Nachts, wenn der Tod lauert

In THROUGH NAKED EYES, flautist William Parrish (David Soul) and photojournalist Anne Walsh (Pam Dawber) live directly across from each other in opposing high-rise apartment buildings. At night, they watch each other through binoculars and a camera respectively. After coincidentally crossing paths a few times, they decide to get together.

The two hit it off right away, and Bill entertains Anne with his instrument.

Meanwhile, a maniac is killing off residents with a big knife. The police suspect Parrish after he's the last person to see one of the victims alive. This could have detrimental effects on his flute practice!

As made-for-TV thrillers go, this one isn't bad. However, it does tend to drag in spots and bog down in romantic cheeeze. Thankfully, it rebounds nicely in the end. If you are a Soul Or Dawber fanatic (and who isn't?), you won't be disappointed.

Watch for a young Ted Levine as a uniform cop!...

David Soul is the only good thing about this film - seriously. I enjoy TV films of the 70s and 80s but this one was not my cup of tea. It took way to long to get to the murderer - the reason we are watching the film.

1/10

Attractive TV performers David Soul and Pam Dawber do decent work in formulaic TV-made thriller about residents of a Chicago high-rise apartment complex, a professional flautist and a tour guide at the Planetarium, spying on each other from their facing windows and later dating; there's also a maniac on the premises running around with a knife, and the musician is high on the list of suspects. Jeffrey Bloom's teleplay is surprisingly rich with detail (and may have inspired author Ira Levin with his future novel "Sliver"), but the plot is ultimately served up in a by-the-numbers fashion. The list of police advisors in the end-credits looks impressive, however the finished results make the Chicago police force look like bungling idiots. Had Bloom concentrated more on the relationship between Soul and Dawber--who have an interesting chemistry--and less time on the crime investigation, this might have been something special.

A surprisingly well, even if not brilliantly, filmed voyeurism tale, it is cleverly shot, quite reasonably acted, and almost rather intriguing, with a number of allusions to 'Rear Window'. There are some interesting ideas raised, but in general the screenplay has nothing new to offer. The film is made from is an original screenplay by Jeffrey Bloom, who would later go on to write and direct a poor adaptation of 'Flowers in the Attic', so perhaps this should be taken into account? Other than its storyline, this is quite a well made film considering that it was produced for television. If it is showing one night, it is certainly worth checking out, even if it is not a great film in itself.

This dippy mystery stars David Soul and Pam Dawber (Mindy!) as Anne and William, two people caught up in a tale of murderous goings on in a high rise apartment block. This is a fairly standard made-for-TV thriller, which attempts to generate thrills with it's central theme of snooping through binoculars at people in distant windows, which is what the two leads do to each other, and what the murderer seems to do to his victims, in fact so do the police while on surveillance! Sadly the idea of mixing murder with long distance surveillance has been done enough times already in the movies, and this one doesn't have anything new to offer. If anything, the actual snooping has very little to do with the plot or the uncovering of anything of much that may have provided extra excitement. What is VERY odd is that Anne and William actually start a romance together after spotting each other from distant windows which is not very wholesome when you think about it, especially as Anne actually uses a telescope rather than binoculars to peer at William, and does so in quite a predatory fashion! But all this is laughed off once they meet, confess their snooperish leanings and start to fall in love with each other...hmm, not sure about that myself! All the while, a murderer in the apartment complex is knifing random people to death and who knows who will be his next victim. The story does flow along quite well, with William being set up as the main suspect for most of the time, and there's some nice acting from all concerned. My only concern is that all the telescope-related action falls into nothing but window dressing as none of the peeping apparatus is ever used to pursue any interesting plot twists - except for the VERY obvious climax in which someone VERY obviously spots the murderer through binoculars and screams "Oh my god - He's in the apartment!!", which was the one thing I would have expected the film to try and do a new take on, but no luck I'm afraid.

There is some suspense, and the subplots about both main characters having other sides to them such as Anne's lecherous agent and William's father and current on-off girlfriend are kind of interesting. But I take this film to task because not a single loose end is tied up with regard to explaining the motivation behind the murders. Big disappointment there, and extremely lazy to roll the credits as soon as the script has the guilty party dealt with. A case of "job done, let's go home". Thanks a lot guys! So, fun and diverting, but a bit unsatisfying and with very little emphasis on binocular snooping except to show us that it's generally harmless but our romantic leads (particularly Anne) are a bit perverted.