The title derives from the main character, an elderly detective named Duncan Maclain (Edward Arnold) who is blind. Yet, together with his seeing-eye dog, Friday, and a human sidekick, Maclain investigates a murder and unmasks the villain.The story's underlying premise is weak and time-bound, having little relevance post WWII. But the antics of Friday the dog, combined with Arnold's fine and at times hammy performance, compensates for the weak story. That dog is something else. More than merely posing with human-like expressions, and responding to human chatter, he fetches shoes and guns, uses doorknobs to open doors, and improvises a clever way to escape a basement.I would have liked the film more if it had been a whodunit. As is, there's not a lot of mystery or suspense. The villain is identified in the first half. The ending is a bit of a disappointment.Although the source material is a novel, the script and visuals compare to a stage play, with most scenes set indoors and containing quite a bit of dialogue. But some of the banter is fresh and interesting, like when blind Maclian tells the butler Hansen: "And Hansen, turn out the light, will you; I think I'll read awhile".Sets are a bit cheap looking, composed mostly of drab wood with minimal artifacts. Lighting trends dark. One long scene near the end is filmed in total blackness. Of course, that's consistent with a great theme, that of being able to perceive without physical sight. The intermittent background music is dreary and nondescript. A topnotch cast, including wonderful Mantan Moreland helps the production. Overall acting is fine, especially that of Edward Arnold.It's not a terrific film. Yet despite a weak story premise and a lack of mystery, "Eyes In The Night" has enough going for it to make it enjoyable, not the least of which is that dog. The film will appeal especially to viewers who like detective stories of the 1940s.

I thought this was a great movie. I found the concept of a lead blind detective and a very active smart sidekick, the dog made this a very unique movie to watch. Great use of the fact he was blind in some scenes. Not sure if the dog made it into other movies, but one very smart animal and this added another layer to the movie.The acting seemed a little stilted, but overall I found this to be very entertaining, and somewhat groundbreaking with the mix of character traits, plot and action scenes. Highly recommended.

I do like a nice b-movie once in a while. Some of these pictures are just wonderful, not so much for the "so-bad-its-good" principle, but simply because of the sheer innocent earnestness with which they tackle their daffy subject matter. In this case, the premise of "blind detective and seeing-eye dog fight crime on the streets of New York and uncover a nazi spy ring" sounds too good to pass up.Have no doubts, this is an extremely silly picture. It's not just the lightweight story. The dialogue is daft, and characters have the most bizarre and implausible motivations simply so they can be in the right place at the right time for the plot. A paraphrased example: "Let's not both catch the same plane. If something should happen who will look after our daughter?" The aforementioned detective is constantly trotting out twee little philosophies about blindness, and his other four senses are, of course, extra sharp to compensate for his disability – anything else would be against blind hero convention. And his dog is hyper-intelligent. There is even a romantic subplot involving a "cute" poodle. Silly, silly, silly.Silly story, not so silly cast. You tend to get two kinds of player in these B-flicks – permanent B-unit fixtures whose ability was as half-arsed as everything else about the production, and genuine high-class performers who could be slumming it for any number of reasons. Eyes in the Night contains an enjoyably good amount of the latter. Ann Harding had been a popular leading lady a decade earlier, and even got a Oscar-nomination for Holiday in 1930. But roles dried up and this was her comeback feature after a five-year hiatus. She is not brilliant here, but she brings an air of sophistication that is usually absent from these pictures. It was the opposite story for Donna Reed, who would later be a high-flying Oscar-winner, but at this point was yet to make a name for herself. She does a good job, although the role doesn't really allow her to flourish. And then we have Edward Arnold, a really fascinating face from Hollywood's golden age, who is perhaps most familiar to audiences as a series of near-identical crafty businessmen in Frank Capra pictures. He turns up here because supporting players from A-features were sometimes given lead roles in B-features. He softens his curmudgeonly persona into a character you implicitly like and trust, and makes an ideal if unconventional hero.Eyes in the Night is notable for being an early directorial assignment for Fred Zinnemann. The young director seems to be strong on ideas but poor on execution. He goes to lengths to make us accept the dog as a character, giving it plenty of close-ups. He seems to have had trouble imagining how everything will fit together in the edit though, and sometimes the angles of opposing shots look a bit confusing when put together. His main tack seems to be to saturate every shot in a feeling of claustrophobia, with visible ceilings, props in the foreground and an obsession with shadows, obligingly created by cinematographer Robert Planck. The overall impression is of a surreal nightmare world from which there are no exits, an effect used in many film noirs of this era and the horrors made at RKO. The dark atmosphere is laid on incredibly thickly, and strictly speaking this is not even a "noir", but it doesn't particularly matter because this is not a picture that gets too close to reality in the first place, and a bit of overstatement doesn't go amiss.Eyes in the Night is cheap, cheerful... and did I mention silly? And yet it's enjoyable. I actually prefer this to any of Alfred Hitchcock's very prestigious nazi-spy thrillers, which were certainly far better made. You see, a picture's problems are relative to its scope. Big picture, big flaws. Trivial picture, trivial flaws. It doesn't matter that it is nonsense from start to finish. If you allow yourself to be drawn into its world, nonsense can be fun.

There's some gimmicky silliness in the film, especially the dog - but fortunately the detective's blindness is not used as a gimmick (except perhaps in a fight scene, which thus allows stalwart character actor Edward Arnold to exercise considerable acting muscle here - he does a splendid job - as does a young, energetic Donna Reed.The film has a professional polish to it. The pacing could have been a little swifter, but not by much; generally the tension is maintained throughout.Very much of its time, but worth preserving for strong performances and solid direction.