Introduction
Welcome to my corner! This week, I'm sharing my thoughts on the film The Hypnotic Eye. The TCM television channel played The Hypnotic Eye as part of their 'Drive In Theater' lineup on June 18. Enjoy!
The Hypnotic Eye
The Hypnotic Eye, is a 1960, starring Jacques Bergerac, Allison Hayes, merry Anders, Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, and Ferdinand Demara, billed as "Fred Demara".
Plot: A stage hypnotist's (Jacque Bergerac) ugly helper (Allison Hayes) suggests terrible things to spellbound beauties...
Acting: Interestingly enough, most of the actors in this film didn't act past 1970. The Hypnotic Eye isn't exactly a box off hit though, so I guess it makes sense.
Jacques Bergerac played Desmond. He was fun to listen to. He had a very thick French accent. I assume that it was a real accent, since his name is Jacques, but I haven't seen any of his other work. He gave a pretty powerful performance as the hypnotist Desmond. His booming repetitive voice was actually kind of scary to me at one point. Jacques didn't stay in show business for very long, only having 39 credits to his name. After leaving show business, he went into the perfume business, heading the Revlon Paris office. His four most notable credits are Gigi, Les Girls, Un homme se penche sur son passé, and Missione speciale Lady Chaplin.
Allison Hayes played Justine. Beautiful yet evil. She played it very well. I haven't seen any of her other work either, but based on the titles I'm definitely interested. I may be seeing more of her in the future. Her notable credits are Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Undead, Gunslinger, and The Crawling Hand.
Marcia Henderson played Marcia Blane. Marcia played Marcia, heh. Another pretty lady. Her acting was fine. Her four most notable credits are All I Desire, The Wayward Girl, and the television series Matinee Theatre and Two Girls Named Smith.
Merry Anders played Dodie Wilson. This movie was filled with beautiful women! Which was the whole point, but still! She was good in her role. Her four most notable credits include Tickle Me, The Dalton Girls, Young Jesse James, and the Hawaiian Eye television series.
Joe Partridge played Det. Sgt. Dave Kennedy. For a guy that doesn't have a very long list of credits, he did a fine job in his role. His four most notable credits are Convict Stage, The Hypnotic Eye, and the television series Highway Patrol and 777 Sunset Strip.
Guy Prescott played Dr. Philip Hecht. His performance was the only one I had a problem with. Most of his line delivery was flat, with no feeling. I feel like he could have done a lot better in that department. Prescott has the most credits to his name out of all the other actors. He sill didn't make it past the 1970s in his acting career, like the rest of them. His four most notable credits include The Unearthly, The Book of Acts Series, Shotgun, and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.
Technical Aspects: Some scenes showing Nord playing bongo drums and Lawrence Lipton as "King of the Beatniks" were supposedly filmed at Nord's beatnik café, The Gas House, in Venice, California. But it was done in a studio.
The consultant for the hypnosis used in the film was Gil Boyne. Gil Boyne founded the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners and the Hypnotism Training Institute in Glendale, California. Gil also performed live shows between screenings of the film at the opening screenings of the film at the opening at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco and went on a press tour to promote the movie appearing on numerous TV news and talk shows performing live hypnosis demonstrations.
The "Hypnomagic" part of the film, although somewhat implied, was not a filming process like 3D. "Hypnomagic" was advertised on the posters as an "Amazing New Audience Thrill" and although new to film was a much more organic and time tested approach than 3D. "Hypnomagic" featured the Bergerac character performing segments in the film where he looks directly into the camera and as such at the movie theater audience and performs some hypnotic suggestibility tests with them. One suggestibility test presented in the film involved the use of a balloon with an eye printed on it, when the film was in its original run in theaters each theater goer received an eye balloon to use during the demonstration.
Final Thoughts: This was a hard movie to finish watching, but because of the content, but because of the stupid streaming service(s). I had The Hypnotic Eye recorded on Hulu, and I started watching it, but once I got about halfway through watching it, all of a sudden Hulu was telling me I couldn't finish watching because "service channel was currently unavailable". What a load of bull. I can still watch other things on Hulu, including my recordings, but I sitll can't finish watching The Hypnotic Eye. What the heck?! So, I had to find other ways to finish watching the movie, so I could complete this column.
When I finally got to watch the ending, I was a little bit surprised by the fates of Desmond and Justine. Maybe I've just been watching too many cop shows.
There was an interesting scene toward the end of the movie where Desmond was hypnotizing his entire audience with different techniques. These scene was directed in such a way that Desmond was seemingly trying to hypnotize the movie viewers as well as his audience in the theater. It was pretty cool actually. That was the "Hypnomagic" they were talking about.
It's certainly an interesting movie. Their creativity with the power of hypnosis is wild. If hypnosis was half as strong as they depict it in the film, there would be a lot more people out there losing weight, trust me. If you can get past the hilarity of the hypnosis scenes, it's a fine movie. I've already watched it a few times. I'd urge you to give it a go as well.
Where to watch it: According to Google, The Hypnotic Eye is available to stream/watch on Fandango at Home. You can also purchase or rent a digital copy for a few dollars. I've also donated a DVD copy of the film to the Emil M. Larson Library in Clark for you all to enjoy if you choose to.
That's it for this week! What were your thoughts? Feel free to share them with us! You can call us, email us, visit us at the office, leave us a comment or message on Facebook, or even mail us something. Keep the comments, suggestions, questions, submissions, etc. coming our way! We'd love to hear from you!
