Wait Until Dark (1967)

A double feature of this and How to Steal a Million finally made me get Audrey Hepburn's enduring appeal for most movie lovers. I liked her well enough before in her 1950s classics like Roman Holiday, Funny Face, and Sabrina, but these two movies were like a revelation, especially Wait Until Dark, which is a great little horror movie about one of the most primal of fears: home invasion.Hepburn's character and performance are a big part of why the movie works so well. She's vulnerable and at a disadvantage due to having to adjust to being blind, but she's also clever and observant. She doesn't have to be a tough as nails warrior to be heroic or compelling. She's just an ordinary woman who rises to the occasion when presented with a terrifying scenario. Hepburn plays the character's mounting alienation and desperation well. As the justly acclaimed climax approaches, she takes on the quality of a trapped animal, trying her best not to completely lose her mind from terror. The other great performance comes from Alan Arkin, whose portrayal of the sadistic psychopath Mr. Roat was criticized as too exaggerated back in 1967. The critics were so wrong: the character is charming and funny, but he's also menacing, a drug-smuggler who's other interests include mutilation, murder, and rape. The climax where he has Hepburn at his mercy is legitimately terrifying, if only because the audience knows what kind of monstrous acts he's capable of pulling. The interplay between the heroine and the villains is what makes this movie truly great: every time it seems like poor Audrey is about to be had, she's able to keep one step ahead of the rest of them. The celebrated climax in which Hepburn is trapped alone with Arkin in the blacked out apartment possesses this quality in spades, with the two engaging in a charged game of survival.People often wonder why Hepburn's character chooses to keep the doll away from the criminals even after she learns how much danger she's in. My personal theory is that Susy is more motivated by a desire to reclaim a sense of power and independence than mere self-preservation for most of the movie. Part of the reason why Wait Until Dark is such a memorable movie is because its protagonist is a woman who is still trying to come to terms with her blindness and recover a sense of mastery over her life; she often feels useless and like a burden to others (her interactions with Sam at the beginning of the movie suggest she is afraid he'll regret having married her due to her handicap). Notice how she's also constantly being pulled around by the arm by those men-- it's symbolic of how they clearly underestimate her intelligence and independence. By the time she realizes she's been subject to a huge con game toward the middle of the movie, she's sick of being the victim and decides to thwart the crooks' scheme. Her motivations are more emotional than practical, and she only decides to opt out once it looks like she cannot conceivably fight back and win (basically when Roat opens the fridge during the blackout scene).Though clearly based off a stage play, the limitation of the sets to one little apartment never hampers the movie; if anything, it adds to the atmosphere of entrapment. Henry Mancini's music contributes as well; it's haunting and creepy, a good accompaniment to this well-directed picture. I'm actually shocked it isn't more acclaimed.

A clever screenplay and a tight plot deliver a neat psychological thriller, with Audrey Hepburn portraying a blind woman who's the target of a vicious criminal intent on retrieving some heroin hidden in a doll her husband received in an unintended hand-off at the airport. Whew! It sounds complicated but it's really not once the story gets going. This one will keep you fascinated with it's subtle twists with the characters, resulting in a convincing climax as the handicapped woman wins out against her tormentors.One thing I thought the writers were going for though resulted in no follow through. At one point, crooked cop Talman (Richard Crenna) makes a slow, deliberate call to the phone booth outside Susy Hendrix's apartment, and the attentive viewer will figure she's counting the dial clicks to realize it's the same number he gives her for his police contact. That seemed a wasted moment for me, since Susy was so resourceful in every other respect. Another point, when Susy prepares for her showdown with Roat (Alan Arkin), she eliminates all the light sources in her apartment, but the ones she simply unscrews by hand would have burned her without protection, so that seemed like an unforced error in the story.So the picture is a half century old as I write this, and if you need to be convinced such a thing as inflation exists, how about Talman asking for two hundred fifty bucks up front for him and partner Carlino (Jack Weston) to fall in with Roat? What! - mere chickenfeed today for the enterprising criminal. And then, when neighbor Gloria shows up at the apartment with two full bags of groceries for five bucks, I knew we were still in the Twilight Zone era.For all that, the picture still delivers pretty well in the suspense department, and the coup de grace in the script occurred when Gloria made her two-ring telephone signal to Susy that second time, and she realized the outside phone booth connected Talman with Roat. Still, I had to wonder when it was all over if it was really worth it for Roat to kill three victims for those few bags of heroin he pulled out of the doll. I'm not up on my drug prices, but it didn't seem like there was that much there for him to get so intense about. Even so, Arkin was convincing in his role, all three of them if you count the impersonations, but then again, why go through all that for a blind lady?

I remember being show this movie on Halloween by my 6th grade teacher. we all dimmed the lights and all my other classmates were looking around at each other. We had NO idea what kind of movie we would be watching and we were all anticipated about getting to watch a movie in class.When the credits rolled I believe it was me and all my table mates that were quaking in fright after all that we had witnesses. However, I think I may be the only one who remembers it all vividly. Even to this day I'm still shocked that that movie was presented to us yet at the same time I was glad to see it. If it weren't for my 6th grade teacher I probably wouldn't have ever thought of seeing it.The acting in this movie is great and Audrey Hepburn does a wonderful job playing a blind woman. I bet that's a very hard role to play without screwing up at one point if you can see perfectly well.The shadows and the quiet yet eerie soundtrack will make you shudder at times. However, even if you're not into Thriller, Crime of Horror, your eyes will always be glued to the screen.

Wait Until Dark (1967): Dir: Terence Young / Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Jack Weston, Julie Herrod: Spellbinding psychological thriller about time and condition as a blind woman, played by Audrey Hepburn discovers ominous strangers presenting themselves in her apartment seeking a doll. It conceals drugs and Alan Arkin seeks assistance from fellow criminals Richard Crenna and Jack Weston in order to gain trust into the whereabouts. Director Terence Young makes great use of lighting as the apartment becomes eerie and ominous. Young previous directed a few James Bond outings before graduating to this. Hepburn is well cast as the blind heroine who slowly learns to use her limitations to her advantage during key moments. Arkin is brilliant as this sadistic killer whose methods are sly, cunning and deadly until his overconfidence becomes his enemy. Crenna and Weston are superb as blackmailed con men out to talk Hepburn out of the doll she knows nothing about. Crenna in particular begins to develop romantic feelings towards her. Julie Herrod plays a young girl in the building who allies herself with Hepburn as sort of watch out. Shocking masterpiece right down to its nail biting conclusion where limitations are advantages when pride overshadows the realization that the darkness waited upon may be the blessing of survival. Score: 10 / 10