VADigger

A wealthy woman hires detective Lew Harper to find her missing husband. She is less interested in getting him back than in stopping him from spending any more money. It should be a straightforward case, but Harper soon learns the missing man has been keeping some unsavory company, including a drug addicted jazz pianist, a former film star turned astrologist, a sun cult leader, and a sadistic career criminal. How do they all fit together?

The movie actually improves on its source, Ross McDonald's "The Moving Target". The basic plot is unchanged, but the structure has been tightened and several extraneous characters and scenes cut. The dialogue is much snappier and sly - Lauren Bacall, as the not-so-grieving wife, gets the best of it.

A major flaw is the interpolation of several scenes with Janet Leigh as Harper's soon to be ex wife. These add nothing to the story. Why they were added is another mystery.

If not top drawer noir, still a very entertaining movie, thanks mainly to the cast, all of whom seem to relish their roles.

A young girl reappears after a two week absence with a fantastic story of having been held captive by two women in an isolated house. The police seem disinclined to investigate deeply, so it is up to the women's lawyer to uncover the truth.

The movie is extraordinarily faithful to the book; indeed, entire pages of dialogue are transferred to the screen. The biggest change is in the nature of how the truth is disclosed, which is both tidier and more believable in the film.

The story is less a mystery than a character study, and in this the film falls flat. The most interesting character, the girl, is almost an aside. A section of the book that outlines her background and fills out her story has been dropped, and the film is poorer for that.

Still, you're likely to find it an intriguing film, if not one you'll rush to see again.

A unexpected sequence of events diverts the first manned rocket ship to the moon to Mars, where remains, both material and animal, are found of a once great civilization.

The "science" in this movie is as simplistic and charmingly naive as in every other space movie of its time - the instrument panel looks like it was recycled from an old Buick. But X-M does get extra credit for a few things. The theme of the destructive power of nuclear war; the highly atypical downbeat ending; and the first use of the theremin in a sci-fi soundtrack, the precursor of countless movies to come.

If not in the first rank of great 50s sci-fi, X-M is an earnest little movie that has little to be ashamed of.