Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie''s plot.
Over two years after the death of her husband Paul, heiress Christine Faber is still in mourning, but trying to bring herself out of it. To help in the matter, she accepts the proposal of Martin, but, on the way across the beach to meet him, she runs into Alexis, a spiritualist who seems to know a lot more about Christine than he should.
The two become friends and Christine uses Alexis’s gift to try to make contact with her husband Paul. Her sister Janet is also drawn in by the charismatic medium, much to the chagrin of Martin who thinks Alexis is a fraud.
Things come to a head when Martin and Hoffman (an investigator Martin’s hired to dig into Alexis’s past) break in on a séance only for everyone (including Alexis) to be startled when the form of Paul really does appear in the room.
As it turns out, Alexis really is a fraud, using his assistant Emily, who works as Christine’s maid, to gather information he can then use to try and swindle the widow out of her money. Then at the séance, his plan is kicked into a higher gear when Paul reveals to the charlatan he really is still alive and plans to use Alexis to help him get his hands on Christine’s fortune.
THE AMAZING MR. X (1948) was nothing like I’d expected. The sound is horrid, the film quality is shameful, full of missing frames and scratches, but the story caught me off guard. There were twists I didn’t expect, there was character development, there was action and suspense. Getting the behind-the-scenes look at how Alexis pulls off most of his tricks was fun. Crane Wilbur’s script might not have been stocked with realistic dialogue--unless you’re a drama queen--but the plot made up for it.
The actors were decent enough, although Cathy O’Donnell as Janet seemed a bit too wide-eyed and awestruck by the whole experience. Turhan Bey’s Alexis was smarmy, but stepped up when it counted. Lynn Bari played the despairing Christine with a little too much Trazadone in her spring water, but maybe that was her “method”. Richard Carlton (TORMENTED) played suitor Martin Abbott and I know he was supposed to be the “good” guy of the movie but there’s just something about Carlton I can’t quite put my finger on, all I know is it makes me want to see the good guy fail. He seems a little too square, you know? A little too put on. Whatever his shtick, I’m not buying it and I hope he doesn’t get the girl in the end.
I don’t know if I’d qualify THE AMAZING MR. X as a “classic”. I’d never heard of it before, and it wasn’t the first to tackle the “spiritualist racket”, but despite a very slow beginning, by the end I found myself intrigued and watching with great expectation for what came next. Also, it seemed more film noir than a full-on horror. Truly, the only “horror” aspects to the story are the supernatural elements, and when those are revealed to be rigged by the characters, all the horror is lost and we end up with something of a cross between a heist and a romance. Certainly not horror.
But despite that, I liked it anyway, and can easily recommend it, as long as you don’t go in expecting “horror”. Just sit back, enjoy, and let the movie take you on its journey, free of expectations, and I’m sure you’ll like it, too.
A rich young widow longs to establish contact with her deceased husband, who perished in a car crash several years earlier. However, a cunning medium ...More at Buy.com
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