The Night Has Eyes

This is a wholly satisfying romantic mystery tale, with excellent performances all round, well directed by Leslie Arliss, even though it was only his second film. James Mason delivers a powerful, brooding, mysterious performance as a tormented composer living a life of isolation in an ancient house in the moors, playing Schubert in the dark, surrounded by peat bogs, 'cut off from the world', and often flooded in. It is hard to believe that Mason made one of the worst films ever, with one of the worst performances ever ('Secret Mission'), in the very same year. Must be the directors. Mary Clare is amazingly eerie and haunting in her character role, and Joyce Howard is a charming, fresh-faced ingenue with eyes full of hope - frightened eyes, but hopeful. Wifred Lawson is a marvellous character study of a thicko in thrall to Mary Clare. Plenty of mist, lots of full moons, mysterious deaths, secret rooms, it's all there. Oh yes, and let's not forget the maidens in distress who conquer their fears for love, and the good time gal who wants to get back to town where 'all those delicious men in RAF uniforms' are. This really is a good one.

By chance, one afternoon in the 1950s, I saw this film as a 4 year old on our first TV. I never forgot it. It takes place near some English moors. James Mason plays a man suspected of brutal murders. The two young teachers who stay at his house are caught up in the mystery. When the mystery is solved and the villain must pay, the moors play an important part in the very unnerving climax -- I remembered those death screams for years. When I finally saw it again, almost 50 years later, I was delighted to be frightened again. This of course was a very young James Mason who went on to have a very long varied career. He did his role justice and his co-stars were talented as well. The film is almost never shown on TV any more, but the film can be purchased from specialty suppliers -- it's worth looking for!

Schoolteachers Joyce Howard and Tucker McGuire are off to the Yorkshire moors for a holiday, the same moors where a former colleague disappeared a year earlier. When they get caught up in a storm, they find shelter in the secluded mansion of James Mason. Mason's an acrimonious and unstable man, and despite multiple warnings from him, his housekeeper Mary Clare, and a possible link between Mason and the missing teacher, she falls for him and decides to stay around for a while. But then she finds a skeleton in a locked room (literally), with a necklace that she recognizes as the missing teacher's...

Also known as Terror House and Moonlight Madness, this movie combines elements from 30 mysteries, Gothic/victorian drama's and even a bit of early/proto film noir. Mason ('Odd Man Out') was still quite young but already able to carry a movie, and gives a solid performance. Howard ('They Met In The Dark') is also good, stuffy at first but more radiant once she takes a romantic interest in Mason. There is also some nice atmospheric cinematography by Gunther Krampf ('Nosferatu') inside the mansion and on the foggy moors. The directing by Leslie Arliss ('The Wicked Lady') is competent enough, but his screenplay is a bit too slow, and he added some unnecessary and jarring comic relief in the middle. The twist is not too surprising, the ending is pretty good tho. An enjoyable movie, but it could've been much better. 6+/10

A pretty young school teacher named Marian(played by the very lovely Joyce Howard) sets out to investigate the disappearance of her friend Evelyn who had vanished on the Yorkshire Moors a year before.

Soon however her and her American friend Doris(enlisted to accompany Marian) get caught in an awful rainstorm but luckily happen upon an unlikely house located in the vicinity.

A bizarre young man named Stephen Deremid(played by James Mason), a former composer, offers them shelter for the night but warns the ladies to keep their doors locked at night. We soon learn that Deremid fears he cannot trust himself - fear he might unknowingly do harm to others following his years of fighting in the Spanish war and being held in a prison camp. But Marian soon finds herself in love with Stephen and sets out to help him at any. However others have more ghoulish intentions for the couple.

This film works much better in its Romantic settings than it does in its Horror ones. Character changes come rather abruptly and unexpectedly. The Yorkshire Moors does make a creepy setting however--with the fog, muck, dead trees and nothingness certainly contributing a sense of horror to the film. The best thing to watch this one for is the romance...those expecting out and out horror will find disappointment.

Of all the movies I love, none has had a wider ranging impact than this one. I saw it on late night TV when I was 9, Halloween night, at a sleepover where everyone else was sleeping. I had nothing to do and couldn't figure out how to change the channel on the TV, so I was sitting there grumpily watching something random when this... strange movie came on. It was in black and white, but the people in it were beautiful, as were the clothes, the sets, everything. I was transfixed. I told my mother about this movie rapturously, and when it came on again a couple of years later she woke me at 2:00 in the morning so we could watch it together (my mother understands what it is to love a film). For many years Stephen was my tortured masculine ideal, and I married a man who definitely fits the James Mason physical type. Luckily, he has a sunny temperament and a stronger chin, so I feel like I got the best of both worlds! This movie also led me into the genre of Gothic literature, which was a major component of my reading life for a long time, and I still enjoy. Thank you to the people who made this film with love. They'll never know what it's meant to me.