Eyes in the Night

Plot synopsis:
New York private detective Duncan MacLain (Edward Arnold) is blind but has keenly developed all his other senses. He pursues his work assisted by his faithful guide dog Friday, his butler, Alistair (Mantan Moreland), and his assistant, Marty (Allen Jenkins). Retired actress Norma Lawry (Ann Harding), an old friend, comes to Mac seeking advice. Her headstrong 17-year-old step-daughter Barbara (Donna Reed), herself a promising actress, is enamored with her leading man in a small theater production, the much older Lothario Paul Gerente. Paul, who had once been Norma's lover, has convinced Barbara that Norma actually wants Paul for herself and has only married her father Stephen for his money. At Mac's urging, Norma tried to reason with Paul, but he insists that he loves Barbara and laughs her off. Barbara is equally disdainful of her and agrees to meet Paul for dinner that night at his apartment.
Norma's husband Stephen Lawry (Reginald Denny) is a scientist leaving that night on a trip to test a secret invention on which he has been working for the government and the war effort. Worried about Barbara, she uses a pretext not to accompany Stephen and goes to the apartment. When Barbara arrives, she finds Paul's dead body and thinks that Norma has killed him, even though Norma insists that he was dead when she arrived. Barbara threatens to call the police unless she leaves Stephen. Fearing that a scandal will hurt him, Norma agrees. Norma then turns to Mac, who goes to Paul's apartment with Friday and Marty, only to find the body and the rug under it missing. A man (Stephen McNally) arrives to replace the rug and Mac hides in a closet, overhearing a telephone call to Norma's number from "Gabriel" to "Vera." Mac accidentally gives himself away, but with Friday's help overpowers Gabriel, who refuses to talk. Mac has Marty hide him to keep him under wraps.
Norma returns to her country home unexpectedly, which discourages an espionage ring that includes her butler, Hansen (Stanley Ridges), from breaking into Stephen's safe and stealing his plans. They have killed Gerente, who was also an agent, and hidden the body. Mac arrives with Friday at Norma's house and pretends to be her curmudgeonly "Uncle Mac" who has come for a visit. His blindness lulls any suspicions Hansen might have about him. Shortly thereafter, Barbara comes home from an "emergency rehearsal", called to get her out of the house by her director, Cheli Scott (Katherine Emery), who inveigles an invitation to spend the night at the Lawry home. Unknown to Barbara and Norma, Cheli is the ringleader of the spies. Cheli ordered Paul killed because his affection for Barbara was beginning to limit his effectiveness, and she immediately suspects Mac is not what he seems.
Gabriel's wife Vera (Rosemary DeCamp), the Lawrys' maid, is also a part of the plot. When Gabriel does not return home, Vera becomes hysterical with worry. Mac secretly asks Vera to meet him in the greenhouse, using her worry about Gabriel as a lure. She is observed by the others, however, and is killed by Hansen before she can reach Mac. The spies cut the house's telephone wires so that Mac and Norma cannot call the police, and Cheli has Mac locked up under guard. Using his blindness as a distraction, Mac overpowers his guard and releases Friday out a window with instructions to "go home and get Marty." Stephen arrives home and Cheli threatens his family if he does not give her the final step in creating his invention, which was not in the safe. Barbara finally realizes how much Norma actually cares for her. Mac tries to stall for time, but is locked in the cellar. When Hansen goes to kill him, Mac has broken the light bulb and his advantage of total darkness helps him overcome the spy. Marty and Friday return with the police. When Friday is spotted by a lookout, Mac overpowers him and is saved from being shot by another lookout by Friday. After the spies are captured, Stephen and Norma are off to Washington, D.C., with Barabara remaining behind to care for her new "Uncle Mac."

Tags: cult, murder

Review:
Edward Arnold plays a blind detective asked to look into the murder of an actor.
This movie is a thriller of sorts, and it has a major twist: it features a blind detective - quite convincingly, I must add, since he has a very smart (scene-stealing) seeing-eye dog to help him.
With an interesting plot, some suspenseful sequences, and a very effective performance by Edward Arnold, "Eyes in the Night" deserves to be much better known.
It has numerous strong points, and not the least of them is director Fred Zinnemann, who scores a success in one of his earlier full-length features.Arnold heads up a good cast as a blind but very resourceful detective, and he makes the character both interesting and believable.
The suspenseful basement sequence could almost have served as a prototype for a similar though much more elaborate sequence in the Audrey Hepburn classic "Wait Until Dark".Ann Harding, a young Donna Reed, and Reginald Denny are also in the cast, and while they and the other characters cannot compete with Arnold, they all do a solid job.
