Runtime: 64 minutes
Directed by: Reginald LeBorg
Starring: Lon Chaney, Jr., Jean Parker, Acquanetta, Paul Kelly, Thomas Gomez
From: Universal
ACQUANETTA is a much better name than AWKWAFINA
After a needed day off from watching cinema on Sunday, this entry in the Inner Sanctum series played on the Universal Monsters streaming channel (found on the likes of Pluto TV) last night. I’ll copy and paste what I wrote concerning that brief series from Universal from my review of Calling Dr. Death, written two years ago:
“This includes the Inner Sanctum series done by Universal, based on a radio show that in turn was based on a series of novels. The studio made a sextet of low-budget mystery movies under the name, all starring (Lon Chaney, Jr.) as a respite from all the horror he frequently did at the time.
The opening was a random disembodied head in a crystal ball giving an introduction. I understand this was a constant in the series; The Cryptkeeper wasn’t the first to do such a thing by any means.”
Dead Man’s Eyes concerns Lon as painter David Stuart (that’s Stuart; he’s not in the Eurythmics!) who has an exotic lady known as Acquanetta-yes, that’s what the actor billed herself as; it’s not a character name-as his subject. She apparently has the hots for him but he’s going out with Jean Parker. Stuart accidentally blinds himself; Acquanetta’s Tanya takes the blame-long story, and also women be crazy, right? Let’s be frank here: homeboy David kept a bottle of his eyewash right next to an almost identical-looking bottle of eye-destroying acid together by the sink in his apartment! Before he was blinded, Stuart should have looked in the mirror above the sink at himself for such a baffling decision.
He doesn’t take the blinding well; to be frank, his character is a jerk, especially after the accident. At least that allows Chaney to ACT, mainly by yelling. There’s romantic entanglements and the absurdity of a blind man killing his girl’s father so he could have dad’s eyes. A wacky B-movie, this was. This picture barely over an hour long is not really a revenge tale that you might presume-Eyes is still a fine, watchable mystery even if complaints that some reviewers have, re: the acting are valid. Like in Dr. Death, we hear Chaney’s internal monologue a few times. Unlike that movie, it isn’t whispered, robbing us of another LON CHANEY, JR. ASMR film.
Another frank admission: Acquanetta’s life story sounds more fascinating than Dead Man’s Eyes. After all, she may have been born Mildred Davenport in Pennsylvania, she claimed to be born Burnu Acquanetta in Wyoming, but no one knows for certain what name’s on her birth certificate. We don’t even know her ethnicity. She may have been Native American, Hispanic, Black, or perhaps some combination of those. She’s a performer most don’t know or have forgotten yet it’s crazy her origin is such a mystery.
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