond the visible light spectrum. I mean, it worked on a monkey (who went catatonic a few minutes later). What could be the risk?
Well, it works, but Dr. James Xavier sees something besides what's underneath that paper, or under his friend's labcoat, and it freaks him out. Enough the organization that was funding the work decides there are no beneficial uses and cuts off his funding. Oh well, he's still got his career in medicine. Until he overrules the surgeon on an operation for a kid and removes the tumor he saw on her heart. Which makes him guilty of malpractice, apparently. I guess, "I saw it with my x-ray eyes" is insufficient explanation.
At which point the movie gets odd. Xavier's friend assures him they'll find a way to reverse what the serum has done, and Xavier freaks out, shoving his friend through a window, where he falls to his death several stories below. Now he's on the run, playing "Mr. Mentallo" at a carnival, where he comes to the notion of the barker (played by Don Rickles, with a considerable amount of sleaze.) Rickles, after seeing Xavier diagnose a woman's injuries after a fall, convinces him to set up in a dingy apartment as a "healer", who people can visit for cheap diagnoses they can take to the doctor for treatment. No expensive tests required.
Then he decides he really needs money if he's to continue his work, so he runs off to Vegas to win a crapload of money at blackjack. He wins too much, they get suspicious, his special glasses get knocked off, everyone freaks out at his eyes (very cool contact lenses), there's a car chase, things end badly. Whatever he's been seeing that the rest of us can't - ghosts, god, the devil - is too much to deal with. Everything from his friend dying to the end takes about 50 minutes (it's only an 80 minute film.)
It seems like the effect might fade if he stopped using the eye drops, although he also says the effect is cumulative. But he also says that the ability seems to wax and wane, where he can sometimes barely see through a layer of skin, so who knows. He's at a party, and we're seeing people's bare legs, or their bare shoulders and enough of their chests to understand he's seeing under their clothes. He sees into their organs, and sometimes it's actual footage of organs and others it's like a screen of a drawing from a book. The movie uses this yellow-gold ring in the middle of the shot to signify when we're seeing through his eyes, although as things progress, he starts seeing almost photo-negative shots of wires and buildings, or blurred kaleidoscopes.
4 comments:
I have a fondness for movies of this era, and probably saw this as a kid years ago. Here in the UK, there was a season of "bad" sci-films shown on TV (including Plan 9) and while I wouldn't put this in that category, I think it was considered hokey enough to be screened.
If I'm remembering correctly, Stephen King's Danse Macabre contains an apocryphal story of a deleted end scene where Milland's character has removed his own eyes but cries out "I CAN STILL SEE!" Apparently just too creepy for the time!
He does actually remove his eyes, at least in the version Pluto TV had. He wrecks the car he stole fleeing the cops after the casino thing, and stumbles into some religious revival tent. he talks about what he sees and the preacher claims he's seeing the Devil. Cue, "eye offends thee, pluck it out," and there you go.
As far as sci-fi/horror starring Ray Milland, I definitely put this above "Panic in the Year Zero", or "Frogs".
Sorry - poor phrasing on my part. The story I mentioned follows the film up to him removing his eyes, and the supposedly deleted scene of him shouting he can still see comes after that.
"Frogs" - hah! Haven't thought of that in decades!
Oh, I get what you mean. Yeah, no screaming after the do-it-yourself eye surgery.
When i worked down in the boonies, the crew insisted we had to watch "Frogs" every October during the horror movie marathon. It didn't get any better with repeat viewings, especially with a crew of herpetologists who all recognized most of the "dangerous" snakes were of non-venomous varieties, and the frogs weren't actually do much of anything.
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