But the standout of the supporting cast is the dog 'Friday', who gets some of the best moments, and who performs very well.The fast-paced story begins as a murder mystery, but as things slowly become clear, the last half focuses more on espionage and suspense.
Sure, it's pat and simplistic in places and the plot's a little daffy, but it has three major things going for it: an amazing dog named Friday, a delightful performance from veteran Edward Arnold and fine direction by Fred Zinnemann.
It could've easily been filler, but Zinnemann has too much respect for his craft and the material to allow that to happen.As others have pointed out, that dog really is something and nearly steals the show but Arnold is every bit as good.
(And that scheme is a big time McGuffin, no more than an obviously slight excuse to get all the conflicting characters under one roof.)  Arnold's Cat & Mouse games with main villains Katherine Emery (resembling Mercedes McCambridge both in looks and delivery) and over-educated "butler" Stanley Ridges are tense and clever.Zinnemann really shines in one ingenious scene set in a pitch dark basement.
The hat Donna Reed wears at the end of the movie is so awful nobody could muster the courage to fake a compliment.Edward Arnold is jovial and believable as the blind detective.
A blind detective, a Nazi plot and the smartest dog I've ever seen all make this a very enjoyable mystery/thriller.
Young Donna Reed really is stunning and Mr. Arnold nails it as the blind detective.
It's a surprisingly good film, really a near-great film that's hobbled a bit by it's middle act.The first part of the film is really the only part that's a straight-forward detective romp, w/ a blind detective and his seeing-eye-dog and his hired muscle simpleton helping him sleuth out a fairly typical wrongfully-accused-murder plot.
It's entertaining enough filler - a sort of World War II version of "Wait Until Dark" - but it doesn't really advance the plot much.The third act is the somewhat-rushed climax/resolution, though it features an unexpectedly cool shootout filmed in a very unusual style, and extended sequence with the detective's amazingly-well-trained dog.
There's some gimmicky silliness in the film, especially the dog - but fortunately the detective's blindness is not used as a gimmick (except perhaps in a fight scene, which thus allows stalwart character actor Edward Arnold to exercise considerable acting muscle here - he does a splendid job - as does a young, energetic Donna Reed.The film has a professional polish to it.
Duncan Maclain (Edward Arnold) as a detective who is visually challenged leaves no doubt that he will indeed solve the a murder and uncover a Nazi plot.
So he must have looked on with gratitude to MGM for allowing him to play Baynard Kendrick's fictional blind detective Duncan MacLain in two films of which Eyes In The Night is the first.
It's from there he finds out what's going on.Harding hires Arnold because she's concerned that her step daughter Donna Reed is getting in way over her head with actor John Emery.
When Emery turns up dead later that's an understatement.But when Arnold gets into the household and sees what an interesting group of servants Harding and husband Reginald Denny have, he's thinking that romance might not just be at the bottom of this mystery.Aided by filmdom's most remarkable dog since Rin Tin Tin in the canine of Friday, MacLain is also aided for strong arm stuff by his driver Allen Jenkins.
Edward Arnold plays blind detective Duncan Maclain in "Eyes in the Night," a 1942 MGM film directed by Fred Zinnemann that has a lot of other familiar faces.
Ann Harding made her return to the screen after a few years in this small film, playing the stepmother, Norma Lawry, of a young actress, Barbara (Donna Reed at 21), who's fallen in love with an older actor with whom Harding was once involved.
He sets out to find the killer, and it leads him into a web of espionage.Nice job by Zinnemann, who was just starting out, though he didn't like doing the film except for working with Ann Harding and Donna Reed.
Overall, it's an okay story, well done.Edward Arnold does an excellent job (though Zinnemann said he kept blowing his lines) as the smart and likable blind detective, who is aided by an assistant (Allen Jenkins) and his dog Friday, who looks to be a German shepherd mix.
In between Rin-Tin-Tin in the 1920s (also a German shepherd) and Lassie just a season or two later I discovered by seeing this film for the first time that there was also Friday, actor-dog extraordinaire!
Not only was Edward Arnold deprived of a series and confined to but one more sequel to this very clever and entertaining movie in which his character as a blind detective might have gone on for quite a while, but Friday never got off the ground as a dog star either.
As to handicapped detectives, Edward Arnold's role seemed to be a clear predecessor to Raymond Burr's Ironside some decades later as a wheelchair-bound but equally efficacious lawyer.As I watched this plot unfold, with the manipulative and steely step-daughter played so brilliantly and uncharacteristically (considering her later popular and more sympathetic roles) by Donna Reed as she constantly confronted her long-suffering stepmother Ann Harding, I could not help but be struck by the parallel to Mildred Pierce, filmed just a few years later.
