Truly Dreadful Film

Great Film overall

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I saw this movie on vacation when I was about 13. It was a night I'll never forget. My brother sat next to me, and literally screamed during the movies climactic scene. I don't know what I did, but being younger than him, I was a bit unnerved.This was one of the scariest movies made in the 60's. It seemed relatively low budget, but that sometimes only adds to the fear factor.

Susy Hendrix (a strong and sympathetic performance by Audrey Hepburn) has recently lost her sight in an automobile accident. Susy finds herself being terrorized by three criminals led by vicious psycho Roat (a supremely creepy and credible portrayal by Alan Arkin) who want to regain possession of a heroin-stuffed doll that they believe Susy has stashed away in her apartment.Director Terence Young, working from a compact and compelling script by Robert Carrington and Jane-Howard Hammerstein, relates the gripping story at a steady pace, builds plenty of nerve-wracking tension, makes fine use of the claustrophobic apartment setting, and pulls out the heart-pounding stops for the harrowing climax in which Roat stalks Susy in her darkened abode. Hepburn does an ace job of playing an extremely appealing, gutsy, and resourceful damsel in distress. Moreover, there are sound supporting contributions from Richard Crenna as smooth and ingratiating hood Mike Talman, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as nice guy photographer Sam Hendrix, Jack Weston as sleazy corrupt cop Carlino, Samantha Jones as ill-fated mule Lisa, and Julie Herrod as gawky teenage girl Gloria. Charles Lang's crisp cinematography provides a pleasing polished look. Henry Mancini's shivery score hits the spine-tingling spot. A real on the money nail-biter.

I'll mention my objections, then why I love this movie anyway.1) New York City, specifically Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan: A van is able to park on a near-deserted street in the middle of the Village- it is used by the three villains in the movie. Nearby, they also have a sedan parked in an equally untrafficked parking lot. In New York City, in one of the most crowded areas of Manhattan. A girl approaches a man, offering Girl Scout cookies, and the sidewalk is otherwise deserted. Does this Friday night Greenwich Village exist in some alternate universe?A 12-year-old girl, whose parents have split up and is living with her neglectful mother, is ostensibly precocious and streetwise, as one would expect such a New York City latchkey girl to be. Yet apparently she is unfamiliar with vans (never mind vans' ubiquity as delivery and cab vehicles in the city) and refers to one she sees a "a kind of squatty truck." Really?2) Stupid behavior by ostensibly smart adults. A blind woman and her husband live in an apartment in the Village- not just an apartment, but a basement (also called a "garden" apartment by savvy real estate agents) apartment, the kind most susceptible to break-ins. Yet they nonchalantly go about their business without locking the door to the apartment. Are we in New York City or Mayberry?A professional photographer, returning to New York from Canada, agrees to accept a doll from a woman, a perfect stranger, on the basis of a made-up story as both clear customs at JFK International Airport. Savvy, experienced New York City dwellers accept packages for safekeeping from strangers all the time, right?A pair of ostensibly streetwise veteran con artists wander into previously mentioned unlocked apartment, casually putting their fingerprints everywhere, on the basis of a typed note from previously mentioned doll-woman, who is their former partner in crime and whom they've been led to believe is the rightful tenant of said apartment, taking a full 10 minutes to realize that she has no typing/secretarial skills and that they've laid themselves open to being set up.3) The blind woman goes back to apartment while the three hoodlums are there, yet doesn't detect their presence.4) Timeline. Said blind woman was blinded in accident just over a year before the action in the film, yet in that time has met and married previously mentioned photographer, and they've established a pal-around routine as if they'd been together for years and she'd been blind for far longer.5) Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. To put it mildly, his presence in the film (mercifully brief; confined to a few scenes) is not an asset. He plays a thinly-altered variation of the steely-jawed, high-school-football-coach-spouting-rousing-clichés, all-American hero he played concurrently on the popular TV series "The FBI," a right-wing weekly propaganda outlet for J. Edgar Hoover and his PR department. The scenes between him and Hepburn as his wife are cringe-worthy "you can do it!" kitsch, a stereotype of the crusty-but-heart-of-gold man acting as savior to the ill and/or disabled (but typically still fully photogenic) woman. As always, Zimbalist's emotional and acting range are between A and A. Ugh. This guy's supposed to be a highly-sought-after art and professional photographer in Bohemian Greenwich Village? Ronald Reagan would have been just as convincing.6) Several murders take place on or offscreen in this neighborhood, yet do not bring the police nearby or arouse any interest of the (apparently invisible or non-existent) neighbors. But then, as I said before, this is one strangely underpopulated, nearly deserted New York City.OK, now I've gotten all that off my chest, I can discuss why I love this movie anyway. First of all, it is, outside of Hitchcock ("Rope," "Dial M for Murder," "Rear Window," the last of which shared with "Wait Until Dark" the same playwright, Frederick Knott), the best claustrophobic, within-one-small-apartment thriller in cinematic history (I'm referring to films where all or almost all of the action takes place within a tiny confined space). The pacing (aside from aforementioned, exposition-setting cringeworthy Zimbalist/Hepburn scenes) and the slow building of suspense to an unpredictable climax are simply superb.And the acting is, Zimbalist aside, outstanding. Richard Crenna as a veteran con artist does well stepping out of the nice-guy persona he had created on the TV sitcom "The Real McCoys," and Jack Weston as his oafish partner in crime Carlino is appropriately thuggish but still likable. Julie Herrod, repeating her Broadway performance, does a nice job as bratty-but-sympathetic Gloria, the tween-age girl helping the blind woman. Samantha Jones is skilled in her brief role as a glamorous and beautiful drug mule smuggling heroin across the Canada-U.S. border.Audrey Hepburn was not really exploring new acting territory (for her) as the frail and vulnerable innocent in danger (she played very similar roles in "Charade," "The Children's Hour," and, to a certain extent, in her lead debut, "Roman Holiday"), but her performance as blind woman Susy Hendrix at the mercy of three desperados is still a standout.But the biggest kudos has to go to Alan Arkin as chief bad guy Harry Roat, a.k.a. Harry Roat Sr., a.k.a. Harry Roat Jr., a cool, stiletto-toting hipster in shades and a black leather jacket who will scare the bejesus out of you. It is tribute to Arkin's range as a comedic and serious actor when you consider the three roles he played in two years' time: as the sympathetic but humorous executive officer of a Soviet submarine in the Cold War-confrontation comedy "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!" (1966), as the scary but entertaining sociopath Roat in "Wait Until Dark" (1967), and as the sweet, tragic, deaf watchmaker John Singer in "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" (1968).

