The Night Has Eyes (AKA: Terror House/Moonlight Madness) is directed by Leslie Arliss who also adapts the screenplay from the novel written by Alan Kennington. It stars James Mason, Wilfrid Lawson, Mary Clare, Joyce Howard and Tucker Maguire. Music is by Charles Williams and cinematography by Gunther Krampf.

"You seem to regard me as some sort of male sleeping beauty who is restored to life by your kiss"

During the school term break, two lady school teachers travel to the Yorkshire Moors in the hope of finding out what happened to a fellow work colleague who vanished there a year previously. Arriving on the moors at night time, a storm breaks and the two women are thankful to stumble upon an isolated house where somebody is at home. The inhabitant is Stephen Deremid (Mason),a mysterious man who may just hold the key to what happened to the ladies' missing colleague.

OK! It's a stage bound "Old Dark House" film that has noir shadings but is more in keeping with classic Gothic offerings like Jane Eyre, Uncle Silas and Gaslight. The setting is a doozy, a creaky and shadowy mansion with a secret room, add in a storm from hell, the foggy moors that hold secrets along with the patches of quicksand (quickbog?),a seriously brooding leading man greatly troubled by his past, a spunky heroine fronting up for love interest and some possible perilous shenanigans… and you are good to go for some dark deeds and closeted skeletons.

Director Arliss builds the suspense very slowly, dangling snippets of information that teases the audience as to what might be going on in this shadowy abode. Stephen is a music composer, he is also a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, the effects of which has left him scarred. Why does he take tablets? Why is the moon significant? Now that his house servants have turned up, do they know what happened to the girl last year? It all builds towards the film's chilling climax, where all is revealed, and not insultingly so.

The cast all perform well under Arliss' direction, with Mason honing the brooding lead man act that would serve him so well in his career. Cinematographer Gunther Krampf (Nosferatu/The Hands of Orlac) creates an eerie atmosphere of fog-bound menace out on the moors, and also a foreboding darkened house of shadows for the interior of the Deremid mansion. The slow pace may put some off, and you are asked to forgive one or two dumb character reactions to certain situations, but this rewards the patient and very much it's a film for Gothic thriller fans to seek out. 7/10

James Mason stars in the story of two women who go off to try and find out what happened to a friend of theirs a year before when she went off across the moors. While out on the moors the girls get caught in a rain storm and are forced to take shelter in an old dark house where James Mason, a slightly off center composer lives. What happens after that is the movie and frankly its a great deal of fun and worth looking for. This is really an Old Dark House movie-the girls come upon the house when its all dark and shadowy, and you can feel the danger lurking in every shadow. I loved how this film took twist after twist and spun off in new directions that kept you guessing as to what may have happened to the friend and what may happen to the two girls. if you like old dark house movies or really good thrillers this one is for you.

In watching The Night Has Eyes it was interesting to see that a film that was described as contemporary had no reference to the current war. It would make it one of the few made in the United Kingdom in 1942 that did that wasn't a period piece. Even more curious in that James Mason's character is a veteran of the late Spanish Civil War.

Mason would now be described as suffering from post traumatic stress from his experiences fighting for the Loyalist side and in a prison camp when he was held by the Nationalists. When released he was not quite right and thought to have committed murders on small animals. He finally chooses a self imposed exile on the edge of Yorkshire bogs being cared for by husband and wife Wilfrid Lawson and Mary Clare. A pity because before he decided to fight in Spain Mason was a promising composer of some note.

His exile is interrupted by two school teachers on holiday, Joyce Howard and Tucker McGuire. McGuire is husband hunting, but Howard is on the trail of her friend, another school teacher who went missing in that area on holiday last year. People have been known to disappear in that bog quicksand for centuries. In real life James Mason came from the Yorkshire area.

In the Citadel Film Series book on James Mason, he talks about the marvelous inventive special effects because this film was shot indoors in studio and the bogs were created on a sound stage. In fact in long shots Mason says that midgets were used as stand ins to give the feeling of distance.

Mason's own performance and the rest of the cast was a great ensemble job. Though I think you'll figure out the secret behind all the crime and disappearances well before the end.