EDITOR’S NOTE: The Hypnotic Eye was on Chiller Theater on Sunday, February 2 at 11:10 p.m. and Saturday, May 23, 1964 at 11:10 p.m.; Saturday, February 27, 1965 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, June 4, 1966 at 1:00 a.m.

Mentored by Ormond McGill — yes, the same person that Ron Ormond took his name from — Gil Boyne “championed the accessibility of hypnotherapy and consistently fought against legislative efforts worldwide to restrict hypnosis to the purely medical professions.” He also founded the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners and the Hypnotism Training Institute. Before that, he served in the Navy during World War II. He was given post-combat therapy based on psychoanalysis, hated it, and developed his own treatment, which combined his spiritual and religious upbringing, past stage hypnosis experience.

His Transforming Therapy method “…incorporated aspects of Regression Therapy and Gestalt Therapy, as well as focusing on the self-healing power of the subconscious mind. It uses a compassionate spiritual approach that simplifies theory in the actual therapy and hones in on allowing the inner mind to construct its own solutions creatively.”

He was also the consultant for this movie, performing live shows between screenings of the film at the opening of the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. Then, he went on TV news and talk shows to sell it.

As for the Hypnomagic that this is filmed in, it’s essentially just a character breaking the fourth wall.

Who cares? This movie is awesome.

It starts with a woman washing her hair over the stove and setting her head on fire. This is not the weirdest thing that happens.

Detective Dave Kennedy (James Patridge) is on the case, as ten more women have died this way. His friend, Dr. Phillp Hecht (Guy Prescot), thinks it could be hypnotism. This takes Dave, his girlfriend Marcia Blaine (Marcia Henderson) and her friend Dodie (Merry Anders) to a stage show by the hypnotist Desmond (Jacques Bergerac, who went from acting and being married to Ginger Rogers and Dorothy Malone to running Revlon in Paris). That night, a post-hypnotized Dodie washes her face in acid.

The magician is being ordered around by a woman named Justine (Allison Hayes), who wears a mask to hide her scars, and tries to get Marcia — who has been so hypnotized by Desmond that she makes out with him and goes to a beatnik club to listen to bongo music and the “King of the Beatniks” Lawrence Lipton* — to enter a cool, refreshing shower but turns the water up to boiling. She’s saved at the last minute; the cop shoots the hypnotist, Justine jumps to her doom, and the kindly doctor warns us to never be hypnotized except by a medical doctor.

The last film by director George Blai was written by Gitta and William Read Woodfield, who started Magicana, a trade paper for magicians, and took many of the LIFE celebrity photos. He and partner Allan Balter made Mission: Impossible a success by focusing on conmen working for the government.

Several gimmicks were used in theaters to promote The Hypnotic Eye. Some theaters had balloons with an eye painted on them, while others gave away black dots on cards that could be used in the film. Still others “warned customers with faint hearts to avoid seeing the film, offered free medical supplies in the lobby and provided free admission to nurses, doctors and undertakers.”

When you see the credits, Fred Demara is listed as “Great Imposter ” Fred Demara. That’s because his life story was made into the Tony Curtis film The Great Imposter the same year this came out. Demara had been “…a civil engineer, a sheriff’s deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, a naval surgeon, an editor, a cancer researcher and a teacher” as he tried to fit into other lives. By the end of his life, he was living in the Good Samaritan Hospital of Orange County in Anaheim, California, where he worked as a chaplain and even gave last rites to his friend, Steve McQueen.

*James Lipton’s dad!

You can watch this on Tubi.