Studio: Avco Embassy
Running time: 99 minutes
Night Watch (1973)
“Elizabeth Taylor ventured but once into the scarified world of Grande Dame Guignol, and Night Watch is the striking result. Taylor’s matron in menace role is that of Ellen Wheeler, a lonely insomniac trapped in a loveless marriage and by an obsession with a creepy gothic manse next door. One night while indulging in her alcohol fueled ramblings, Ellen spots a corpse inside the vacant house. A corpse that resembles her deceased, two timing first husband...a corpse that no one else thinks exists. Adapted from a play by suspense mistress Lucille Fletcher (Sorry, Wrong Number, The Hitch-Hiker, Night Man), Night Watch re-teams [Elizabeth] with her Butterfield 8 co-star Laurence Harvey, playing Ellen’s emotionally distant second husband in one of his final film performances. Genre stalwart Billie Whitelaw rounds out the cast.” [From the DVD]
Cast
Ellen Wheeler: Elizabeth Taylor
John Wheeler: Laurence Harvey
Sarah Cooke: Billie Whitelaw
Appleby: Robert Lang
Tony: Tony Britton
Inspector Walker: Bill Dean
Sergeant Norris: Michael Danvers-Walker
Dolores: Rosario Serrano
Secretary: Pauline Jameson
Crew
Director: Brian G. Hutton
Producers: Martin Poll, George W. George, and Barnard S. Straus
Screenwriter: Tony Williamson
Based on the Play by: Lucille Fletcher
Additional Dialogue: Evan Jones
Cinematographer: Billy Williams
Art Director: Peter Murton
Set Dresser: Peter James
Musical Score: John Cameron
Title Song: “The Night Has Many Eyes” by George Barrie and Sammy Cahn
Editor: John Jympson
Miss Taylor’s Costumes: Valentino
Miss Taylor’s Personal Hairdressers: Michael John and Claudye Bozzacchi
Did You Know?
Night Watch reunited Elizabeth with old friend Laurence Harvey, who had played Weston Liggett to her Oscar winning turn as Gloria Wandrous in BUtterfield 8 (1960). The two had such a ball making it that there was talk of re-teaming them in another project, but Harvey died of cancer not long after filming wrapped.
According to Gianni Bozzacchi, Elizabeth’s friend and personal photographer, who worked on the film, “For the last frame of Night Watch Elizabeth asked director Brian Hutton to let her be the one to say ‘Cut and print!’ Instead she sang, in chorus with the cast and crew, ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny!’ dedicating the song to Brian.”
George Barrie, the owner and chief executive of Fabergé, offered to finance Night Watch if Elizabeth gave him a kiss. “She did and he did,” recalled Gianni Bozzacchi.
The San Sebastian Film Festival
Elizabeth made a spectacular public appearance at the San Sebastian Film Festival on September 21, 1973 to introduce Night Watch.
