DEAD MAN'S EYES: spanning the acting range from A to B (awful to brilliant)

It's difficult to imagine Lon Chaney Jr being the object of one woman's affections let alone two but - hey - this is Hollywood and Hollywood's stock in trade is fantasy. Which is how the beefy B-actor finds himself at the centre of a love triangle which leads to murder and eyeball removal.
DEAD MAN'S EYES from 1944 was one of a short series of hour long big screen adaptations made by Universal of the popular 'Inner Sanctum' radio show.
Chaney stars as David Stuart, an aspiring artist on the brink of success who accidentally blinds himself when he washes his eyes with acid rather than the bottle of eyewash which is on the shelf next to the bottle of acid. Some might describe that as an accident waiting to happen, but his sultry model Tanya blames herself for moving the 2 bottles while searching for a tissue. Tanya's also in love with David but he only has eyes for Heather (Jean Parker), the daughter of Dad Hayden, a wealthy man who treats David like an adopted son. Heather's the recipient of unwanted attention from Nick Philips, a drunken playboy, while Tanya's being pursued by Alan Bittaker (Paul Kelly) who's a psychiatrist and David's best friend. Shortly after Heather's father promises to donate his eyes to David when he dies he's found bludgeoned to death with David standing over him, blood on his hands. But did the blind man do it - or was it Tanya or Nick or even Dr Bittaker?
All of this and more is crammed into the story's very short running time and it helps to have a flowchart handy to keep track of who might have done what to who and why.
The plot's too convoluted to guess with any accuracy at the identity of the murderer so the real fun's to be had in watching the exotically named Acquanetta (born Mildred Davenport) as the olive skinned and mysterious Tanya. Her nationality is never mentioned and she doesn't have an accent but she looks foreign enough for the other characters to patronisingly refer to her as "a pretty thing" and other descriptors which indicate she's not one of us. They'd have been on less controversial ground commenting on her severely limited acting abilities. She delivers each line as if she's seeing it for the first written on a cue card held just out of camera range. Her apparent unfamiliarity with her own dialogue means it's all recited with a complete lack of emotion or inflection. She's at her best when she keeps her mouth closed and just stands there looking sultry. And if that sounds patronising, well, it's also the truth.
At the other end of the acting scale is the wonderful Thomas Gomez as Captain Drury, the cop with the thankless task of figuring out who did in Heather's dad. Gomez was a character actor of the 40s and 50s who brought class and credibility to whatever film he played in, and here he's considerably better than both his fellow cast members and the material he's given to work with. 
His performance alone is worth the investment of an hour of your time. Acquanetta's is an unexpected but delightful bonus.