This was one of dozens of cool monster movies that I saw at my local movie theater when I was a kid.  4-D MAN was a Saturday afternoon viewing in September of 1960. Several of my friends went with me as they often did and we all loved the movie.

4-D MAN was different from many of those childhood viewings in one way.  When we saw THE BLACK SCORPION we didn't discuss how they made the critters move. When we saw CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, there was no talk of how the effects were done or how the makeup was achieved. Shoot, when we saw THE KILLER SHREWS we didn't even notice -- or at least we didn't mention -- that the shrews were played by doggies.

But after 4-D MAN, there was fervent discussion of how in the world they did that... those hand-through-solid-object things seemed like magic to us at the time and we could not get over it. I remember that one of my friends took it very, very seriously. He knew that they hadn't really figured out how to pass through solid objects, but it was vital to him to discover how they made it look that way.  He talked about it for weeks. This guy later went on to teach university physics classes, write textbooks, and even had a patented invention of some sort installed on the space shuttle.  I am not claiming that 4-D MAN led to any of that (he was an electronics kit guy from the first day I knew him), but I find it fun to recall how the Professor was so fascinated by Robert Lansing's adventures.

I've seen the movie two or three times since, and I'm still very fond of it.