Fear in the Dark

 

 

 

 

This is my entry for the Audrey Hepburn Blogathon hosted by Classic Film and TV Corner 

 

 

 

The essence of memory, given some 50 years past, tends to make things a bit vague.  Back in the late 60's and even into the 70's all three of the big networks of ABC, CBS and NBC had a weekly broadcast night that featured a recently released movie that had transitioned to availability to broadcast (edited, of course...) one or more nights a week. They weren't always movies that had a theatrical release, of course. Sometimes they were originally "made for TV" movies, but quite often the stations would edit a recent movie that had appeared in theaters and was now being broadcast into homes (for those folks who either had no budget for extravagances like going to the theater, or were just disinclined to venture forth to a theater.)

As such, Wait Until Dark was probably first broadcast on network TV in 1968 or 1969.  Of course I wouldn't have even been older than 7 by then, so I probably did NOT see it when it was first on TV, but I vaguely recall seeing it on TV at some point. And no, I couldn't be confusing it with the made for TV remake, which starred Katherine Ross in the Audrey Hepburn role. (That version came out in 1982, and I'm PRETTY sure I was probably in a bar that night, since those nightly movie broadcasts were usually on Friday or Saturday...) My vague memory of seeing it was from sometime in my early teens in the 70's.

Audrey Hepburn's output, at the time, was not in my bailiwick. I wouldn't have been caught dead watching a romance or a rom-com, therefore I would have gone to my room if Breakfast at Tiffany's or Charade came on (and I still haven't seen either...) And the only times I watched musicals was if Grandma and Grandpa were watching one when my sister and I visited. I do remember sitting through My Fair Lady, vaguely. But a  thriller, on the other hand, would intrigue me. And if Hepburn had starred in a science fiction movie I would have been all-in.

I could do a whole blog entry on the interesting pieces of trivia I found in the IMDb entry on this movie. I won't. But there are several that really intrigued me. 

Only Audrey Hepburn got an Academy Award nomination for this movie. Alan Arkin, who appears as the bad guy, was not nominated. When asked how he felt about that he said "You don't get nominated for being mean to Audrey Hepburn." (The same thing probably could apply to Bruce Dern, who I think ought to have been nominated for his role in The Cowboys, but you don't get nominated for killing John Wayne either...) 

Arkin, BTW, got the role because nobody else in Hollywood wanted to be mean to Hepburn. But there were a couple of intriguing possibilities that COULD have been: Such as George C. Scott, Rod Steiger and Sean Connery. Personally I think Scott would have been great, but I think Connery would probably have hurt his career at that time.... James Bond as a bad guy? The horror! Note: After writing that line I read another blogger's comments. The blogger in question thought  that the idea of Connery taking on that role may just be an urban legend, for basically along the same line reasoning that I suggest; James Bond? Really? His cache at the time would have probably precluded him taking a role that was not a starring role, according to this guy).

During WWII Hepburn was a nurse. During the Battle of Arnhem Hepburn was a nurse to soldiers injured during the battle and one of those soldiers was Terence Young, this movie's director.

The movie was based on a stage play. Interesting in the cast was Robert Duvall was cast as the villain, Roat, and Lee Remick, who won a Tony, was cast as Susy. Renowned director Arthur Penn was the director of the stage version.

The studio wanted Carol Reed, whose biggest film to date had been 1949's The Third Man, to direct, but Hepburn. who was already on board, and her then husband, Mel Ferrer, pushed for Terence Young. (Why not Arthur Penn? Most likely he was still tied up filming Bonnie and Clyde, which came out the same year, but I really don't know). Young, for his part, had garnered an impressive resume. Among his output were three early James Bond movies: Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Thunderball. 

Working against type was not only new for Hepburn, it was also new for musical director Henry Mancini. Mancini, whose name is more closely associated with such light-hearted fare as "Moon River" and "The Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet", was looking to break away from that into some more serious output, and many people remember the jarring soundtrack that he created for the film. 

 

 

Wait Until Dark (1967):

The film doesn't waste any time getting into the story. Sometimes in movies you get these long drawn out introductions or screen shots of the city, which to me seem to be there only to let you know this movie is taking place in New York City or San Francisco, so you don't get confused into thinking the setting is Timbuktu.

Instead, we get the scene where "Louis" (uncredited as "The Old Man" and played by Jean Del Val) is busy trying to sew up a stash of heroin into a doll for Lisa (Samantha Jones) to smuggle. Lisa is rather impatient, urging Louis to hurry up so she doesn't miss her flight. You know that Lisa is not a good girl because, instead of lighting up a cigarette she lights up a cigarillo. Which I personally think is a rather effective touch.

 

When Lisa gets off the plane she spots someone who appears to be waiting for her so she hands off the doll to a nearby guy. I know, logically, it doesn't make sense, at this point. She just handed off a batch of illegal drugs to a total stranger. The truth comes out later, when Susy relates that a woman her husband, Sam, met on the plane had asked him to hold the doll because it was a gift for a girl, but that Sam should hold on to the doll for her so that another girl she was meeting wouldn't get jealous. But you don't know what transpired between Sam and Lisa at this point, so it looks a little odd. (And truth be told, I think Sam must be the most naive person on the planet, since that whole thing sounds pretty suspicious, even if not in retrospect...)

