Magie noire

I just heard Michael J Weldon of Psychotronic Video talk about this on a podcast interview. It reminded me of the first time I saw this on television ( sometime in the 1960's I guess) on the late night Friday Chiller show. The woman burning herself, her hair catching fire, etc. was really terrifying. The film is kind of a B-Movie horror-noir with the oily continental Jacques Begerac performing that Hypnotic Eye thing and causing all manner of mayhem and mutilation. Then there was the wonderful Allison Hayes just 2 years past The Attack of the 5o Foot Woman giving another great performance and of course, my favorite, Merry Andrews from TV's How to Marry a Millionaire. They just don't make them like this anymore. A campy horror classic!

A series of beautiful women are disfiguring themselves while mysteriously hypnotized. Suspicion falls on hypnotist Jacques Bergerac. Soon it appears the girlfriend of the detective in charge of the case is to be the next victim.

Jacques Bergerac is probably best known as being middle-aged Ginger Rogers' ex-gigolo...I mean, husband. He became an actor after their marriage. A couple of years after they divorced, he married Dorothy Malone. He's kind of creepy which works for the part. B movie queen Allison Hayes has the best role as his sexy assistant. Hayes is a favorite of mine. She made every one of the low-budget movies she appeared in better. Joe Patridge is the incompetent and obnoxious detective who couldn't find his ass with both hands and a flashlight. This guy is such a jerk and he's supposed to be the hero! Not to mention he's such a poor detective his girlfriend has to do his job for him. Guy Prescott is his psychiatrist sidekick. He's moderately smarter than his buddy and he seems to be a bit of a voyeur, judging by the stakeout scene. Marcia Henderson plays the girlfriend and amateur sleuth.

Schlocky horror-thriller that's better than it has any right being. The "HypnoMagic" stuff is great. There are also a couple of pretty effective shocks that pushed the boundaries for 1960. A woman sets her head on fire, another washes her face with acid, and something else that happens in the climax. I mean it's not gory but still pretty rough for the time. Love the campy beatnik scene. It's an imperfect but fun movie. A nice way to pass the time but nothing extraordinary. Allison Hayes fans will definitely want to see it.

I wish someone would re-release this, or TCM or somebody would show it. It was just another really bizarre offering from the late fifties/early sixties. It used to be a regular on the lat Saturday night TV horror show in my hometown (in Houston the show was called Weird) and this one fit the bill--really weird.

Cinematic excellence? Surely not. But it was offbeat enough to keep your attention. Even had a debunker who explained away a lot of the "magic" for the police (and the viewers).

The plot does have an interesting twist with the hypnotist's girlfriend. Sure it didn't win any academy awards but few movies do.

I give it a seven because it falls within the genre of movies that are so bad they are actually good.

"The Hypnotic Eye" is a fairly effective B movie about a spate of self-mutilations by beautiful women who appear to be in a trance when they do the deed. A detective tries to unravel the link between the victims and a stage show that features a hypnotist that they have all attended.

A lot of what appears in the movie is fun, although "The Hypnotic Eye" is barely 70 minutes long, and a lot of this is padding, featuring several needlessly long looks at the "hypnosis" act, as well as a very tiresome sequence set in a beatnik bar where we have to watch the whole show of beatnik music and poetry. It's a shame, because these really slow down the action. Surely it would not have been to difficult to make the actual storyline events take up some more time.

The acting is ok, although a little hammy. The story actually has a really brutal side to it, as the methods the ladies use to self-harm are all pretty twisted. We don't witness many of them happening, but seeing somebody screaming with their hair fully ablaze is quite something for 1960 (even if it's not very realistic). Some of the "after" make up of the others victims is also pretty good.

If all the padding was stripped out, this would rattle along and be a lot more fun, but it would be over in less than an hour! The plot really is tiny and there is barely any quality time given to the climax, in fact events dash to the closing credits with far too much haste...a little time spent on a proper ending and explanation would have been nice. Still, it's pretty entertaining while it lasts.

Okay, I realize that's not saying much. However, this is probably the best movie Allison Hayes was in (however, I do very much enjoy the Unearthly, but Hayes is terrible in that).

Plot concerns a hypnotist (Desmond) who is having beautiful young women mutilate themselves. I won't give it away, but the suspense is good and the movie isn't gory even though the mutilation methods would lead you to believe so (washing hair in fire, washing face with sulfuric acid, brushing face with fan blades, etc).

Hayes plays the evil assistant to Desmond and you're really not sure why she and Desmond are evil until the Climax. Not to be missed!