Terence Young's Wait until Dark, based on Frederick Knott's gimmicky stage play, is as an exceptional suspense drama - a perfect example of how mood, atmosphere, music, and direction can overcome plot contrivances.The plot lurks around Suzy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn, in a superior performance), a recently blinded NYC housewife whose husband Sam is determined to make "the world's champion blind lady" out of her. Although she can handle most of her daily chores alone, she still requires some help from Gloria, the dorky pre-teen girl who lives upstairs. Unbeknownst to her, Sam has accidentally played into the hands of heroin-smuggling mole who plants a dope-loaded doll in his possession. It doesn't take long for Suzy to get herself in trouble when a group of con men grease their way into her apartment in an elaborate plot to locate the doll. Two of them are merely petty con-men, but their employer Harry Roat (Alan Arkin who is unbelievably creepy) is a sinister monster. From there on, the movie ruthlessly tightens the screws of tension, all leading up to the nail-biting climax, as Roat and Suzy come face to face in her pitch-dark apartment.The film makes little effort to overcome its origins as a play, as the majority of the action takes place in Suzy's apartment. Though some of the more contrived elements of Knott's play are still intact here, Terence Young's presentation of Suzy's cloistered surroundings trumps the script's far-fetched tendencies as he manages to create a paradoxical environment of civilization devoid of human life. Also, Young makes the smart decision of setting his thriller inside a basement apartment, the cave-like arches of which have the unsettling effect of positioning Hepburn in a nondescript underground (the windows only look out on the feet of passersby, emphasizing Suzy's disconnect from her neighborhood). Terence Young's remarkable ability to create a believable oppressive locality in Wait until Dark obscures plot holes and irrationalities right up to the film's extended final showdown. By the time Suzy realizes she's completely and hopelessly alone in her apartment, the cumulative effect of Hepburn's palpable desolation and Arkin's ruthlessness, combined with Henry Mancini's overpoweringly harrowing score, bring the film to a justly celebrated climactic bacchanalia, complete with one of suspense cinema's first and most effective shock leaps.Once seen, Wait until Dark will never be forgotten. But be wary if you watch it alone. In fact, watch it with someone who likes to scream!