Here Zinnemann directs the young Donna Reed (who plays a character who is appallingly arrogant, spoilt and pig-headed, very convincingly), and eleven years later in 'From Here to Eternity' (1953), he would turn to her again for a part where she would win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
The main character in the film is a blind detective, Duncan Maclain, played to perfection by Edward Arnold.
There are some hilarious scenes between the dog and Arnold's butler, played by Mantan Moreland, where the butler is constantly having his job taken away from him by the dog (Friday fetches his master's slippers before the butler can reach the closet, etc.) The haunted looks of Ann Harding are good for her part, her eyes dreamy and distant, her complexion pale, all good mystery stuff.
The scenes where Edward Arnold searches for clues in the dark, because being blind he does not need light, are highly effective.
In this case, the premise of "blind detective and seeing-eye dog fight crime on the streets of New York and uncover a nazi spy ring" sounds too good to pass up.Have no doubts, this is an extremely silly picture.
Eyes in the Night (1942) *** (out of 4) A woman (Ann Harding) fears that her stepdaughter (Donna Reed) is involved with an evil man so she goes to his apartment to ask him to leave her alone.
The mother goes to her blind detective friend (Edward Arnold) who starts to investigate and learns that German spies were behind it.
This film features a very attractive cast, a nice story and some very good direction by Zinnemann, which makes this a must see for fans of detective movies.
Arnold is very good in his role making it very believable that his character is actually blind.
The title derives from the main character, an elderly detective named Duncan Maclain (Edward Arnold) who is blind.
Yet, together with his seeing-eye dog, Friday, and a human sidekick, Maclain investigates a murder and unmasks the villain.The story's underlying premise is weak and time-bound, having little relevance post WWII.
But the antics of Friday the dog, combined with Arnold's fine and at times hammy performance, compensates for the weak story.
In contrast to her usually wholesome roles like that of It's a Wonderful Life-though her Mary Hatch wasn't above making her mother think George Bailey was, well you know-here she plays a teen girl who's dating a much older man that was once a lover of her stepmother (Ann Harding).
Anyway, the real star is Edward Arnold as the blind detective Duncan Maclain who's not above creating some scenes himself as he tries to both solve a murder and uncover a Nazi scheme with the able assist of his dog Friday.
Fred Zinnemann, at the start of his directing career, did a couple of good B-films for MGM and he began with EYES IN THE NIGHT.
It's a minor B-melodrama with cheerful, resourceful EDWARD ARNOLD as a man who uses his intelligence and keen wit to trap a killer.It's a brisk, no nonsense film with a supporting cast that includes lovely young DONNA REED in a prominent supporting role as a woman whose life is in danger.
When she seeks Arnold's help, the suspense builds until the blind detective must confront the killer in a tense basement scene that has him knocking out a light bulb so that he and the killer are on the same level playing ground.It passes the time but is nothing to seek out, noteworthy only for being a good step forward in the career of Fred Zinnemann who was to go on to major directing chores in the future.
Finally, while she wasn't all that important a character, Donna Reed has a great moment near the end where she gets to deck the leader of the Nazi gang holding them hostage.
Edward Arnold as a Blind Detective Overacts and Gets On the Nerves Occasionally but is Helped Greatly by Some Gadgets and His Seeing Eye Dog Friday who Steals the Show.Donna Reed is a Bitchy Stepdaughter, and Katherine Emery as a Cold Blooded Nazi Spy Also Add Some Spice to the Proceedings.
It stars Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Donna Reed, Stephen McNally, Katherine Emery, Allen Jenkins, Stanley Ridges and Friday the dog.
Plot finds Arnold as blind detective Duncan Maclain, also a judo expert, he is always accompanied by his intelligent seeing-eye dog, Friday.
Maclain is called on to a murder case for his friend, Norma Lawry (Harding), but the body is missing and there appears to be something very sinister going on at the Lawry family home.A cracking little thriller boosted by a top cast (Donna Reed playing a bitch step-daughter!) and moody photography.
Here for once he plays the lead as a blind detective, and the question is whether he is the lead or his dog Friday.
They work together and are indispensable to each other, but still also make it well on their own, even when trapped or locked up in a basement.As an experienced blind detective Arnold has many bags full of tricks, and some of them he gets the opportunity to use to turn a grim drama into a hilarious comedy.
Getting drunk and playing the organ in the middle of the night to disturb all criminality going on, he brilliantly turns into the highlight entertainment of this film.The clever intrigue involves a theatre company as a cover up for serious counter spionage activity to endanger the nation, which Donna Reed as a young easily seduced girl is innocently unaware of and duped by, while her mother Ann Sheridan immediately senses the alarm.
