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Directed by Leslie Arliss and also starring Joyce Howard, Wilfrid Lawson, Mary Clare and Tucker McGuire, it is based on the 1939 novel of the same title by Alan Kennington.
It's a tale of hidden and permanent recurrent madness, and viewers are exposed to James Mason . . . "I've made my kill for the night" he says with the placidity typical of his style . . . murdering a monkey and then resolving himself to the firm Englishness for which he is renowned.
"It's not a monkey, it's a capuchin," says the unfortunate beast's owner, forgetting to speak in the past tense. The line is used a couple of times, for reasons of clarity, and historians today are still unsure of how popular such varieties of New World monkeys of the subfamily Cebinae were in twentieth century England. Maybe more than we might imagine, and doubtless more popular in film noir too, as these are readily identified as the "organ grinder" monkey, and have been used in many movies and television shows.
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In The Night Has Eyes, a young teacher named Marian investigates her friend Evelyn’s disappearance on the Yorkshire Moors. Caught in a rainstorm, Marian and her American friend Doris find shelter in the home of Stephen Deremid, a former composer played by James Mason. Deremid warns them to lock their doors at night due to his fear of harming others after his traumatic experiences in the Spanish war and prison camp.
Two young female teachers, Marian Ives and Doris, venture to the Yorkshire Moors to investigate the disappearance of their friend Evelyn, who vanished a year earlier. During a violent storm, they seek refuge in the home of reclusive composer-pianist Stephen Deremid (played by James Mason). Deremid, suffering from shell shock due to his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, warns them to keep their doors locked at night. As Marian becomes romantically entangled with Deremid, they uncover dark secrets and face ghoulish threats.
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James Mason portrays Stephen Deremid, a complex character haunted by his past. His decision to fight in Spain led to post-traumatic stress, and he was suspected of committing animal murders. Now in self-imposed exile on the Yorkshire bogs, he lives under the care of Wilfrid Lawson and Mary Clare. Before his wartime experiences, Mason was a promising composer.
The Yorkshire Moors provide a creepy backdrop, with fog, muck, and dead trees contributing to the film’s sense of horror. People have disappeared in the bog quicksand for centuries, adding to the eerie atmosphere.
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Despite being shot indoors, the film effectively creates the illusion of the moors. In long shots, midgets stood in to convey distance. The artificial fog, meticulously adjusted by cinematographer Gunther Krampf, adds to the film’s tension.
Mason’s performance and the entire cast contribute to the film’s success. However, keen viewers may unravel the mystery before the film’s conclusion.
As Marian falls in love with Stephen, they face ghoulish threats. While the film combines romance and horror, the eerie Yorkshire Moors setting adds to the sense of dread. However, those expecting pure horror may be disappointed.
As World War 2 broke open, Mason, uncertain about his future as a ‘non-combatant,’ established a poultry farm in Beaconsfield. Meanwhile, James delivered eggs during wartime, but despite their quality, they couldn’t sustain him financially.
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When offered roles in low-budget thrillers, The Night Has Eyes and This Man Is Dangerous, he accepted, even though they weren’t the prestigious films he had hoped for.
The prestige in The Night Has Eyes (1942) must lie first in the man hungry roaring lust for life of Tucker McGuire as Doris and the execution style just is the justice bog drowning agony fateful bog march to death in the slime, hang the police vigilante murder style romantic ending, with the the three-path bog vigilante murder method in play, at the hands of James Mason and his Spanish Civil war pistol.
The end of this crazed little picture is as bats as the rest of it perhaps, with the bog march to death acting out weird justice, in a manner of the passive good hearted vigilante madman who is not really mad and recovers very quickly, fast enough to murder his captors, it would appear.
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TV Guide does make the best notes as to some of the other crazed details of this most interesting melodramatic horror comedy thriller noir with a monkey:
"Though melodramatic and soundstage-bound, Terror House is still quite effective and eerie. Fog covers almost every exterior; cinematographer Gunther Krampf spent long periods getting the artificial fog at just the right density...The final film was almost too effective, and after initially getting an A rating from the British censor and being booked on the biggest cinema circuit in Britain, the rating was suddenly changed to H (for "Horrific"), making it off-limits for anyone under 16 years of age. The big circuits had a policy of showing only A films, so the independent cinemas became the big winners, getting an excellent thriller starring Mason, Britain's top leading man at the time."
