Night Has a Thousand Eyes is a 1948 supernatural film with noir overtones, starring Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell and John Lund and directed by John Farrow. In this movie the great Edward G. Robinson plays a prophet!
John Triton (Edward G. Robinson, Soylent Green) is “The Mental Wizard”, a fortune teller at a nightclub. One night he starts to see visions of potential real-life threats. He tells a woman in the audience to go home because her child is in danger. After that, he has more visions of doomed futures. Triton seemingly has become a real psychic as what he foresees are proven accurate. Whitney Courtland (Jerome Cowan, The Maltese Falcon), Triton’s best friend, uses tips from Triton to make money. But Triton can’t deal with the disasters he is foreseeing which includes the death of his friend Jean Courtland (Gail Russell, Calcutta).
Why this movie hadn’t received a DVD or Blu-ray release domestically until now is a great mystery, as Night Has a Thousand Eyes is a fantastic gem with great compelling characters with a strong story.
Newly remastered in 2K, Night has a Thousand Eyes finally does get a great Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber. This looks fantastic with a nice, polished looking image. Whites are crisp, blacks are nice and inky, with excellent shadow detail. The movie’s greyscale looks perfectly balanced. John Seitz’s cinematography looks superb in high definition. The movie has film grain present throughout and the use of digital enhancements does not appear to have been used. This is an impressive release in the video department.
The same can be said for the audio, as the English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track comes in clear with dialogue, music and action sounds come in perfectly fine without any age-old issues such as crackling or hissing. If anything, the audio could have been a little too subtle, but it worked for me. English subtitles are available for this offering.
This release from Kino Lorber offers a commentary track by Imogen Sara Smith. She provides an engaging commentary about the film, John Farrow, Edward G. Robinson and compares the film to novel of the same name by Cornell Woolrich, mentioning some of the differences.
Trailers for this release include Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Web, The Accused, The Woman in the Window, Calcutta, and Alias Nick Beal.
Night Has a Thousand Eyes really won me over after the first viewing and have watched it a couple of times since then. It’s a wonderful film that has been given a great release by Kino Lorber! Highly recommended!
Night has A Thousand Eyes
Director- John Farrow
Cast- Edward G. Robison, Gail Russell, John Lund
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Kino Lorber
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date –12/12/2021