One of the many things I love about TCM is that it shows the big studio programmers that gave their character actors and up and coming stars a chance to shine.You can always depend on Edward Arnold giving a good performance-- including all the crooked politicians and irascible millionaires that were his bread and butter.
But here he sinks his teeth into the role of a blind detective who is aided by a wonder of a seeing eye dog.
Arnold is funny, clever, and charming throughout.The mystery, as many viewers note, is solved in Act Two. The film is mainly concerned with putting detective Duncan Maclain in a jam and seeing how he gets out of it and captures a Nazi spy ring.The cast is excellent and includes Anne Harding, Reginald Denny, Mantan Mooreland, and Friday the German Shepherd.
It sounds strange by the description of the film: A blind detective & his dog who help a woman, Norma Lawry, with a murder case.
But Paul ends up dead, Barbra blames Norma for murdering him and Norma seeks the help of a friend the blind detective Duncan 'Mac' Maclain.
Edward Arnold is blind, but that doesn't handicap him too much in his profession as detective in "Eyes in the Night." A female friend, played by Ann Harding, goes to him for help on how to handle a sticky situation.
I found the concept of a lead blind detective and a very active smart sidekick, the dog made this a very unique movie to watch.
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.
Arnold never had a series role like that, although his performance as Captain Duncan Maclaine in this film did lead to a sequel a few years later.
Not quite like dealing with a brilliant amateur who shows them up.In the present film, Arnold is approached by Donna Reed about threats to her following the murder of a fellow actor.
In just a couple of films he went from "The Lady or the Tiger" (1942), A MGM Miniature short to "Eyes in the Night", a very interesting spy who-done-it.Edward Arnold plays Duncan Maclain, a blind sleuth, who is originally asked for advice from Norma Lawry (Ann Harding, looking quite radiant)concerning her step daughter's (Donna Reed) infatuation with an ageing actor.After reading other comments, I'm disappointed that it wasn't developed into a series.
There are some great scenes with the blind detective, playing both serious and comic characters.
Watch this for the performance of Edward Arnold as the blind detective and that dog.
Blind detective Edward Arnold (as Duncan "Mac" Maclain) and his faithful dog "Friday" are visited by actress friend Ann Harding (as Norma Lawry).
Everyone has a lot of fun, especially Arnold and his dog "Friday".
"The Hidden Eye" (1945) was a belated second, and last, adventure.****** Eyes in the Night (10/16/42) Fred Zinnemann ~ Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Donna Reed, Katherine Emery.
This was a fairly inventive little drama with a play on words title that effectively describes it's lead character Duncan Maclain (Edward Arnold), a blind detective.
Charlie Chan would get involved in both types of stories so the hook seemed to be a pretty good one.Being blind was obviously no handicap for Big Mac, as Arnold's character got a lot of mileage out of being a blustery blow-hard upon arriving at the Lawry homestead.
But you really have to pay attention to his seeing-eye dog Friday, who makes the save for his master near the end of the story.
I think most of the other reviewers have covered both interesting and silly aspects of this film.Friday, the seeing eye dog, is well worth the price of admission.
It's just a while later that Barbara herself shows up at Paul's place and finding her mom, or step-mom, there with Paul's dead body she immediately blackmails her to leave her house and husband, Barbara's father, or else she'll turn her into the police.It's then when the big star, after of course the wonder dog Friday,in the movie the blind detective Duncan "Mac" MacLaine, Edward Arnold, gets involved in the case by showing up to get his friend Norma Laway off the hook in a murder rap.
"Mac" does have his moments in the movie but is by far overshadowed by Friday his faithful and courageous seeing-eye dog who in the end really saves the day "Mac" Norma Barbara Prof.
This had Vera'a husband Gabriel Hoffman, Stephen McNally,who murdered Paul Gerente, because he was weak and also about to crack,turn against them as well."Mac" the blind detective ends up being discovered, he paraded around as Norma's uncle, and worked over and held hostage by the Nazis.
Fortunately, his wife (Ann Harding) has called in the famous private detective, Captain Duncan Maclain (Edward Arnold), to handle a problem involving her step-daughter (Donna Reed).
The first film in the series, The Last Express (1938) starred Kent Taylor in the part now played by Edward Arnold.
COMMENT: This was the first - and the better "B" picture featuring Edward Arnold as a blind sleuth.
And there's a scene that pre-dates Wait Until Dark.The cast is top-grade, with Donna Reed looking very glamorous and Katherine Emery acting most effectively.OTHER VIEWS: Edward Arnold as a tediously unconvincing blind detective and Ann Harding as a misunderstood stepmother - the Lord help us!
Edward Arnold is a blind detective with a guide dog named Friday.
He puts away his usual gruff attitude and plays a blind detective who gets involved with his friend's new husband, a scientist.