Sci-Fi Film Fiesta, The Swingin' 60s - Volume 3: Freaky Future Shocks by Chris Christopoulos - HTML preview

Los Angeles Chronicle

Doctor Killer flees!

From the mix of fact and fiction certain tidbits of information can be gleaned:

➢ That Dr James Xavier had been conducting ground-breaking experiments

involving human eye sight.

➢ That he had been experimenting on himself.

➢ That he had been seeking funding to continue with his research.

➢ That he had an uncanny ability to diagnose patients without recourse to the

usual medical techniques and resources.

➢ That he had conducted himself in a manner unbecoming to a trained

professional during an operation resulting in injury to a colleague.

➢ That Xavier’s experimentation had been having a cumulative effect on his mental

capacity leading to possible insanity.

➢ That Xavier’s mental instability caused the death of his friend and colleague, Dr.

Sam Brant.

➢ That Xavier’s whereabouts is currently unknown and it is presumed that he is on

the run and hiding out somewhere.

From our privileged vantage point we find Xavier (via a point of view shot) watching his step as he flees the hospital via the stairs. He is now on the run from the authorities.

We next see him hiding out in a carnival posing as a blindfolded psychic……..

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Xavier’s Tape Recorded Notes On Progress Of “X” Experiment

“September 19th, the fluid is almost gone. I use only the smallest amounts now, but the effect seems to be cumulative. But how can I work without a laboratory, without equipment, without money to buy what I need? There's so much undone, so much I don't understand.”

My amazing ground-breaking research has been reduced to a form of cheap entertainment as part of a carnival show performance in which I pose as a blindfolded psychic, Mentallo. “One of the finest shows on earth” as the miserable little unscrupulous carnival barker, Crane likes to proclaim. Yes, step right up folks and see “The Mentallo, the man with the miraculous mind!”

What people don’t understand and find to be beyond their limited experience, they label as phony, a trick or fake and laugh it out of existence.

When confronted by the possible truth or existence of a seemingly impossible power or concept, people will often react with fear and hostility. Or they’ll run away and hide because powers like mine give them the creeps and make them feel scared.

Even with acceptance of the existence of such powers as mine, there’d be those who’d think that someone like me would or should aim to “be something big, powerful…. something special.” They’d believe that someone like that would be in possession of “secrets he could use’ that would give him “a hold on people….Something to make them listen to him.”

It might even enter some people’s minds that such abilities as mine could be used as a force for good whereby they “could help keep people from hurting each other…..by telling everybody everything” so there’d be “no secrets.” Even if people still chose to fight about “ideas, thoughts, differences” the possessor of such power as mine would stop them and make them do things his way or he’d hurt them all…..” A force for good! Really?

Well, when it comes to it, perhaps much of mankind is like our Mr. Crane who’d be satisfied with all the undressed women his poor eyes could stand. As for me, right now I’d be happy with money and “to be able to open my eyes.”

James Xavier Tape Recording:

It seems that the question of obtaining money is about to be addressed thanks to the ever observant and opportunistic Crane. While I was attending a girl who was injured with broken ribs and a broken leg, Crane deduced that I had “the power to see inside” and that I was no mere mind-reader.

It would appear that under Crane’s ‘management,’ I’ll be making more money than I could “in 10 years working on the pier,” healing people just by laying on my hands. According to the enterprising little so-and-so, “we could set up a place in the city: Nothing fancy, no advertising, just through word….and we don't charge them a thing, not one penny.” And how does he propose to make his money, why – through “donations” whereby “everybody gives what he can, just what he can!”

Xavier’s Tape Recorded Notes On Effects Of “X” Experiment

“The effects of the compound are still unpredictable. At times, I can see through walls, through stone just as easily as I can see through the air. At other times, I can hardly penetrate the first layer of a man's skin.

