Customer Reviews

Eyes in the Night [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are a fan of the movies of the 30's and 40's you will recognize Edward Arnold but probably not his name. He was often cast as a man of power in the state, town, company or the family and he was convincingly good at it. Arnold diverts from his usual persona in Eyes In The Night. He deftly assumes the role of a blind private detective. Arnold brings to the screen some extraordinary talent as the male lead, the extent of which you don't see in his appearances as a supporting actor. His guide dog will amaze you, too. With a little tweaking this should have become a series of movies, and could have competed with Charlie Chan, The Thin Man, etc. The story and screenplay is a little hokey by today's standards, of course, but I am glad I bought it.

Take the hard-boiled resourcefulness of a wrestling blind sleuth and his canny canine sidekick, stir in a stew of diverse supporting characters, and the result is the recipe for this wartime noir mystery. Donna Reed is delicious as a precociously hard-edged seventeen-year-old, and Mantan Moreland and Allen Jenkins add just the right dash of comic relief.

This film will provide a good solid evening of entertainment. Yes, it is a Grade B detective film from the 40's, but it contains some distinctive, fun moments. The detective (played by Edward Arnold) is blind and must employ his own set of tricks to nab the bad guys. His Dog FRIDAY is a hoot. This dog is brighter than most of the humans in the movie! It is worth the price of the film to watch this dog act! Donna Reed at her youngest, is one of the female actresses, she adds a bit of interest in her "bad girl" routine.
To sum it up, this is a film that provides a good entertainment. It certainly is different!

"Eyes in the Night" was director Fred Zinneman's first feature film after having, among other things, directed some MGM short subjects, notably some of their "Crime Does Not Pay" entries. Here he directed a tidy little thriller which is a little slow in getting started but builds tension and suspense as it goes along. The plot deals with a blind detective and his seeing-eye dog who become enmeshed with enemy agents. There is a quiet intelligence to this film which is noticeable in other early Zinneman efforts, particularly "Kid Glove Killer", another good MGM "B" not on home video and "The Seventh Cross". The villains are shrewd and resourceful not given to "for the fatherland" melodramatics of so many other films of this period. A solid first feature from a fine director.

Eyes in the Night has Nazi spies with a ruthless leader, a country home atmosphere, a spoiled daughter and a noble stepmother, and a secret in a safe that, in 1942, is worth ten armored divisions to the Germans. Most of all, it has a smart, confidant, resourceful private detective who happens to be blind.

Duncan Maclain (Edward Arnold) lost his sight in WWI. Now he's a successful detective who has mastered Braille, judo, and has honed his other senses to a keen edge. He has as his associates a tough but humorous assistant (Allan Jenkins) and his smart guide dog, Friday. One day he's visited by an old acquaintance, Norma Lawry (Ann Harding), for whom he has great affection. "You're just as beautiful as ever," he says, after "seeing" her face with his fingertips. "The only time I miss not having eyes is when you're around." Norma has married a scientist who is working on a great discovery for the war effort. Her daughter, Barbara Lawry (Donna Reed), however, dislikes her intensely, wants to be an actress and has begun seeing the lead in a play they're rehearsing. The man is a cad who had also wooed Norma before she married Barbara's husband. Norma wants Mac to help her discourage the actor, but one night someone does it first and permanently. The actor is killed, the body disappears and Mac suspects there is more to things than meets the eye. When he visits Norma's country estate, he quickly finds a nest of Nazi spies intent on learning the secret Norma's husband has discovered.

There's murder to be done, men to be tortured, a safe to be broken into and the ruthlessness of the Nazis to be exposed. Mac Maclain must use all his wiles, from acting like a drunk to strong-arming a few of the bad guys. "Where are you?" cries one of the Nazis, trapped in the darkened basement with no bullets left in his revolver. "In the dark," Maclain says quietly, "In the dark. In my kingdom." It's quiet for a minute. Then there's a strangled cry. He even matches erudite quotations on blindness with the butler, topping the man with these words from John Milton, "O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies! O worse than chains, dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!" Maclain may be blind among enemies, but it doesn't slow him down at all. Eventually Maclain beats the Nazis at their own game, with the help of Friday, and Norma and Barbara are reconciled.

This is one of the many, many well-crafted B movies turned out in the Forties. It's a tight story of espionage, made interesting by the skills and cleverness of the blind Duncan Maclain. Edward Arnold, one the of the great Hollywood character actors, dominates the movie with his characteristic blend of confidence and good humor. One of the villains (it's no secret; we learn her true nature early on) is played by an actress named Katherine Emery. She made only a dozen or so films, preferring the stage. She's a forbidding combination of Gale Sondergaard and Mercedes McCambridge. She is eerily self-possessed. Typical of many of the films of the era, there's a black servant, played by Mantan Moreland, who is all rolling eyes. There is a roster of actors with familiar faces or whose faces will be, such as Reginald Denny, Rosemary DeCamp, John Emery, Steven Geray, Barry Nelson and Steven McNally (billed as Horace McNally). It's also worth remembering that first-class directors such as Fred Zinnemann, who later made such films as From Here to Eternity, High Noon, A Man for All Seasons and The Day of the Jackal, learned their craft by making studio programers like Eyes in the Night.

This Alpha Video is in better shape than we might have expected. It's watchable. There are no extras and only six chapter stops.

Edward Arnold is most certainly the heaviest "heavy" and arguably the busiest (if most anonymous) bad guy in "B" pictures of the '30s and '40s. Frank Capra went to him when he needed someone to personify a nemesis (no doubt Arnold could have easily played Mr. Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life," though the part went to Lionel Barrymore; he did, however, score the villainous roles in Capra classics like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Meet John Doe").

