Wait Until Dark (1967)

A recently blinded woman is terrorized by a trio of thugs while they search for a heroin-stuffed doll they believe is in her apartment.

Director:

Terence Young

Writers:

Frederick Knott (play), Robert Carrington (screenplay)

Stars:

Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 4 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Audrey Hepburn	...	Susy Hendrix
Alan Arkin	...	Roat / Roat Jr. / Roat Sr.
Richard Crenna	...	Mike Talman
Efrem Zimbalist Jr.	...	Sam Hendrix
Jack Weston	...	Carlino
Samantha Jones	...	Lisa
Julie Herrod	...	Gloria

Storyline

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...

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Plot Keywords:

blind woman | home invasion | blind protagonist | psychopath | corpse | 

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Taglines:

A blind woman plays a deadly game of survival

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

26 October 1967 (USA)

Also Known As:

Warte, bis es dunkel ist

Filming Locations:

5 St. Luke's Place, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,000,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$17,550,741

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Sean Connery was mentioned in press as possible choice for role of Harry Roat.

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Goofs

Throughout the film, Susy's hair often changes from tidy to messy and back between shots.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Lisa: Come on Louis, come on!

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Crazy Credits

The end credits show each character with the performer's credit; Alan Arkin is shown three times, including once in each disguise.

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Connections

Version of Bugso (2002)

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Soundtracks

Wait Until Dark
Music by Henry Mancini
Lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans
Performed by Sue Raney

User Reviews

Decent but overrated "thriller" with a great Hepburn and some really forced, even corny aspects. Watch Arkin leap out at the end. Haha!

Wait until Dark (1967)

I wish this was a better movie. I love Audrey Hepburn, and she's truly the star here trying to make the limited script work. I don't know that she plays a blind person quite right, but good enough for me. She's charming.

The other highlight is the up and down performance of Alan Arkin in an early role. When he's the sunglass wearing psycho looking for the heroin in the doll he's pretty good, but when he puts on disguises and plays other roles he's kind of silly, though maybe that's intentional. Of the remaining four characters, no one is quite right on (the girl, I suppose) and the cop/thief played by Jack Weston is too exaggerated for my taste.

This is a play, to be sure, made for film. That changes some of our expectations, in theory, but in a way that makes the script, which is the weakest point, even weaker. Plays, above all, have to be finely tuned in their dialog, their concepts, their economy. This one is such a huge strain, especially in the middle parts, it's hard to not laugh at it a bit.

I'm not saying it's not horrifying in concept—a blind woman being tormented by some thugs to get information out of her she actually might not have—but the delivery is canned and so compacted in this screen version, shot almost entirely in an apartment, is just creaks.

You do get the feeling this is supposed to the be the equal of say "Rope" or "Rear Window" by Hitchcock, which just shows you the limits of many directors and scripts because this doesn't have the depth, the visual panache, the psychological twists, of a good Hitch.

It does have some of the 1960s falseness that pervaded the industry (including Hitchcock's films), and I have never quite acquired a taste for it. 1967 marks the birth of "New Hollywood" and a vigorous, fresh kind of filmmaking that is rather the opposite of this. For good reason.

I've seen this three or four times over the years, and every time I say, maybe I'll like it this time. Nope, not quite. It's fun, it's good, and it's got very good moments —and it's got Audrey—but that's not quite, not at all quite enough. It does have a great finale, however, and it has some really bizarrely inventive music by Mancini using quartertones on the piano. So, there are aspects...give them some effort.