This unusual little thriller, which turned up in a DVD collection of cheapie horror "classics" that I picked up, turns out to be a real discovery. Unusually fine camera-work, a smart, witty script, and good performances (especially by the feline Bey) suggest the makers took a few tips from the Val Lewton films, and maybe from Gregg Toland's cinematography on "Citizen Kane." (Note the fine deep-focus shots.) The set-up, with Bey as a dubious medium enticing a widow by claiming contact with her late husband, allows for some fun sequences involving the medium's tricky house, and some good spooky haunting scenes. All around, an enjoyable, tightly-made little treat.

This 1948 B-movie is an excellently made thriller. It is well acted, well filmed, moves briskly, and keeps the viewer engaged with clever plot-twists and a couple of nicely done double- reversals of expectations. There are films with perhaps twenty times the budget of "The Amazing Mr. X" that aren't half as successful at telling the kind of story that this film features--which, I admit, was pretty well-worn even in 1948. Modern filmmakers trying their hands at thrillers with supernatural overtones would do well to study this film, as it shows exactly how that kind of film is made.

Don't let the cheesy title fool you. This is a top-notch thriller that's well worth a look by any lover of the genre.

***SPOILERS*** Eerie and hunting movie photographed in a Film-Noir black and white dream-like style that would be hard to duplicate even now with all the special effects available to todays film-makers. The film's about the spirit world and about one of it's inhabitants attempt to contact someone on the "other side". Is this about rekindling a love long lost or is the whole story just an elaborate hoax. Concocted by an ex-con con man trying to bilk his unsuspecting victim out of her money?

On the eve of getting engaged to her boyfriend Martin Abbott, Richard Carlson, Christine Faber, Lynn Bari, begins to hear and get feelings that her long dead husband Paul is trying to contact her. Is Paul is trying have Christine break off her engagement with Martin?

Going out on the beach one evening Christine runs into this stranger Alexis, Turhan Bey,and his pet raven who seemed to pop out of nowhere. Telling Christine facts about her and Paul that only she knows and then like a puff of smoke he disappears into the evening mist with only his raven still there. All that Christine has of this mysterious stranger to prove that he was real and not a dream or hallucination was his business card: Alexis Spiritualist at Large.

Christine was so taken by this man of mysteries that she went to his pad and got a reading that confirmed a lot of things about her and Paul that he, Alexis, had no why of knowing. Christine's younger sister Janet, Cathy O'Donnell,and fiancée Martin get in touch with a private detective who specializes in these types of frauds and was once a magician himself Det. Hoffman, Harry B. Mandoza,to check this chap out. It turned out that Alexis served a stretch in the pen for swindling an old lady out of a load of cash in Chicago, he was then known as The Great Mister Marue.

Janet later goes to Alexis to get a reading from him as well as get his fingerprints on a cigarette case to prove that he's the ex-con Mr. Marue. Janet becomes so impressed by Alexis' supernatural powers and his charm that she instead of trying to get him arrested for fraud falls head over heels in love with him. Is this Alexis just a smooth con man trying to get all he can out of Christine's bank account and flee the coup like he did back in Chicago only to get nabbed by the police or is he, is he, the Real McCoy?

Captivating little movie that in the last twenty minutes or so turns from a more or less harmless fantasy about life after death into a dangerous murder/drama with death a very real possibility for everyone involved. A fine cast headed by the suave and mysterious Turhan Bey as Alexis The Magnificent who can charm the dress or panties off any woman or girl in the movie either alive or dead.