Wait Until Dark is a first rate thriller featuring a very strong performance by Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman being tormented by three criminals, the worst of these is the psychotic Roat, played with a steely menace by Alan Arkin.
The set up is simple. A drug courier flying from Montreal to NYC feels threatened so she makes up a story and asks a fellow passenger to carry a doll for her. The doll is full of drugs. The passenger is Sam Hendrix, wife of Susy Hendrix (Hepburn) and professional photographer.
Later on we discover the doll is missing and Lisa, the courier has been murdered. Unable to find the doll during a search of Sam and Susie's apartment, the three criminals, Roat (Arkin) Mike (Richard Crenna) and Carlino (Jack Weston) begin an elaborate con on the blind Suzie to learn the whereabouts of the doll. But the con falls apart and Suzie's life is plunged into danger and terror when Roat will stop at nothing to find the drugs.
The film features a unique trick during the final act. The entire screen goes dark so you experience what is going on in Suzie's apartment just as the blind woman does. If you are going to watch this at home you should make sure all the lights are out in your TV viewing room. When the film played in movie houses the theatre managers would turn out all the lights during these final moments. This same trick was used when the original play the movie is based on ran on Broadway.
The role of Roat was unique for Arkin. He was establishing himself as a comic actor with a dry wit, but in Wait Until Dark he displayed a very sinister side and his performance was singled out as one of the best of the year. He did not get nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. When asked about this he responded "you don't get an Oscar for terrorizing Audrey Hepburn."
The film was directed by Terence Young, who is famous for directing three of the best James Bond films; Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball. Hepburn and Young did a lot of preparation for the film, including attending a school for the blind.
Hepburn was nominate for a Best Actress Oscar, but she lost to Katherine Hepburn. Audrey Hepburn made two films in 1967; Wait Until Dark and Two For The Road. These were her last two great roles. Her next film, Robin and Marion, was released nine years later and she only appeared in four films between 1967 and 1993, the year she died.
The film is a well executed, edgy thriller that features strong moments of claustrophobia. Hepburn is mesmerizing and Arkin is menacing.
At the Movie House rating ***1/2 stars
** SPOILER ALERT ** Don't read further if you have not seen the movie. ** SPOILER ALERT **
The first time you watch this movie is thoroughly engaging and the performance and action are enough to create some edge of the seat suspense. the audience forgoes asking any questions about what is happening. But the second time around as you watch you start asking yourself some basic questions about the actions the character takes. Roger Ebert calls this "the idiot plot". The character could easily make some common sense decisions to get out of danger, but they don't, because if they did the film would end. The ones in this film are not too bad, but I did find myself asking "why doesn't she go hide in the little girls apartment?" and "why doesn't she send the girl to the police instead of the bus station?" etc. These become a distraction as you watch the movie and in this case the screenwriters Robert and Jane-Howard Carrington should have taken steps to tighten up the script a bit.
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