Night Has a Thousand Eyes

On the cover of my Dell paperback edition of "Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (with a cover price of 25 cents), the author is listed as William Irish, with an asterisk next to the name. At the bottom of the cover, next to the footnote asterisk, is another name: George Hopley. This should not fool any prospective readers, though. Both names were pseudonyms of Cornell Woolrich, the author whom Isaac Asimov called "THE Master of Suspense"; whom his biographer, Francis Nevins, Jr., called "the Edgar Allan Poe of the 20th century" (hey, wait a minute...I thought that H.P. Lovecraft was considered the Edgar Allan Poe of the 20th century!); and who is considered one of the fathers of literary film noir. Many of Woolrich's novels and stories have been famously filmed, "Rear Window," "The Bride Wore Black," "Phantom Lady," "Deadline at Dawn" and "Mississippi Mermaid" being just a sampling. "Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (1945) was turned into a 1948 Edward G. Robinson movie that supposedly has little in common with the book. That's a shame, as the book is a marvelous piece of eerie suspense writing that could have made a smashing film. In Woolrich's tale, Detective Tom Shawn saves Jean Reid from a suicide attempt one night, and later hears her tale. She is in despair because the death of her wealthy father has been predicted by a man seemingly gifted with the power of clairvoyance; a man whose predictions have unerringly aided her father in his business many times before. Shawn and a squad of detectives investigate this death prediction, and try to avert the millionaire businessman from meeting his ordained end at the stroke of midnight "at the jaws of a lion." The reader will never guess how things turn out, or how Harlan Reid eventually winds up. Woolrich writes with a superabundance of detail, which slows things down a little but also ratchets up the suspense factor. We get more and more nervous as that midnight hour approaches, while Woolrich teases us by describing how the milk looks in one of the character's coffee, and by giving us the minutiae of a bridge game. Hitchcock himself could not have drawn more suspense out of the book's brilliantly sustained final third. It is a bravura example of a writer anticipating what his reader wants, and holding it tantalizingly out of reach... I came to this book after having read of it in Newman & Jones' overview volume entitled "Horror: 100 Best Books." As "Night Has..." progressed, I found myself thinking that the book isn't all that scary; extremely suspenseful, yes, and in parts a bit eerie, but certainly not a horror book. But upon finishing the novel, the reader will inevitably realize that the characters in "Night Has a Thousand Eyes" have no free will at all. Everything is preordained, and human beings are trapped in this master plan. The thousand star-eyes of the title look down on us, mercilessly and aloof. No wonder poor Jean Reid can't bear to look at them. Woolrich's vision of a relentless, bleak

Night Has A Thousand Eyes is my first Cornell Woolrich novel, and it surely won't be my last. It is a fascinating story of a rich father and daughter caught up into the rather incredible true predictions of a reluctant storyteller. When the predictions take a grisly turn the police are called in and ... the story really takes off (no spoilers here). Oh, and the ending is rather satisfying as well.However the novel isn't perfect. The characterizations and the prose both lack depth. Clearly Cornell Woolrich is better storyteller than a novelist; I should think his short stories would be better than his novels. Regardless, it is most unfortunate that most of his works are out of print.Bottom line: a fascinating, unique story. Not exactly fine literature, but a real 'page turner' nonetheless.(Night Has A Thousand Eyes, presently out-of-print, shouldn't be hard to find on the used book market. I found an early 1980s US edition here in London.)

The Night Has a 1000 Eyes is Cornell Woolrich's masterpiece. It is an epic of dread: the fear of the unknown of what lies behind the grave. It is also a story of urgency and hope, that rationality, human cooperation and even love can conquer the darkness that is ready to consume us. The story is simple: a man discovers the exact date and time and horrible means of his death a few days later and there is not a doubt in his mind that he is going to die even as his loved ones and the police try to thwart the efforts of a criminal mind (or is it fate?) It is agonizing to read as we hope somehow that the condemned man will somehow elude his fate. We cheer for the dectectives and yet are appalled by them as single mindedly and doggedly pursue an unknown villian. And not one character is left unscathed at the end of this emotionally draining and ,yes, life-affirming tale.