Terreur dans la nuit

Elizabeth Taylor reunites with her Butterfield 8 co-star Laurence Harvey in Night Watch one of her only if not the only venture for her in the horror genre. It also has a bit of Hitchcockian tension in it as well.

In this film Taylor and Harvey are a married couple who have settled down in a very posh part of London. Harvey is her second husband, the first died in an automobile crash with his young mistress.

Soon after moving where they are Taylor spots strange goings on like dead bodies at the place next door. But every time the police in the person of Inspector Bill Dean is called there's no evidence of anything. A lot like Doris Day in Midnight Lace.

Both her husband and best friend Billie Whitelaw try to support Taylor, but it's no avail, she just gets worse and more hysterical and the police are just getting more and more fed up.

The film has certain parallels to Midnight Lace and also to Gaslight. But don't think you've guessed an ending even with those clues.

As so many aging Hollywood actresses of the 60s and 70s went into these kinds of films, some did more than others. Apparently Taylor was only satisfied to dip an ankle into this pool.

Apparently Harvey was desperately ill with the cancer that killed him and he does look gaunt. There is a revealing rear shot in a shower and I'm betting that is not Harvey's bare backside. He does look gaunt. He had an operation that took a lot of intestine out of him and production was stopped mid way according to the Citadel Film series book on the Films of Elizabeth Taylor.

The next door neighbor Robert Lang has a role in all of this. If you think you know what will happen in Night Watch, believe me you don't.