Dead Man's Eyes

Dir. Reginald Le Borg

64 Minutes

USA

1944

Starring: Lon Chaney Jr., Jean Parker, Paul Kelly, Thomas Gomez, Jonathan Hale, Acquanetta

**/*****

Third film in the set of six in Universal's "Inner Sanctum" mystery series, all starring Lon Chaney Jr. Interestingly, these feel like they pre-date what would eventually become anthologized horror, even including an Twilight Zone-type opening of a disembodied head floating in space with the same lines entering the viewer into the Inner Sanctum.

Tepid entry with the most flimsy dramatic catalyst that just leads to more excuses for Chaney to be the object of multiple affections. Here he plays a painter who is blinded after accidentally dousing his eyes with acid instead of water. When his loyal future father-in-law offers his own eyes for transplant upon his eventual death, Chaney becomes the prime suspect when the man is found dead. While less creepy than the batty Weird Woman, Dead Man's Eyes is neither engaging as a mystery on its own terms or a particularly interesting exercise in the Inner Sanctum series (with three having been viewed upon this writing). The accompanying melodrama to the mystery is this convolution pentagon of lurid romances, all to provide some red herrings to a solution that is basically spoiled by the poster, though perhaps the pleasures are more derived from how things are solved rather than The Who. Includes its fair dosage of messy gender politics and themes of masculine possessiveness over its female characters (concluding with Chaney referring to his love interest multiple times as "brat" much to her dismay), but Le Borg phones in his direction here and offers very little on any kind of visual level (though the hat at the end of the piece looks like an eyeball!). Clearly some completists fare, but offers very little outside of that mindset.

October 29th, 2019