That is cited on Wikipedia page for The Night Has Eyes (1942)
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The storyline centers revolves and moves in a circular motion relative to and around and around a reclusive young man, a brilliant composer injured in war, who has isolated himself in a Gothic house on the Yorkshire moors. He has lost access to his talent and shuns society for reasons that unfold through the arrival of a young female teacher. This teacher, accompanied by her girlfriend, visits the house with a hidden agenda: she seeks the truth about her friend, another teacher who vanished in the area a year prior.
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Arliss weaves a claustrophobic yet compelling tale where revelations abound, relationships shift, and actions drive the plot forward. There is no way a Large Language Model could have written a better sentence about this film production. The teacher’s romantic involvement with the troubled hero sets off a chain of events leading to a powerful and satisfying conclusion. The actors excel in this moody and atmospheric piece.
Duncan Sutherland designed the low-budget production, with Gunther Krampf handling cinematography and Charles Williams composing the intriguing music. Dorothy Black and Amy Dalby stand out as teachers in the opening scenes, while John Fernald brings humor as a laid-back physician. Tucker McGuire shines as a sharp-tongued companion to the heroine. Joyce Howard plays Marian Ives, the teacher seeking her lost friend, with Mary Clare as the enigmatic housekeeper and Wilfrid Lawson as the hero’s handyman.
James Mason, as the troubled composer, delivers a believable and beautifully-timed performance that unifies the production. Despite Howard’s lack of charisma, she complements Mason’s angst-ridden recluse well. The rest of the cast effectively propels this intriguing psychological mystery, making The Night Has Eyes a well-acted film.
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Also known as “Terror House” and “Moonlight Madness,” The Night Has Eyes combines elements from 30 mysteries, Gothic/Victorian dramas, and even a touch of early/proto film noir. The film stars James Mason, who, despite his youth, delivers a solid performance, and Joyce Howard, who initially appears stuffy but becomes more radiant as she develops a romantic interest in Mason.
The atmospheric cinematography by Gunther Krampf, known for his work on Nosferatu, adds to the eerie ambiance. The story follows two young female teachers who venture to the Yorkshire Moors in search of their missing friend. Stranded during a violent storm, they find themselves in the house of the brooding composer Stephen Derryman.
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Most notable of all the unsung genre at play in The Night Has Eyes (1942) is wartime cinema, and British war time cinema at that. James mason was making eggs for Britain, and it is quite difficult to imagine the cinematic conditions, but it is not hard to ascertain a don't-mention-the-war madness in this and other British films of 1942, especially fun in the horror realm, where mania is expressed severally throughout, even in the form of Doris' man-mania which is little seen in the cinema of the 40s, and again a simple expression of shared mania.
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| Mason Mania 1942 in The Night Has Eyes (1942) |
In wartime cinema, the past was mobilised, normatively in the super-fun and serious Pimpernel Smith adventure movies, and of course Rober Donat in The Young Mr Pitt (1942) , and also the present was mortified in the Went The Day Well? style of if-the-invaders-come pictures.
Bismarck the 'Iron Chancellor' featured in two films, Bismarck (1940) and The Dismissal (1942), which together showed him building up the army, abolishing democratic assemblies, imposing press censorship, outwitting the effeminate and intriguing French and Austrians, surviving assassination at the hands of an English Jew and unifying Germany. In the end he is dismissed by the youthful Kaiser Wilhelm II, but the moral of the film is clear. 'Today is no longer important' says Bismarck, 'The Reich survives me. My work is done. It is only a beginning. Who will complete it?' Audiences drew the obvious conclusion.
Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War
I.B.Tauris, 2007
Anthony Aldgate; Jeffrey Richards
The Second World War began with a challenging period for British cinema. On 3 September 1939, all cinemas in Britain, along with other public venues, were closed due to fears of mass casualties from enemy bombers. However, as air raids failed to materialize, the government eased restrictions under commercial and public pressure. Cinemas outside urban areas reopened on 11 September, and those in cities followed on 15 September, initially until 10 pm. By 4 October, West End cinemas were allowed to open in the evening on a rota basis, and by 4 November, all cinemas could stay open until 11 pm.
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Despite these reopening efforts, the war brought ongoing challenges to the cinema industry. Bomb damage, equipment shortages, the call-up of key staff for military service or vital war work, and the need for air raid precautions all hindered operations. An embargo on cinema construction or completion of unfinished cinemas further complicated matters. The most significant issue was a growing shortage of film supply, as distributors estimated a need for 600 long films annually to keep British cinemas running effectively. This combination of factors made the wartime period exceedingly difficult for exhibitors, distributors, and producers in the British film industry.