 

This sets up the main story. Three unsavory characters come onto the scene, the worst of which is Roat (Alan Arkin). Roat lures two confidants to help him search the apartment of the guy Lisa handed off the doll to at the airport. The two confidants are basically roped into searching the apartment because Roat has engineered a devious blackmail. You see, he murdered Lisa and left her in the apartment. When Mike (Richard Crenna) and Carlino (Jack Weston) show up they think they are coming to collect the doll from Lisa, and they think that the apartment is Lisa's.

 

 

The truth of the matter is that it belongs to Sam and his wife, Susy (Audrey Hepburn), who is blind. 

 

 

There is a lot of subtle suspense going on at the very beginning, revolving on setting up Susy to believe that Lisa, whose body was planted near the apartment and later found by the police, may actually have been killed by Sam. The ruse involves the three convincing Susy, who has only been married to Sam for a year, was carrying on an extramarital affair. The whole ruse hinges on making Susy believe that a) Mike is an old friend who served in the war with Sam, and b) that Carlino is a valid police officer investigating the murder as well as an intruder who has been showing up at the apartment. 

 

 

(The intruder is actually Roat himself, in disguise, although why he needs the physical disguise is unclear, since Susy can't actually see him...)

 

 

Mike and Carlino are not entirely unsympathetic characters, although Carlino is somewhat obnoxious. The true villain, Roat, is much more sadistic. In fact, he takes both Mike and Carlino out of the picture before it's all over. (Truly, the saying that there is "no honor amongst thieves" applies in Roat's case). Susy eventually figures out that neither of these three is on the up and up. She has only been blind for about a year, but she has developed an acute sense of hearing generally applied to people who have been blind for some time, so apparently she is a quick study. She realizes that Mike is lying when he says he sees a cop car watching the apartment, and by that deduction she realizes that Carlino is not really a police officer.

 

Susy uses the help of a neighbor girl, Gloria (Julie Herrod), to help her. Gloria, at first, comes off as an unlikable little brat, but it turns out she does have a heart, and helps out at various points in trying to expose the ruse the three have been trying to play on Susy. 

 

 

With both Mike and Carlino no longer a part of the plot, however, and Gloria out to try to get Sam home quicky from the bus station when he arrives, Susy and Roat have a showdown. 

 

 

Susy takes all the lights in the apartment out, thus plunging the apartment into complete darkness, effectively putting her and Roat in the same boat: neither can see anything.

 

From the trailer for Wait Until Dark:

"During the last eight minutes of this picture the theatre will be darkened to the legal limit, to heighten the terror of the breathtaking climax which takes place in nearly total darkness on the screen. If there are sections where smoking is permitted, those patrons are respectfully requested not to jar the effect by lighting up during this sequence. And of course, no one will be seated at this time." 

That, in itself, would have been enough to intrigue me into the theater to see this. It must have been effective for theater goers at the time. In an interview on the commentary section of my DVD star Alan Arkin explains that final scene very succinctly:

"The more you show people, the less work they have to do. If you let the audience see what's going on it let's them off the hook and they're not sharing what's going on."

Thus that darkened theater becomes intensely more effective, because the audience shares in the blindness of the main character, Susy, and empathizes with the terror that she feels.  The final 10 minutes thus evokes a kind of claustrophobia, not only on the characters, but also on the audience. (Here's an interesting idea. Watch this thing in complete darkness, except for your TV. When this scene comes on you will experience a thrill unlike any you may have experienced before.)

Wait Until Dark made a decent profit, although it did not make the top ten of money makers that year (I read somewhere that it was #16 in that respect...). It went head-to-head against Camelot and The Jungle Book, which both hit the theater at the same time, as well as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, The Graduate and Valley of the Dolls, all of which came out in December, and all five were in the top ten that year.

As stated above, Hepburn received an Oscar nomination for her role, although ultimately she lost  to another Hepburn, Katherine, in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, although having seen both I would have had trouble making the choice. The main reason for that being that Audrey was absolutely fantastic at convincing me her character was blind. Only once during the entire film was there anything that happened that would give lie to that. (At one point, after Roat has murdered Mike and his body is at the foot of the stairs she actually steps over his body. There is no way she could know exactly how his body was laid out. This fact doesn't appear in the "goofs" section of the IMDb article, so maybe I missed something, however...)

Wait Until Dark has a Rotten Tomatoes ranking of 96% Fresh. Most of the reviewers of the time applauded the film, although even with it's high ranking, some reviewers had a bit of criticism to throw into their reviews. I liked the quote from Bosley Crowther, who said it was a "barefaced melodrama, without character revelation of any sort, outside of the demonstration of a person with the fortitude to overcome an infirmity." Yet he still liked Hepburn's portrayal. Roger Ebert criticized what he called the "idiot plot", wondering why the Hepburn character didn't just lock the door when she realized there was a threat present, yet he still gave it 3½ stars.

There are some strong hints of Hitchcock in the film, but one would be limiting oneself by saying it is essentially an attempt to create a Hitchcock film. It feels somewhat similar to Dial M for Murder, since both involve unsavory characters invading a closed set (apartment in both), and both were written by the same author. And the doll feels somewhat similar to the typical "MacGuffin" that typically showed up in Hitchcock films, an object that the story hinges on for a plot device, but is secondary to the nail-biting interaction between the primary characters. And that claustrophobia that the film exudes is reminiscent of Rope. Some people actually call Wait Until Dark the "best Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock".

Of all the films I have reviewed over the years, Wait Until Dark would rank very high. Although I tend towards more outre fare (tell us something we don't know...), I can still be entranced by the straightforward drama or thriller, especially when it is fronted by such talent as Hepburn (and Arkin).

That wraps it up for this time. Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy