Eyes In The Night (1942)

When an old friend (Ann Harding) asks for his help in dealing with a fortune hunter (John Emery) who's romancing her stepdaughter (Donna Reed), a blind detective (Edward Arnold), aided by his clever seeing eye dog Friday, soon finds himself immersed in both murder and Nazi agents. Based on THE ODOR OF VIOLETS by Baynard Kendrick, this "B" detective programmer is an early effort by Fred Zinnemann (HIGH NOON) after relocating to Hollywood from Germany in the late 1930s. The film was popular enough to spawn a sequel three years later, again with Arnold as the blind detective, but a franchise never happened. It's really an undistinguished routine murder mystery, we know very early on who the killer(s) is and most of the film is a waiting game until the police get there in time. I suppose if you have a penchant for 40s murder mysteries you might find some appeal in all this but for the rest of us, it's rather dull. The film could have used some wit. With Barry Nelson, Stephen McNally, Reginald Denny, Mantan Moreland, Katherine Emery, Allen Jenkins and Rosemary DeCamp.