Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Many Elizabeth Taylor films seem to border on melodramatic shlock. Some of them are overly dramatic. She does lend a special vulnerability, a little fragility, just enough to draw you in even though she knows what you are really watching probably isn't worth the trouble.This particular film would be good if you were home with a cold, or home and didn't want to go out in the rain, or maybe woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep. Ironically, everything I mentioned she seems to be suffering from in the film. Or is she? She seems to be going mad, seeing things that aren't there. And wouldn't you know it? Her husband is using his wife's instability against her. Or is she really unstable? There is indeed a clever little plot twist at the end of the film but it all seems rather dated and tired. Like one long version of McMillan and Wife or Barnaby Jones. We've seen different versions of this story before with different actors and actress'. It isn't anything new or brilliant but it isn't horrible either. You won't be telling your friends about this at dinner or over drinks though.

Back in the 1980s, the local TV channel had a now long-defunct custom of showing several movies throughout the week; since my film-buff father worked on Saturday nights, he used to record on VHS any movie shown during that time-slot which he had missed out on during its local theatrical run and watch it on Sunday afternoon; one of those films I distinctly recall receiving this 'treatment' is NIGHT WATCH. Director Brian G. Hutton is better-known for directing action pictures like WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968) and KELLY'S HEROES (1970) and he might not seem ideally suited to an "old dark house"-type of chiller; the probable sequence of events is that Richard Burton (star of EAGLES) had recommended him to his wife Elizabeth Taylor for X, Y AND ZEE (1971) and she later asked for his services again on NIGHT WATCH. Sadly, he only made two more films after this – THE FIRST DEADLY SIN (1980) and HIGH ROAD TO CHINA (1982) – before retiring to become a plumber!Although the "let's-drive-an-heiress-mad" plot line had recently been done to death in Britain by Hammer Films following the success of their TASTE OF FEAR (1961), here we have a similar tale that harks back to an even closer degree to GASLIGHT (1940 and 1944) but, thankfully, cleverly adds an effective twist at the finale. Even so, it speaks of the dispiriting lack of direction in British cinema at the time that, with the opening-up of censorship, film-makers responded by merely updating creaky old properties (that were outdated even 30 years earlier) with the newly-sanctioned gore and nudity than letting their creative juices flow more freely! Actually, NIGHT WATCH (obviously unrelated to any of the films with which it happens to share its profusely-used title) is based on a Lucille Fletcher play from 1972 but, as already intimated earlier, the standard genre thread to which it adhered had long since been established; incidentally, Fletcher is best-known for penning SORRY, WRONG NUMBER (1948; yet another stage property on similar lines) and for having been married to legendary film composer Bernard Herrmann between 1939-48!Taylor is a mentally disturbed woman (haunted by images of the car-crash death of her former philandering husband and his mistress – played, via intermittent silent appearances, by Linda Hayden) married to stockbroker Laurence Harvey, who is himself two-timing Taylor with her own best friend Billie Whitelaw. Insomniac Taylor starts seeing mutilated bodies propped up in a chair by the window of the neighboring dilapidated house and she keeps pestering the local Police about her 'visions' which, needless to say, produce no result when actually investigated – and, initially, a lonesome widowed gardener who used to inhabit Taylor's mansion gets to become the prime suspect of the potential foul play! The affair between Harvey and Whitelaw (quite subtly depicted in spite of a fleetingly bare-assed Harvey!) makes them the obvious red-herrings with the man's unexplained comings-and-goings and the woman constantly mixing odd-looking drinks to calm the wife's shattered nerves. Indeed, the ingenious twist takes one by surprise when it comes and, I for one, did not recall that this was how things would play out from my sole viewing all those years ago. It should be said here that Harvey had previously co-starred with Taylor in her Oscar-winning BUTTERFIELD 8 (1960); besides, all three leads would follow this atypical appearance in a horror film with even stranger ones: Taylor in THE DRIVER'S SEAT (1974), Harvey in WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH (1974; like the film under review, also "A Brut Production") and Whitelaw in THE OMEN (1976; her most famous role as the diabolical nanny).Although the film uses the admirable pictorial talents of cinematographer Billy Williams (of WOMEN IN LOVE fame), the shoddy VHS quality of the copy I acquired nullifies much of the effect – particularly in the garbled first few minutes and the frustratingly murky climax (where one is often uncertain of just what is going on)! Even so, when these obscure but nevertheless worthwhile pictures are neglected by both DVD-producing companies and TV-channel programmers, one is grateful for getting the film any which way he can! Incidentally, NIGHT WATCH is also available to view in its entirety on "You Tube" in both English and Italian languages!

It says much about the decline in Elizabeth Taylor's career that she wound up in such a routine film, and even more that it was one of her better films of the 1970's. The plot is about a wealthy, recently remarried widow who is being menaced by someone unknown and fears for her own life. However, she recently recovered from a mental breakdown and is suspected by some to be losing her sanity again. Her stockbroker husband (Lawrence Harvey) and friends want to help, but things are not what they seem. This storyline was old hat even back in 1973. It's the same kind of material which was covered by "Midnight Lace," which this closely resembles, along with "Gaslight," "Sorry, Wrong Number," "Suspicion," "Diabolique," "Sudden Fear," and many others. Nothing in this film is done all that badly, in spite of a slow beginning. Taylor gives an adequate performance, and she gets to wear some glamorous clothing and is surrounded by attractive sets. Also, there is a clever twist ending which delivers some suspense. But none of the film delivers the kind of excitement that it's supposed to. Perhaps we already have seen this story in one form or another far too often and it fails to deliver anything new.

Elizabeth Taylor stars in this movie adaptation of Lucille Fletcher's play, which was accused of lifting elements from Patrick Hamilton's play "Gaslight"; while true in a sense, the picture often resembles another, similar woman-in-distress thriller, "Midnight Lace" (replacing phone calls with maybe-maybe not dead bodies). A married woman in England, haunted by a ghoulish memory from her past, suffers from insomnia and loneliness; her husband is always working, her best girlfriend runs around with married men, and she's left alone in a big house with a backyard that faces the the rear of a deserted mansion. During a thunderstorm one night, our heroine sees a dead body in one of the neighboring windows (the viewer certainly doesn't, which is a crafty touch courtesy of director Brian G. Hutton). Not-bad vehicle for La Liz might have stood a stronger production, as the overall results are muddy-looking and cheap. Still, we never lose interest in the main character, as Taylor acquits herself well in these shuddery circumstances. It all may seem overly-familiar to movie-buffs, though it features a twist near the climax which I didn't see coming. **1/2 from ****