Directed by: Brian G. Hutton
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Harvey, Billie Whitelaw
Distributed by: Warner Brothers Archive
MPAA Rating: PG
Running time: 99 minutes
Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
This film is a slow burn psychological tale with a great ending reveal. Elizabeth Taylor is takes on this role of Ellen Wheeler with great success. She involved with a loveless marriage and she starts this obsession that their is murders going on in the house next door. The film is very suspenseful as we slowly fall into Ellen’s world of madness.
This DVD is a wonderful remastering and looks fantastic in its widescreen 16×9 1.78:1 transfer. It is the first time this disc is being released on DVD and it is definitely worth purchasing if you are a fan of this film. The colors are sharp and the sounds is great. There are no extras on this disc like most Warner Bros. Archive releases, but nonetheless they are releasing some great classics. I look forward to their next release.
Synopsis:
Elizabeth Taylor ventured but once into the scarified world of Grande Dame Guignol, and Night Watch is the striking result. Taylor’s matron in menace role is that of Ellen Wheeler, a lonely insomniac trapped in a loveless marriage and by an obsession with a creepy gothic manse next door. One night while indulging in her alcohol fueled ramblings, Ellen spots a corpse inside the vacant house. A corpse that resembles her deceased, two timing first husband…a corpse that no one else thinks exists. Adapted from a play by suspense mistress Lucille Fletcher (Sorry, Wrong Number, The Hitch-Hiker, Night Man), Night Watch re-teams Liz with her Butterfield 8 co-star Laurence Harvey, playing Ellen’s emotionally distant second husband in one of his final film performances. Genre stalwart Billie Whitelaw rounds out the cast.
