Schoolteachers Joyce Howard and Tucker McGuire are off to the Yorkshire moors for a holiday, the same moors where a former colleague disappeared a year earlier. When they get caught up in a storm, they find shelter in the secluded mansion of James Mason. Mason's an acrimonious and unstable man, and despite multiple warnings from him, his housekeeper Mary Clare, and a possible link between Mason and the missing teacher, she falls for him and decides to stay around for a while. But then she finds a skeleton in a locked room (literally), with a necklace that she recognizes as the missing teacher's...Also known as Terror House and Moonlight Madness, this movie combines elements from 30 mysteries, Gothic/victorian drama's and even a bit of early/proto film noir. Mason ('Odd Man Out') was still quite young but already able to carry a movie, and gives a solid performance. Howard ('They Met In The Dark') is also good, stuffy at first but more radiant once she takes a romantic interest in Mason. There is also some nice atmospheric cinematography by Gunther Krampf ('Nosferatu') inside the mansion and on the foggy moors. The directing by Leslie Arliss ('The Wicked Lady') is competent enough, but his screenplay is a bit too slow, and he added some unnecessary and jarring comic relief in the middle. The twist is not too surprising, the ending is pretty good tho. An enjoyable movie, but it could've been much better. 6+/10

Other reviewers have paid tribute to the characters, the acting and the menacing atmosphere. I agree and enjoyed this film immensely. What has not been mentioned is the unintentional humour. Two rain drenched lasses out for a walk get stranded in a dark isolated house on the moors. When one gets her replacement clothes soaked she next turns up in historical costume, complete with flounced crinoline, off the shoulder bodice and ringlets!! Then later, as the brooding composer plays the piano she dances and swirls around in a glamorous and unexplained chiffon gown. I laughed out loud. Ah well, it was wartime and clothes were rationed by coupons so I suppose they had to let rip a bit. It only added to my enjoyment of the film, and was a contrast to the genuinely creepy tension. The denouement is terrific - no wonder child viewers remembered it for years.

This has to be a strong contender for the worst film ever made despite the talent on display, in fact had the raspberries been invented back then this would have competed in every department - writing, directing, acting. On the strength of this film alone director Leslie Arliss makes Ed Wood look competent. It's interesting to take a look at what the cast were up to around the same time; in that same year, 1942, James Mason appeared in Hatter's Castle in which Bobby Newton gave a tour de force performance in the lead, and Wilfred Lawson - a memorable Doolittle in Pygmalion four years earlier, played the eponymous Handel in The Great Mr. Handel (it seems no one thought it odd to celebrate a German composer in the middle of the second World War). That is immaterial in this ripe peace of cheese in which Lawson and Mary Clare are committed to convincing James Mason he's mad in a sort of Gaslight on a low flame. See it, buy it even, on the basis that it's so bad it's good.

The Night Has Eyes (AKA: Terror House/Moonlight Madness) is directed by Leslie Arliss who also adapts the screenplay from the novel written by Alan Kennington. It stars James Mason, Wilfrid Lawson, Mary Clare, Joyce Howard and Tucker Maguire. Music is by Charles Williams and cinematography by Gunther Krampf."You seem to regard me as some sort of male sleeping beauty who is restored to life by your kiss"During the school term break, two lady school teachers travel to the Yorkshire Moors in the hope of finding out what happened to a fellow work colleague who vanished there a year previously. Arriving on the moors at night time, a storm breaks and the two women are thankful to stumble upon an isolated house where somebody is at home. The inhabitant is Stephen Deremid (Mason), a mysterious man who may just hold the key to what happened to the ladies' missing colleague.OK! It's a stage bound "Old Dark House" film that has noir shadings but is more in keeping with classic Gothic offerings like Jane Eyre, Uncle Silas and Gaslight. The setting is a doozy, a creaky and shadowy mansion with a secret room, add in a storm from hell, the foggy moors that hold secrets along with the patches of quicksand (quickbog?), a seriously brooding leading man greatly troubled by his past, a spunky heroine fronting up for love interest and some possible perilous shenanigans… and you are good to go for some dark deeds and closeted skeletons.Director Arliss builds the suspense very slowly, dangling snippets of information that teases the audience as to what might be going on in this shadowy abode. Stephen is a music composer, he is also a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, the effects of which has left him scarred. Why does he take tablets? Why is the moon significant? Now that his house servants have turned up, do they know what happened to the girl last year? It all builds towards the film's chilling climax, where all is revealed, and not insultingly so.The cast all perform well under Arliss' direction, with Mason honing the brooding lead man act that would serve him so well in his career. Cinematographer Gunther Krampf (Nosferatu/The Hands of Orlac) creates an eerie atmosphere of fog-bound menace out on the moors, and also a foreboding darkened house of shadows for the interior of the Deremid mansion. The slow pace may put some off, and you are asked to forgive one or two dumb character reactions to certain situations, but this rewards the patient and very much it's a film for Gothic thriller fans to seek out. 7/10