The Public Eye (1992) on Netflix
Leon Bernstein, known as the Great Bernzini, shoots crime scenes for 1940s New York tabloids. Kay Levitz, who owns a nightclub, asks him to look into a man who troubles her.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.5/104,700 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes61%
Trailer
Plot summary
Bernstein works alone, racing to murders and accidents across the city with a police radio under his dashboard and a darkroom in his trunk, and he is proud that no one else can get the pictures he gets. Kay Levitz, a widow, comes to him about her nightclub: the mob is pressing her over an arrangement made by her late husband, and she wants Bernstein to look into a man she finds troublesome. He agrees to help. Through his friend, the journalist Arthur Nabler, he begins asking questions around the city. Bernstein has never had much luck with women, and as he works for Kay he finds himself drawn to her.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Public Eye (1992)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Howard Franklin could not get the rights to Arthur "Weegee" Fellig's story, so he wrote about a Weegee-like cigar-smoking photographer and named him Leon "Bernzy" Bernstein.
- Jerry Goldsmith wrote and recorded the original score, but was replaced by Mark Isham late in the process, leaving Isham a lot of work to do in a short time.
- Goldsmith's original score, thought lost or incomplete, was released by Intrada Records in 2021: 22 tracks and just over 40 minutes, proving it had been finished before he was dropped.
- Photos seen as Bernzy's work in the film come from other photographers as well as Weegee, among them Lisette Model, Mickey Pallas, Wilbert H. Blanche, Irving Haberman, Ray Platnick, Roger Smith and Charles Steinheimer.
