FORGOTTEN BOOK: X

X by Eunice Sudak, adapted from the 1963 Roger Corman film scripted by Robert Dillon and Ray Russell, 1963  (unconfirmed: this may have been reprinted by Bear Manor Media in 2012)

A paperback original film tie-in; the film has also been known as X:  The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, or simply, The Man with the X-Rays Eyes.

Film tie-ins, especially those of the 50s and 60s were a mixed lot.  Often the writer was given a draft script from which to write the novel, and the draft script was sometimes quite different from the final product.  In this case, Sudak's novel appears to have followed the film pretty closely.

Dr. James Xavier, a brilliant medical doctor and researcher, had an obsession.  Th range of human vision in wavelength is between thirty-nine hundred angstrom units and seventy-five hundred angstrom units, less than one-tenth of the actual wave spectrum -- which to Xavier meant that humans were  missing out on ninety percent of the universe.  Xavier's research is an attempt to reach beyond humanity's one-tenth of the spectrum.  His original research was funded by a large (conveniently unnamed) Foundation; Xavier had then revised his proposal twice and had been approved  both times, although with less enthusiasm than at the beginning.  Months had passed and the Foundation had not had any further reports on Xavier's progress; having already spent over $27,000 of the Foundation's money with no idea on what it was being spent, the Foundation sent Dr. Diane Fairfax as a liaison to Xavier's researches and to report back on the viability of Xavier's work.

"Dr. Diane Fairfax was young.  And she was beautiful.  Most of the lady doctors are extraordinarily good looking.  Not the blonde Diane, the blue-eyed, pixie-faced, dimpled and darling little Diane.  She was beautiful.  Even with her yellow-gold hair pulled into a severe French knot.  Even with her charming, with her delightful curves half hidden in a fashionable beige linen bag.  Dr. Diane Fairfax nonetheless consistently inspired some men to daydreams and others to practical thoughts along very basic lines.  In women, she tended to inspire resentment.  She couldn't help this.  She was beautiful.  Among men, only Dr. James Xavier could have failed to notice and approve."

[Well, that was sexist.  But it seemed to fit into the melodramatic mood of the story.]

When we move ahead a couple of chapters we find out that Diane and Xavier become lovers.  B ut for now, on their first meeting, Xavier shows her an experiment on spider monkey named Joe, who had been trained to respond in certain ways depending on which color he saw -- red, yellow, or blue.  Placing a drop of formula that Xavier had developed in each of Joe's eyes, Joe was soon able to respond to a blue screen, which had been placed behind several other colored screens.  Joe could see through the other screens as if they were invisible.  But the experiment frightened and confused Joe and he suddenly had spasms and convulsions, letting off a wail that was a "gurgle of sickness and utter horror" before he died."  A necropsy sowed that Joe had died of shock.

Knowing he was on the verge of a great discovery, Xavier administered the drops to his own eyes.  A bright confusion of colors and shapes appeared before him before he could control his vision enough to read some pages that were buried behind other pages of notes on his desk.  His friend and mentor, Dr. Sam Brant, urged him to cease experimenting on himself and continue his studies carefully and responsibly.  At a meeting with the Foundation's board,  both Diane and Brant urged the board to continue Xavier's funding, but the request was denied.

Xavier was determined to continue and kept putting his formula in his eyes, in increasing amounts.  Brant tried to stop him bit Xavier struggled and Brant fell out of a window to his death.

 Now on the run with precious little of his formula left, Xavier hooks up with a sideshow carnival as "Mentalo" a supposed mind-reader.  Xavier's X-ray vision appears to be cumulative, although it can come and go in stages.  To keep on top of it, he continues to take his formula until there is very little of it left.  His avaricious manager, Crane, convinces him to use his powers as a "healer" diagnosing medical problems not for fees, but from donations -- which ere sure to flow freely after word went out what he could do.  Crane and Xavier set up in a poor part of the city; Xavier feels he is using his power for good, perhaps making up for the guilt he felt about Brant's death.  Diane finds him there after over a month of searching and convinces him to leave with her.  Crane, upset about this, and knowing Xavier's true identity and about brant's death, threatens the pair and, as they leave, incites a crowd against Xavier.  

Xavier and Diane head to Las Vegas, where Xavier's vision will allow him to rake in  money easily, both by knowing when a slot machine was scheduled to pay off and by being able to read the cards that were about to be dealt in blackjack.  He wins big, but the casino operators want to have a "talk" with him.  By now, the drug has given him a megalomaniacal sense of power -- he feels he has the power to do whatever he wants.  In fury, he punches a pit boss and tosses a large amount of cash into the air for the gathering crowd.  In the melee that followed, Diane is left behind and an emboldened Xavier steals a car and gets away.