The aforementioned Capra films are hardly "B" movies, but "Eyes in the Night" most certainly is. What distinguishes it from other low-budget films of the day is the casting of non-box office attraction Arnold as the protagonist-good guy (if it helps, think of him as the William Conrad of his time). He plays a private eye without eyes (he's blind but easily compensates for the inconvenience with an astute intellect and heightened remaining four senses plus a precocious guide dog named Friday). Indeed, if there is a "heavy" (and I hope this isn't giving away too much) it's, incredibly enough, Donna Reed!

The film is a delight, playing games with the spectator (to begin with, we don't expect the familiar face of Edward Arnold to belong to the heroic "good guy"; then it's only after we've spent extended minutes meeting his character that the director allows us to see that he's blind). The plot is full of Agatha Christy-like suspense, surprises, plot reversals and, ultimately, a climactic drawing room scene in which the real murderer-conspirators are found out thanks to Arnold's heightened faculties and unerring deductions. Arnold himself is as full of inventive crime-solving techniques, role-playing subterfuges and clever defenses as Nick Charles, Sam Spade and Charlie Chan put together. Finally, the plot is as contrived and vertiginous as they come, with all of the apparently "good" people morphing into Nazis before our very eyes. (This is where Capra, the director of the famous American propaganda series, "Why We Fight," once again comes to mind: the plot of "Eyes in the Night" no doubt profited from the historical context of the war, which in fact helps us today to excuse twists and turns that would otherwise strike us as utterly preposterous if not hilarious.

Even though this film has recently been released in a second DVD edition, the sequel, "The Hidden Eye," remains unavailable, as far as I'm aware. Double is the pity: first, that this DVD edition doesn't include both films; 2nd, that "Eyes in the Night" could not trigger a whole string of sequels.

Very entertaining film of a blind detective. Alpha's DVD is quite good for this film, splice and logo free. It would be nice to see the sequel "The Hidden Eye".

This is a Thin Man movie with a dash of Val Lewton hastily thrown in. Not quite your typical film noir, but close to it. Nazi's? Donna Reed behaves like a Nazi, completely against type, even though she is unaware of all the real goings on. She treats her stepmother cruelly, and even accuses her of murder. (Cue the blind detective. Only at the end does she show any remorse. No wonder the characters were so brutal! Two murders, a hostage situation, and a German shepherd guide dog for a rescuer makes for a riot of a film. A little bit of slapstick is thrown in to make this MGM movie from 1942 funny. The print could have been better. Certain scenes are a little murky, inclunding the credits, on my new widescreen Toshiba television. The black and white is not as vibrantly displayed as on a Turner DVD, but for $7.98 or less, this is worth it, until Turner releases it, after which I would recommend an upgrade. All in all, an improvement over most Alpha titles, and a nice form of entertainment.

... in awards delivery, Friday should have got "Best second role award", because during the whole movie (until the very last shot) it was not like it was performing tricks, but like it was truly acting. It is really frustrating, especially when you see a di Caprio getting awards, since I still can't see his acting abilities, but only performing tricks (and not above average). I always esteemed Fred Zinnemann, and I'm glad I could at last see his first directed movie, which is not only an original one, but as well a very good one.

Another WWII Implausible Propaganda Film
"Eyes in the Night" is another example of the power of WWII propaganda to freeze the brains of screenwriters. Adapted from a decent detective novel, the Nazi spy element was amped up to cash in on home front paranoia. Along with the better detective elements went most of the logic, suspense, and character motivation of the original story. In its place is a confused mess that even Director Fred Zinnemann (later to do "High Noon" and "Here to Eternity") could not salvage.

Along with simplistic motivation you will find a lot of stupid pet tricks as the blind detective's (Duncan Maclain played by Edward Arnold) seeing eye dog can open doors and obey vague fetch commands that confuse his step-and-fetch-it black servant (Mantan Moreland).

Set in the United States, Duncan's long-time friend Norma (Ann Harding) lives on a country estate with her new husband who for unknown reasons stores top secret scientific plans in his small unguarded wall safe. You know they are critical to the war effort because the spies say they are worth ten armored divisions. As the story unfolds it is slowly revealed that almost everyone is a Nazi spy; the entire household staff, a community theatre group, and a few guys of unknown origin. There are almost enough German personnel to fill up those ten armored divisions.

Although they enjoy a huge numerical advantage the spies conveniently wait around until Norma and her husband leave town to make their move on the safe.

A melodramatic back-story concerns Norma's relationship with her new stepdaughter and aspiring actress Barbara (Donna Reed). Barbara is supposed to be just 17 but Reed was in her early 20's and looked about 30. Harding (as always) is quite good and Reed not so good, the talent disparity gives their scenes together a farcical quality. These actually are bad enough to give the movie a certain camp appeal.

Zinnemann does infuse his production with a certain style. Playing off the blindness of his main character with frequent blackouts and generally understated lighting. There may never have been a feature film whose negative had less exposure to light than this one.

Arnold's performance is a bit over the top, apparently compensating for his character's blindness with aggressive flailing (imagine an extremely fat man replacing Patty Duke as Helen Kellor) and a loud voice.

Along with Harding, Katherine Emery (a stage actress in her film debut) gives a great understated performance as the leader of the huge band of Nazi's. She may remind "Narnia" viewers of the best performance in that film, Tilda Swinton's White Witch.

There are no extras on the DVD but it is a very good print.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.