Sometimes I wonder why I keep on searching. I don't want power or fame or……. [Clicking sound as machine is turned off]

[Recording resumes] That fool Crane interrupted me after I explicitly told him not to set foot in my room under any circumstances. So now he’s packaged and presented me as a healer when all I do is look and “tell what I see.” I’m turning into Crane’s personal goldmine whereby he is the promoter raking in the cash from poor desperate people who look to me for miracles and answers to their problems. And this is supposed to be doing good?

And what of the “X” effect thus far? What has meant for me? “Sometimes, when I look up and I see all those people above me, pressing down upon me, the whole of humanity. And at night, while they sleep, I close my eyes and I can still see through my own eyelids. Oh, Lord. I'd give anything, anything to have dark!”

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[Xavier’s powers are growing stronger but they seem to be slipping out of his ability to control them. In a sense he is an essentially good man trying to help people, but we can see his anguished mental decline as he continues along the path he has chosen for himself regardless of the consequences.

By the time Diane locates him, Xavier is in a miserable state, feeling trapped and being blackmailed by the unscrupulous Crane who bluntly informs Xavier, “I've got my power over you, Mr. Mentallo...Dr James Xavier.”

With Diane sitting right in front him and despite his ability to perceive what other people cannot, Xavier at first fails to recognize her. When he asks her why she is there, Diane simply replies, “to see you Jim.” A bit later Diane tells Xavier that she has been looking for more than a month to find him, but she knew who she was looking for. Again the many references to seeing; in Diane’s case for something or someone important to her and not just looking to witness what no-one has seen.

As Diane and Xavier escape the avaricious grasp and glare of Crane and head toward Las Vegas, Xavier observes the city with a new insight and perspective. It is as if the city now stripped of its facade “were unborn, rising into the sky with fingers of metal, limbs without flesh, girders without stone, signs hanging without support, wires dipping and swaying without poles. A city unborn, its flesh dissolved in an acid of light. A city of the dead.”

Xavier now turns his mind to using his power for personal gain in order to obtain more money than he’ll ever need. As he observes, “as a matter of fact, I'm the only man in the world, probably, who can get it and get away with it.” Las Vegas is the place “across the desert” that will furnish him with the money to finance his research and help him to solve his dilemma. As to the moral and ethical considerations associated with this course of action? Well, that’s been too easily overlooked so far, hasn’t it?]

Las Vegas: A gaudy heavily made-up broad whose flashing neon facets of light dazzle the eyes of the unwary who are blind to the tawdry black rottenness that lies at the heart of this whore. It is those very disembodied lights stripped of substance that seem to perform a choreographed mad dance before the strange all-seeing eyes of Xavier.

Sheriff's Office - Interview Room:

Sheriff: Now, Look Dr. Farifax, it’s pretty plain to me that you were aiding and abetting Dr Xavier who is not only accused of medical malpractice but also of the murder of his colleague, Dr. Sam Brant.

Diane: As I keep on telling you, that’s not how it happened!

Sheriff: What’s more, you agreed to go on the run with him and then wind up in Las Vegas where you both go on a gambling spree, miraculously winning $20.000. Boy, I wish I had that kind of luck, lady. Or maybe that should be ‘Lady Luck?’ Haw! Haw!

Diane: I told you already, it wasn’t luck. It was as a result of the experiments that James had been conducting on himself….

Sheriff: Oh, yes. That cockamamie story about, what was it – X-Ray vision! Haw! Haw! Don’t that beat all! What a doozy!

Diane: Well, how else would you explain the way in which James was able to know what cards the dealer at the table was holding, that he seemed incapable of losing and the fact that other witnesses present saw that there was something wrong with James’ eyes?

Sheriff: Doesn’t alter the fact that your boyfriend beat it out of there quick smart and left you behind. Even with the California Highway Patrol hot on his tail, with all forces having been alerted and all roads blocked, he still chose to try and evade capture, until that is, when lost control of his ve-hi-cle.

At this point Diane breaks down recalling what Xavier had gone through just prior to her being taken in for questioning.

Diane had many, many hours of explaining to do and after all the pieces of this fantastic story were finally put together from notes, recordings and eye-witness testimonies, she was

thankfully exonerated.