[Things get kind of iffy here.  Xavier's X-ray vision no longer allow him to see other people, streets, or traffic lights, or much of anything; cars are mere skeletal frameworks and most of the background consists of steel girders in the distance.]

Somehow he gets away but he is chased by police, including a helicopter.  Just before the state line, he crashes through a police barricade.  But his stolen car is damaged and he has a difficult time steering it.  He crashes into a ditch.  When he looks down, he can now see thousands of miles into the Earth.  When he looks up, he can see the unlimited blackness of the universe.  He wanders, bloody with the sound of police cars in the distance, when he comes across a tent revival meeting. 

The preacher is going on about sin and redemption.  Xavier walks up to the podium and says what he sees:  "There are great darknesses as far off as time itself -- and they are coming --coming to destroy all our world.  Larger than the stars.  Larger than galaxies of stars -- they're coming -- they're coming...No, no -- No--"

The preacher hisses at Xavier, calling him sin and the Devil.  He then quoted Matthew, Chapter Eighteen:  "If thine eye offend the, pluck it out!"  The congregation began chanting "Pluck it out!"

Then, as the police entered the tent, Xavier did.

As effective book and a very effective film (it has an 88 score on Rotten Tomatoes).  It reads much better than it is summarized.

Sudak (1926-1971) was a writer whose work tended to diminish her talent.  She evidently published over twenty books but I can only find reference to the five she published under her own name -- four of them paperback original tie-in novels:  The Raven, based on the 1963 Richard Matheson-scripted film with Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Jack Nicholson; Tales of Terror, title sometimes erroneously given as Poe's Tales of Terror, based on the 1962 Richard Matheson-scripted film featuring Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone;  White Slave Ship, based on the 1961 Italian film by Silvio Amadio and featuring Pier Angeli; and this one.  She also authored The Icepick in Ollie Birk, a 1966 "wild, sexy, cape" paperback original.  I have not been able to find any reference to any of her other, presumably pseudonymous books.  She is not listed in Hawk's massive Author's Pseudonyms III; her only mention in Hubin's Crime Fiction II is the three Poe tie-ins and Ollie Birk; there is no short fiction by her listed in the Fiction Mags Index.  If anyone has any information about the other books she supposedly wrote, please let me know.

Robert Dillon (1932-2019), who co-wrote the screenplay for the film, also scripted Flight of the Intruder, The French Connection II, 1963's The Old Dark House, and three films on the Beach Party franchise.

Ray Russell (1924-1999), the other scriptwriter, was an associate editor for Playboy (which had begun the previous December) beginning in 1954, moving up to executive editor in 1955, and contributing editor in 1968.  While at Playboy Russell was a major contributor to the magazine, especially in its earliest days -- supposedly many of the magazine's humorous articles and fillers, either unsigned or under pseudonyms, were penned by Russell.  Russell also was the anonymous editor of eleven anthologies from Playboy Press, including The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy and The Playbook Book of Horror and the Supernatural.  Playboy also published many of Russell's stories, including "Sardonicus," which Stephen called "perhaps the finest example of the  modern gothic ever written"; the story was filmed as Mr. Sardonicus by William Castle in 1961.  His first novel, The Case Against Satan, about a young girl possessed buy a demon, was published almost a decade before William Peter Blatty's similarly-themed The Exorcist.  His 1976 horror novel Incubus was filmed in 1982 by John Hough and starred John Cassavetes.  Russell also wrote the screenplays for Zotz!, The Premature Burial, and Chamber of Horrors.  Among his mainstream novels were The Colony, Princess Pamela, and The Bishop's Daughter.  In 1991 he received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement and in 1992, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Russell was also credited for the story to X.  Producer/director Roger Corman, however, has said that the story originated with him.  Corman said he had first had the tale about a scientist, then changed it to a jazz musician, hated the idea and could get nowhere with it, then went back to the scientist.  N ot to disparage Corman, but I think he's giving himself too much credit.  The plot of the film sounds much more as if it originated with Ray Russell.

One further note about the film:  In Danse Macabre, Stephen King mentioned rumors that the film once had a much darker, more horrific ending, lone that Corman thought was better than the film's true ending.

I would like to lnk to the film itself,  but it's hidden behind a paywall.  Instead, here's the trailer:

https://archive.org/details/turner_video_391879