Thru Different Eyes (1942) User Reviews

An unusual B-mystery film.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 24 June 2018]

The story begins with Steve Pettijohn (Frank Craven) lecturing a law school class. He tells them a story about his prosecuting a most unusual case....one where two different folks confessed to a murder and another man who was actually convicted of the killing....and the fourth who actually may have committed the crime!

In many ways, the film is done like a typical B murder mystery--with a person insisting they knew who the murderer was and investigating the case to prove it. But the little things about the story make it unusual and less predictable than normal for such pictures. Very interesting and worth your time.

Does Intuition Trump Evidence?

[boblipton · 6/10 · 21 November 2022]

District Attorney Frank Craven is a guest lecturer in Charles Waldron's law class. His subject: circumstantial evidence can mislead you, told in a story about how he convicted the wrong man. We then enter flashback territory....

It has a nice script and some old hands on view, including Donald Woods, Jerome Cowan, Irving Bacon, Charles Lane, and in her screen debut, Vivian Blaine. Under the direction of oilman-turned director Thomas Z. Lorin it's a tad plodding, but it demonstrates the easy competence of 20 Century-Fox's B studio.

Don't be misled by the flashback structure. It's nowhere near a film noir.

These eyes do not have it.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 27 April 2018]

Best known as the narrator of the original Broadway production and movie version of "Our Town", Frank Craven was a well known character actor of his time who managed to get some lead parts in B films along the way. In this one, possibly set up to be a series, Craven plays a clever but basically decent district attorney who gives a class on circumstantial evidence to potential attorneys and explains the case where he was almost fooled by evidence that nearly set an innocent man to the electric chair. Told through his narration, this sometimes convoluted and frequently silly murder mystery covers the murder of a banker (Jerome Cowan) whose wife (Mary Howard) married him to spite the man she really loved (Donald Woods) and the methods Craven uses to smoke out the real killer when Woods confesses, seemingly to protect Howard who had earlier confessed. Interfering in the case, Craven's wife (June Walker) takes some odd steps to aide her husband, at one point, holding one man hostage and dousing him with buckets of water in order to get him to confess. This odd mix of mystery, law theory and comedy has way too many twists and turns to keep the viewer completely entranced, and at even at just over an hour, I couldn't wait for this to end.