Night Has a Thousand
Eyes
Director: John Farrow
Year: 1948
Rating: 7.0
Cause the night has a thousand
eyes
And a thousand eyes
will see me too
And no matter what I
do
I could never disguise
all my little white lies
Cause the night has
a thousand eyes
So remember when you
tell those little white lies
That the night has a
thousand eyes
The film is based on the 1945 novel by Cornell
Woolrich and is considered one of his best. It is about fate and its inescapability.
Your death. Woolrich had been obsessed with his own death since he was a
child. It stuck with him all his life. Probably contributed to his becoming
a shut-in for 25 years till his death. At some point when we are young enough
to understand what death is, we all realize with a jolt that it applies to
us as well as to others. Some day you are going to die. You will disappear.
I remember this hitting me hard when I was about ten years-old and the many
sleepless nights that followed. The sinking in my stomach. Just lying awake
in bed thinking someday I will die. It may be tomorrow or in hundred years
but that day will come. In the book a wealthy man is told by a psychic that
he will die in a few weeks at a specific time. The psychic is never wrong
and the man goes insane waiting for it.
The film goes at the same idea but in a
different way - managing to keep the germ of the book but switching things
about. It begins the same way though. Carson (John Lund) finds the contents
of a woman's purse strewn on the ground and spots her up on a tower waiting
for a train to pass in order to throw herself in front of it. He saves Jean
(Gail Russell) and she tells him it is pointless - she will die with the
stars staring at her - the thousand eyes. She has been told this by a man
who has visions - he saw her dead under a blanket of bright stars. The two
of them go to meet him and Triton (Edward G. Robinson) tells them his story
in a flashback, Just listening to Robinson relate the story is a pleasure.
Perfectly narrated with that famous distinctive voice of his.
He used to be a phony psychic and did a
stage show with a friend (Jerome Cowan) and the woman he was engaged to (Virginia
Bruce). Then suddenly one night he was on stage when he had a real vision
and told parents to go home because their son was in danger. They did and
saved the boy. These visions keep coming but instead of treating them as
a gift, they were a curse because he could not stop them from becoming true.
In one vision he sees his fiancé dying at childbirth and so he disappears.
For 20 years. His friend and former fiancé get married - and she dies
in childbirth. The daughter is Jean. He foretells her death. Under the stars
at the foot of a lion. He has to stop this one, but everything he predicts
starts to come true. The cops (William Demarest) are sure Triton is a conman
and surround the woman, but can they protect her from fate.
Robinson just carries this film with a terrific
performance that is initially charming but turns to despair. It is directed
by John Farrow - father of Mia - and husband to Maureen O'Sullivan - and
the script was from Barré Lyndon (Hangover Square and The Lodger)
and Jonathan Latimer, who wrote some fine mystery novels. Comes in at 80
minutes.