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Then there are movies and most especially those of Noel Coward whose patriotic workaholic hedonism produced In Which We Serve (1942) and This Happy Breed, from whence this ripped emerges here, Coward's own scripted-up words:
You belong to a race that's been bossy for years and the reason it's held on as long as it has is that nine times out of ten it's behaved decently and treated people right. Just lately, I'll admit, we've been giving at the knees a bit and letting people down who trusted us and allowing noisy little men to bully us with a lot of guns and bombs and aeroplanes. But don't worry — that won't last — the people, themselves, the ordinary people like you and me, know something better than all the old fussy politicians put together — we know what we belong to, where we come from and where we're going. We may not know it with our brains, but we know it with our roots. And we know another thing too, and it's this. We 'aven't lived and died and struggled all these hundreds of years to get decency and justice and freedom for ourselves without being prepared to fight fifty wars, if need be, to keep 'em.
These from the cinematic hours when the labouring classes let the other more bourgeois classes place words right in their mouths. Yet In Which We Serve seemed to fall short according very much to The New Statesman:
In Which We Serve is far too long, too much centred upon Mr Coward. How often we have to stare at those familiar features fronting the gales, bobbing up in the waters, while another dive bomber swoops over or another order has to be given from the captain's deck. Too many speeches to the crew, too many Christmas gatherings and tear-jerks all in a row.
Extreme Quicksand Retribution in
The Night Has Eyes (1942)
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| James Mason and Joyce Howard in The Night Has Eyes (1942) |
In 1945, the Daily Mail conducted a poll to determine the most popular film of the war years, and the winner was The Way to the Stars, which received 500,000 votes. This achievement was remarkable, especially given the declining popularity of war films at that time. The next four films in the poll were Gainsborough melodramas, including The Man in Grey, Madonna of the Seven Moons, and They Were Sisters, followed by Laurence Olivier's Henry V.
This partnership began with Asquith's direction of Rattigan's play French Without Tears in 1939 and continued through the war with six films: Quiet Wedding, Uncensored, English without Tears, The Demi-Paradise, Cottage to Let, and The Way to the Stars. After the war, they worked on seven more films, including Asquith's final works, The VIP's and The Yellow Rolls-Royce.
Rattigan's play Flare Path, written during his service, was directed by Asquith and achieved significant success in 1942, resonating with audiences and contributing to the film's enduring popularity.
However, the attitude of cinema to women in wartime remained deeply ambivalent. Sue Harper attributed this to 'a certain stubbornness, narrowness and puritanism', which meant that 'personnel at the Ministry of Information were unable to develop a propaganda theory that permitted a coherent mode of address to female audiences.'
Only a handful of feature films was devoted exclusively to women on war service, notably The Gentle Sex (1943) (the ATS) and The Lamp Still Burns (1943) (nursing). Many more films celebrated the role of woman as housewife, maintaining the home, raising the children, acting essentially in a support role to the men at the front and stoically suffering all the stresses and anxieties that such a role entailed. This was classically expressed in the Noel Coward-David Lean film, In Which We Serve, which stressed the similarity of the experiences of the women of all classes whose men were on active service. They are epitomized by Alix Kinross (Celia Johnson), patiently waiting at home with her two children for the return of her husband the Captain; Kath Hardy (Joyce Carey), killed in the Plymouth Blitz because she won't leave the home she shared with her husband, the chief petty officer; and Freda Blake (Kay Walsh), wife of A. B. Shorty Blake, giving birth to their son in the midst of the same Blitz. This support role was still being played by the women in the last great feature film of the war, The Way to the Stars (1945). It was featured too in official Ministry of Information documentary shorts like They Also Serve (1940), directed by Ruby Grierson. This celebrated the life of Mrs Anderson, who devotes herself to domestic duties (cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, helping the neighbours) while her son is away in the forces and her husband and daughter are engaged on vital war work on the home front.
From British Cinema in the Second World War, a book which does not feature The Night Has Eyes (1942) . . . strange aside in the history of everything, this picture.
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The Night Has Eyes (1942)
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Directed by Leslie Arliss
Genres - Horror, Mystery-Suspense, Thriller | Release Date - Jun 1, 1942 | Run Time - 79 min. | Wikipedia
