This film shows what a director can do with some good actors and a good script. It takes Audrey Hepburn to turn this into a great film. Her vulnerable blind woman, at the mercy of a group of drug traffickers, is amazing. Alan Arkin, who sometimes plays comic victims, is outstanding as a true psychopath. He doesn't want the hidden drugs. He wants power over everything. He'd be the last guy a group of organized criminals would want on their side. But they've got him and they need to cater to him. The movie is about situations as Audrey Hepburn must defend herself, once she realizes this is necessary. She knows the house and knows that in darkness she has a chance. Still, she weighs about eighty pounds and has probably never confronted someone physically in her life--and she can't see her attackers.
I'll tell a little story. There's a scene where a towel on top of a refrigerator hangs down so the door can't close. The woman must darken the room, but the light in the refrigerator is going to stay on until the towel is removed. A friend of mine saw this movie with his family, and when this happened, his mother, a real character, stood up and screamed: "Pull the towel out of the door." The whole family disappeared under their seats and denied the existence of this woman.
As far as suspense goes, I can't think of a movie (and that includes every slasher movie I've seen) that has such sustained terror as this one.
Wait Until Dark
1967
Action / Horror / Thriller
Wait Until Dark
1967
Action / Horror / Thriller
Keywords: murderpoliceneighborphotographerheroin
Plot summary
Susy was recently blinded and recently married. Susy's husband, Sam, is asked to hold a doll for a woman he doesn't know as they get off an airplane. The woman disappears. Later, she's found dead by her former associates, Mike and Carlino, small-time hoods, in Susy's basement apartment. (Both occupants of the apartment are then absent.) The doll woman's newer partner in crime, Harry Rote, who murdered her for self-dealing, presses Mike and Carlino into a scheme to recover the doll, which contains a fortune in smuggled heroin. After disposing of the body, the thugs return while Susy is present to continue their search. They assume Susy's blindness will enable them to search her apartment under her very nose for the doll. In Sam's absence, Mike pretends to be an old friend of Sam's, while the three together spin for Susy a story of a murder investigation of her husband from which only the finding of the missing doll can save him. Rote is a predator, and his stalking of Susy becomes ever more obvious as the blind woman's predicament becomes ever more desperate.
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Non Stop Terror in the Dark
Excellent
Excellent,very underrated suspense where Audrey Hepburn shows how much
eclectic she was from psychological dramas (children's hour) to musicals (My fair lady)to thrillers "in camera " like this absorbing exciting "wait until dark" .Directed by Terence YOung (who directed the best James Bond bar one -Goldfinger-),it never gives the feeling of watching a filmed stage production and however it was a play in the first place.Hepburn is wonderful as the courageous blind woman who 's got to fight against killers (and she gets fine support from Richard Crenna and Alan Arkin) in her apartment.Influenced by "rear window" ,it's perhaps not as good as Hitch's classic,but it rises to the occasion.The scene when Hepburn shoots out (and smashes) all the lights is mind-boggling.So is the fridge's terrifying sequence which climaxes the movie.
Every cine buff fond of suspense deserves -and must see- "Wait until dark" Sit down and get some scares...in the dark of course.
Wow, I was really, really wrong about this one...
For years, I avoided seeing this film. After all, I thought, how can you base an entire film on such a flimsy plot?! Some guys terrorize a blind lady in her apartment--how interesting can that be?! Well, I finally broke down and saw it--and I was really surprised. The film had MUCH more depth than I'd suspected and it was amazingly taut thriller.
The film begins with an old man sewing some heroin into a doll. The doll is then taken aboard a plane by a lady and she convinces a nice guy (Efram Zimbalist Jr.) to carry it for her. Later, some very evil men come to get the doll--and the trail has led to Zimbalist's home. But he and his blind wife (Audrey Hepburn) have no idea what's going on nor that their lives are in danger. Now here is where it gets interesting. The three criminals (Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna and Jack Weston) decide that instead of just bursting in the place and ransacking it, they'll run a scam on the blind woman--and that is where the film gets REALLY interesting. I'd say more, but don't want to spoil the suspense. However, the film gets really, really creepy and the plot offered man surprises because it was so intelligently written. A few things I liked was the interesting child in the film (very unusual and different) and the wild ending. Overall, I major surprise to me and one of Hepburn's better films.