Night Has a Thousand Eyes (John Farrow, 1948)

John Lund, Gail Russell, and Edward G. Robinson in Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell, John Lund, Virginia Bruce, William Demarest, Richard Webb, Jerome Cowan, Onslow Stevens, Roman Bonhen, Luis Van Rooten, Henry Guttman, Mary Adams. Screenplay: Barré Lyndon, Jonathan Latimer, based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich. Cinematography: John F. Seitz. Art direction: Franz Bachelin, Hans Dreier. Film editing: Eda Warren. Music: Victor Young. 

Night Has a Thousand Eyes is a supernatural whodunit that almost comes apart at several points, especially when the killer goes undetected in a houseful of cops by hiding behind a curtain. But it's held together by Edward G. Robinson's performance as a former vaudeville mind reader who discovered that he really did have the ability to see the future. Many plot turns later, he finds himself under suspicion by the police for trying to con an heiress by predicting her death, which he's really trying to prevent. Director John Farrow manages to maintain a noir atmosphere through a nonsensical story, though he's not helped much by the blandness of Gail Russell as the woman in jeopardy and John Lund as her rather thick boyfriend. William Demarest is better cast as the grouchy detective in charge of the case. It's the kind of movie that works best if you relax and don't try to make sense out of it. 
 

Alias Nick Beal (John Farrow, 1949)

Audrey Totter and Ray Milland in Alias Nick Beal

Cast: Ray Milland, Thomas Mitchell, Audrey Totter, George Macready, Fred Clark, Geraldine Wall, Henry O'Neill, Darryl Hickman, Nestor Paiva, King Donovan, Charles Evans. Screenplay: Jonathan Latimer, Mindret Lord. Cinematography: Lionel Lindon. Art direction: Franz Bachelin, Hans Dreier. Film editing: Eda Warren. Music: Franz Waxman. 

An attempt to blend film noir and fantasy, Alias Nick Beal casts Ray Milland as the devil, who leads an honest politician (Thomas Mitchell) astray. Despite good performances and nice atmospheric detail, the film fizzles in a too-pat resolution of the plot. 

His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, 1951)

Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell in His Kind of Woman

Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Tim Holt, Charles McGraw, Marjorie Reynolds, Raymond Burr, Leslye Banning, Jim Backus, Philip Van Zandt, John Mylong, Carleton G. Young. Screenplay: Frank Fenton, Jack Leonard. Cinematography: Harry J. Wild. Production design: J. McMillan Johnson. Film editing: Frederic Knudtson, Eda Warren. Music: Leigh Harline. 

His Kind of Woman starts out as a tough-talking film noir and ends up as a knockabout action comedy. The credit or blame for that belongs to Howard Hughes, the RKO studio head and executive producer, who waited until John Farrow had finished the movie and then had Richard Fleischer re-shoot it, even recasting the villain, originally played by Lee Van Cleef, with Raymond Burr. The New York Times reviewer hated it, partly because of the shift in tone, but most people like it. Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell were never going to outdo Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in dialogue like "They tell me you killed Ferraro. How did it feel?" "He didn't say." But they're good enough at it that they give the movie a core that the flurry of oddball characters and the loony setup for the plot needs. Vincent Price is wonderful as an Errol Flynnish movie star who spouts tags from Shakespeare as he joins Mitchum in taking on the bad guys. Hughes made sure that Russell's gowns, designed by Howard Greer, were as revealing as possible, and Mitchum spends a lot of the film without his shirt, looking a little thick in the waist to contemporary viewers used to gym-toned physiques. The end product probably wasn't worth the money Hughes lost on it, but it's still fun.  

The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)

The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)

Cast: Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready, Rita Johnson, Elsa Lanchester, Harold Vermilyea, Dan Tobin, Harry Morgan. Screenplay: Jonathan Latimer, based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing. Cinematography: Daniel L. Fapp, John F. Seitz. Art direction: Roland Anderson, Hans Dreier, Albert Nozaki. Film editing: LeRoy Stone. Music: Victor Young.

The Big Clock is a satisfying blend of suspense and comedy of the kind often called "Hitchcockian," which usually means it would probably have been even better if Hitchcock had directed it. But since he didn't, it's worth admiring what director John Farrow and screenwriter Jonathan Latimer did with the material provided them by Kenneth Fearing's novel. Fearing had worked at Time magazine when Henry Luce was head of that publishing empire, so it's clear that he had Luce in mind when he created the imperious Earl Janoth, played with mustache-stroking glee by Charles Laughton in the film. So there's a substratum of satire on publishing moguls like Luce -- a breed that still exists in our day, embodied by Rupert Murdoch. (And still attracts satire, viz., HBO's Succession.)  The plot centers on another Hitchcockian trope, the Wrong Man. In this case, the object of suspicion is George Stroud, editor of one of Janoth's properties, a true crime magazine called Crimeways. Ray Milland plays Stroud, a hard-charging journalist who feels trapped in Janoth's empire. Eventually, through a well-set-up series of coincidences, Stroud finds himself investigating a murder in which he becomes the chief suspect, even though it was actually committed by no less than Janoth. There are domestic complications, too, involving Stroud's wife, a thankless role nicely played by Maureen O'Sullivan. The victim is Janoth's mistress, with whom Stroud has become involved because she suggests she has dirt on Janoth that Stroud can use to his advantage. The film handles all of these plot snarls with finesse, one of the rare instances in which knowing whodunit from the outset doesn't detract from the suspense. Censorship blunts some of the edges: In the novel, Stroud's marriage was less happy and his involvement with the victim more intimate. Janoth's bisexuality was also more explicit in the source -- in the film it's suggested when we see Janoth receiving a massage from his bodyguard, played silently by Harry Morgan, who remains a brooding presence in the background of other scenes. The film is enlivened by a gallery of mostly comic secondary characters, including Elsa Lanchester as a giddy artist whose works Stroud for some reason collects.