Independent Films, Film Profiles

The Private Eyes (1981 film)

The Private Eyes (1981) is an American film starring Tim Conway and Don Knotts. The pair play bumbling detectives from Scotland Yard. The film is directed by Lang Elliott, and marks the final pairing of both Conway and Knotts, not counting their cameos as two California Highway Patrol officers in the 1984 movie Cannonball Run II.The pair are assigned the murder investigation of Lord and Lady Morley. The case involves a big dark house, ghosts, and a questionable staff. As the two investigate the murder, each of the staff, which includes a Japanese samurai caricature, a hunchback, a gypsy, and an insane butler to mention a few, are killed. The bodies disappear before the detectives can gather the mansion's mistress. The killing continues until the pair finally convince the heiress (played by Trisha Noble), that there really is a killer running loose.The film features a mansion full of secret passages (filmed on-location at the Biltmore Estate) and is full of stock characters. A central plot element is the Wookilar, a half-man half pig monster, on which Tim Conway is fixated.