The Man with the Glass Eye

There's shades of Moriarty to the mastervillain in this wartime potboiler.

There's a hint of Holmes' nemesis Professor Moriarty to the criminal mastermind of this WWI crime entertainment. The BFI National Archive's print stops abruptly, but the plot isn't too hard to figure out, with the villainous Victor St Aubin evading the police through his mastery of disguise and interfering in the lives of a nice upper-middle-class family. St Aubin's glass eye, according to a contemporary synopsis, leads to his downfall. Some strangely beautiful nitrate damage here and there adds texture to the sometimes lumpy action.

British Empire Films specialised in film versions of the kind of melodramatic stage productions seen at the Lyceum around this time. The Man with the Glass Eye was probably filmed near BEF's studio in Whetstone.