Night Watch (1973)

(On Cable TV, October 2022) I don’t completely like Night Watch, but I have to admit that it has an interesting twist up its sleeve, some nice atmosphere and an excellent lead actress. At first glance, it feels like your standard darkly-lit dirty 1970s thriller: There’s a woman alone in a large house, she’s not in the best of mental states, and she starts seeing things that may or may not be real. Elizabeth Taylor, looking wonderful, plays the recently widowed woman and does a fine job panicking throughout most of the film, calling the police with reports of neighbourhood murders that prove to be imaginary. If Night Watch has one big problem, it’s that it’s repetitive for much of its first two thirds: the protagonist lurks through the big house, sees something, panics, screams her head off and frantically tells everyone that there’s MURDER out there. They calm her down, suggest that she takes a deep breath, and repeat. There are plot reasons for this, but it doesn’t make Night Watch (in its uniformly glum cinematography) any less grating. Still, the film keeps a lot in store during its final minutes, including a plausible explanation for its repetitive nature. If you start the film and aren’t impressed, tough it out until the end—otherwise you’ll miss half the fun. Taylor gets a good showcase as a gothic thriller protagonist, and the film ends on a high note. Night Watch is not quite as tight or suspenseful as it could have been, but it has survived far better than many similar films of the era.