The Amazing Mr. X [1948] (NTSC)

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Customer reviews

review by: s.vernon date: 2007-08-07 rating:
A STUNNING GOTHIC NOIR
The Amazing Mr. X (a `Samba Productions' release) sure doesn't promise much but goes on to deliver a little bit extra. Like the far more accomplished and haunting Nightmare Alley of the previous year, it deals with a phoney spiritualist racket. And, as in that earlier film, the supernatural wraiths and voices prove a poor match for the very natural greed and duplicity that operate on a deeper, darker level than the racket.

Lynn Bari mopes around her big old house by the sea mourning her dead husband. One evening, waiting for her fiancé (Richard Carlson), she encounters a mysterious stranger (Turhan Bey) down by the water's edge. He knows a lot about her and her late spouse, and intimates that the spirit realm lies close. When she falls for his schemes, her kid sister (Cathy O'Donnell) attempts to expose Bey, but ends up being swept away by his unctuous charm. Meanwhile, Carlson and a detective themselves fail to rip the lid off Bey's racket, complete with seances and apparitions. But it turns out that the husband (Donald Curtis) is in fact quite close, if not so incorporeal as most of the principals believe....

It's a B or B- movie that has a few things in its favor. Bey was sort of a1940s Poverty-Row prototype of Omar Sharif who still has his fans (he played, among so many other exotic roles, Jules Amthor in the first version of Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely: The Falcon Takes Over). Bari and O'Donnell aren't bad, either. But the presence of John Alton as cinematographer raises the whole enterprise up a few notches. While obviously orders of magnitude less persuasive than the computer-generated effects of Industrial Light and Magic, his spooks and specters were state-of-the-art for their era. And the story, by Leslie Charteris, manages to keep its integrity. The Amazing Mr. X is a cozy Gothic for watching after the clock strikes midnight.


review by: date: 2007-08-03 rating:
A B-movie gothic noir, nicely done
If you enjoy B movies, gothic noirs and second string actors, you might enjoy this gem. I did.

Christine Faber (Lynn Bari), a rich, beautiful widow who lives in a mansion high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific surf, is a widow of two years still grieving over the death of her husband, whose body was never found. Her younger sister (Cathy O'Donnell) is worried about her and her good friend, (Richard Carlson), who wants to be more than a friend, thinks somehow she has to start living her own life. Then Christine learns of a medium, Alexis (Turhan Bey), the mysterious Mr. X, who has moved near by. Alexis is supposed to do wonders in bringing back the dead, and he seems able to bring up the spirit of Christine's husband at seances for her. But Christine also hears strange, familiar music late at night in her mansion. The french doors leading to the cliffs mysteriously open. She begins to hear the voice of her dead husband when she's trying to sleep, speaking lovingly to her and urging her to join him on the cliffs.

This movie may be one of the thousands of B movies Hollywood cranked out during the Forties, but it is competently made and moves ahead briskly. There is a twist about two-thirds of the way through that might surprise you. And the climax, a struggle in the dank, dark cellars of the mansion, is very well handled.

Joan Crawford might have been Hollywood's Queen Bee, but Lynn Bari was undoubtedly the queen of the Bs. She was a classy looking woman with a great, rich voice who could handle comedy or mystery, evil or good, with competence. And while probably few people remember Turhan Bey, for a few years he was Hollywood's favorite exotic leading men. That might not be saying a lot, but he made a reasonably successful career of it for a while.

But be warned; the DVD picture is watchable but nothing more.

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Similar categories

Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Classics . Drama
Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Classics . Horror & Suspense
Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Drama
Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Crime, Thrillers & Mystery . All Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Horror
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Format (binding_browse-bin) . DVD
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Editions (feature_two_browse-bin) . Standard Edition
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Region(feature_browse-bin) . Region 0
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Release Date (feature_three_browse-bin) . 1940 - 1949
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Language (theme_browse-bin) . English

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