Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Night Has a Thousand Eyes is a 1948 American horror film directed by John Farrow and starring Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell and John Lund. The screenplay was written by Barré Lyndon and Jonathan Latimer. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Cornell Woolrich, originally published under the pseudonym George Hopley. Plot Late one night in Los Angeles, oil geologist Elliott Carson witnesses his girlfriend, heiress Jean Courtland, attempt suicide by leaping before an oncoming train, but manages to stop her. Afterward, the two go to have dinner at a restaurant, where they encounter John Triton, an acquaintance of Jean who claims to be clairvoyant. Elliott accuses John of attempting to drive Jean to kill herself by foretelling her death, with the intention of stealing her fortune. To convince Elliott otherwise, John recounts a story from twenty years before. In the story, John, his fiancée Jenny, and Whitney Courtland (Jean's father) are touring with a magic act when John discovers his ability to see future events. Upon deciding that John's psychic gifts are legitimate, Whitney uses him to make gambling decisions and play the stock market, amassing a small fortune in the process. During one of their performances, John has a vision of Jenny's death following the birth of their child. Hoping to spare her life, John leaves Jenny with Whitney, and advises him to purchase a plot of land in Oklahoma. Jenny and Whitney eventually marry and conceive their daughter, Jean, but Jenny dies during childbirth, leaving Whitney a widowed father. John proceeds to recount to Elliott that three months earlier, he read a newspaper article about Whitney, who, after striking oil on his Oklahoma property and growing immensely wealthy, relocated to Bunker Hill and established a business there. After having a vision in which Whitney dies in a plane crash, John relocates to Bunker Hill, hoping to find his old friend, as well as Jean. John eventually reaches Jean and attempts to warn her of her father's fate, but is too late. Whitney dies in a plane crash in New Mexico before Jean can speak with him. John's premonition seems to have come true, so he entrusts Jean to him, and, knowing he was a friend of her father's, she asks him if he is able to see her fate as well. John informs Jean that she will die within one week on a clear night under the stars.