NIGHT EYES
US, 1990, 95 minutes, Colour.
Andrew Stevens, Tanya Roberts.
Directed by Emilio P. Miraglio.
Night Eyes is a slick melodramatic thriller. It was executive-produced and co-written by its star, Andrew Stevens. He gives himself the opportunity to be muscular hero, involved in some explicit sex scenes with Tanya Roberts - as well as appearing hero and victim at the end.
The film is a slight cousin of Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct. The wily and glamorous woman turns out not to be the heroine to be protected, but full of deceit and using the hero. He falls in love with her, thinks he is protecting her, only to find that he has been betrayed.
Night Eyes is the name of a security company run by two brothers. They are hired by an English pop singer and writer to spy on his ex-wife. However, the ex-wife in fact uses the situation to rid herself of her hated former husband.
The film is designed for popular audiences, melodramatic sketches and stereotypes rather than characterisation - with a touch of voyeuristic prurience.
1. The popularity of this kind of melodramatic thriller? Heroes, heroines and deceit?
2. The affluent settings, homes, surveillance? Restaurants and art galleries? The glossy world of this kind of thriller? The musical score?
3. The title and its overtones? Surveillance and security? Video? The videoing of intimate relationships - and characters and audiences sharing the voyeuristic experience? The manipulation of evidence?
4. Will and his brother, the Night Eyes security company? The initial attempted rape, the two brothers and their coping with the offender? Their being employed by Brian? Installing the camera for the bedroom? The two brothers and their bonds, their background, working together? The contract with Brian and spying on Nicky? Will and his character, background? Watching Nicky and Michael Vincent? Curiosity, his own attitude towards Nicky? His not giving the tape to Brian and his lawyer? The attraction (later revealed to be seduction by Nicky)? The ordinary encounters, the meal, passionate sequences? The attacks by Brian and his defending her? The art show and the clash with Brian? The culmination, the confrontation and shooting Brian? The discussions with the lawyers, the discovery that Nicky had hired the callgirl? That she had manipulated everything? Her going away with the police, left with his disillusionment? The male hero - yet victim of the deceitful woman?
5. Nicky, her glamour, the humiliation at the party with the callgirl (the audience later realising that she had set the whole thing up)? The announcement of the divorce, the chance encounter with Will? Under surveillance, Michael Vincent's visits? Audience sympathy for her? Brian and his harassing her - at the art show? The encounters with Will, the meal, sexual encounters, being protected? Ellen and her friends? The final confrontation, the shooting of Brian? Her deceit - and then the unmasking and her scorn of Will? The femme fatale?
6. Brian, the English pop star, with the girl at the party, his abuse of his wife? Audiences seeing him through her? The discussions with his lawyer, spying on her, the money deals? Presented unsympathetically? His being framed, the callgirl, the phone calls - and his going to the house and being shot?
7. Michael Vincent, the actor, the liaison with Nicky? His impersonating Brian?
8. The lawyers - money deals, divorces? Surveillance and evidence?
9. The background characters Nicky's friends, the art gallery? The maid and the parties?
10. The mixture of the expected thriller conventions, the prurient touches, the twists of the plot?
