Dead Man's Eyes

Lon Chaney, Jr. plays an artist who is engaged to beautiful Jean Parker and has exotic Acquanetta lusting after him. Sounds like a charmed life. But then this genius goes and accidentally puts acid in his own eyes! Chaney's now blind and must await a donor for a cornea transplant. Parker's father offers his corneas, to be removed after he dies. But someone up and kills the old guy and it looks to everybody like Chaney might have done it to speed things up.

This enjoyable entry in Universal's Inner Sanctum mystery thriller series is directed by Reginald Le Borg. Chaney is great in this series. I'm sure he enjoyed getting a break from the monster movies he was making at this time. He gives his all in every Inner Sanctum movie. A really good cast here to back him up. Jean Parker is lovely as always. Thomas Gomez, Paul Kelly, and Jonathan Hale are all great support. Acquanetta is nice to look at but probably the worst actress Universal had in any of their movies. Her monotone line delivery is dreadful.

This isn't one of the best of the series but it's good. The biggest problem, aside from Acquanetta's poor acting, is that the mystery part is unsurprising. The killer is obvious, despite all of the red herrings they have in place. Still, it's fun and fans of the series and Chaney will enjoy it.