The Film Detective has a new 4K film restoration (from archival 35mm elements) of director Bernard Vorhaus' 1948 noirish-themed thriller, The Amazing Mr. X (aka: The Spiritualist) set for a Blu-ray debut on Oct. 5. A DVD edition will also be available on the same date.
Christine Faber (Lynn Bari — Sun Valley Serenade, Kit Carson, Earthbound) is beautiful and wealthy. A widow, she lives in a mansion that overlooks the Pacific; paradise.
Perhaps it is just her imagination; perhaps the winds off of the ocean, the background noise of the Pacific crashing against the shore. One evening, she is convinced that she hears the voice of her dead husband (played by Donald Curtis — The Fuller Brush Man, All That Heaven Allows), it is jarring, but she dismisses it as just that, the wind and the surf.
Later, while visiting her neighbor, Martin (Richard Carlson — It Came from Outer Space, The Maze, Creature from the Black Lagoon), she hears the voice again and also “bumps” into Alexis (Turhan Bey — The Mummy's Tomb, The Climax, The Mad Ghoul), who seems mystic, visionary … he warns her against getting involved with Martin and seems to know quite a bit about her. If the voice of her dead husband was unsettling, you can only imagine what this encounter did to her.
Poor Martin, he was all set to propose to her and now Christine is not so sure. The next thing you know, she’s making regular visits to Alexis to get advice and perhaps to contact her dead husband.
Her sister, Janet (Cathy O'Donnell — The Best Years of Our Lives, They Live by Night, Detective Story), teams up with Martin, as they are both convinced that Christine is being scammed by a charlatan. Their plan, hire a detective, Hoffman (Harry Mendoza), and expose Alexis for what he is, a crook.
To accomplish this, Janet goes “undercover” and books a session with Alexis to get his fingerprints — the detective they’ve hire is convinced that he is indeed a conman out of Chicago. Of course, Alexis is a conman, and he’s really good at it, so when Janet shows up, he has done his homework and knows that she is Christine’s sister … he plays it to the hilt, giving her fingerprints galore.
Before you can say abracadabra, Alexis is holding a séance with the sisters … but Martin and Hoffman are on to the scam and stop the session … but wait, Paul actually materializes and his presence cannot be explained!!
Everything just got twisted. Perhaps Alexis is the real deal. Perhaps there is something more sinister going on!! To discover the solution to the mystery, The Amazing Mr. X on Blu-ray from The Film Detective on Oct. 5.
Bonus features include commentary from film scholar Jason A. Ney and documentary titled Mysteries Exposed: Inside the Cinematic World of Spiritualism.
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