Wait Until Dark

Plot synopsis:
The film opens in a Montreal apartment during a cold wintery morning, where a woman named Lisa (Samantha Jones) waits for an old man to sew bags of heroin into the cloth body of an old-fashioned doll. As she leaves the apartment with the doll, we see the man watching her leave, then dialing someone on the phone. Lisa takes the doll with her on an airline flight to New York City, but when, on disembarking, she sees a man watching her, she becomes worried and gives the doll for safekeeping to a man she'd spoken with on the plane, professional photographer Sam Hendrix (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.). The man who'd been watching Lisa then roughly escorts her away. Later, when Lisa calls Sam to ask for the doll, Sam and his wife are unable to find it.Some time afterward, small-time con artist Mike Talman (Richard Crenna) and his partner Carlino (Jack Weston) arrive at the basement apartment where Sam lives with his wife Susy (Audrey Hepburn), who is blind. The two men watch until both the apartment's occupants have left, then enter. The con men have an appointment with Lisa, who'd been their partner in crime prior to the recent imprisonment of both, but they are met instead by Harry Roat, Jr. (Alan Arkin), whom the audience recognizes as the man from a distance who watched and met Lisa at the airport. He offers them $2,000 each if they find Lisa's doll which is somewhere in the apartment.After discovering Lisa's dead body hanging in a garment bag, Talman and Carlino want to make a quick exit, but Roat points out that they have left their fingerprints all over the apartment, while he has worn gloves. Roat is then able to prevail upon the two to help him dispose of Lisa's body (he claims that he killed her because he caught her going into business for herself). Roat firmly tells Talman and Carlino help him try to find the heroin-stuffed doll.The next day, Susy's neighbor leaves for the weekend, and Sam leaves for a business trip to New Jersey. Once Susy is alone, the criminals begin an elaborate con game: In order to gain entry into the apartment, Talman arrives posing as a friend of Sam's, Carlino poses as a policeman, and Roat poses first as an old man and then as the man's son. Using first an innocuous story about Sam and the doll, then a darker one implying that Lisa has been murdered and that Sam will be suspected, the men persuade Susy to help them find the doll. Talman gives her the number for the phone booth across the street as his own after falsely warning her of a police car stationed outside.During this time, Susy has grown suspicious of Carlino and Roat, and Gloria (Julie Herrod), a girl who lives upstairs and is paid by the couple to help Susy with errands, has been going in and out of the apartment, sometimes without Susy's noticing that she is there. After Talman leaves, Gloria sneaks into the apartment carrying the doll, which she stole some time earlier. She tells Susy there is no police car outside, and Susy discovers the doll. Wanting to confirm her suspicions about Carlino and Roat, Susy tells Gloria to go home and watch the phone booth that is next to Roat's van parked outside on the street. If a man goes into it, Gloria is to phone Susy, let the phone ring twice, and hang up. Gloria tells Susy she can signal her by banging on the pipes.On Carlino's next visit, after he calls Roat at the phone booth, Gloria sends Susy the telephone signal, and she sends the signal a second time after Susy calls Talman to tell him she has the doll. Finally realizing that Talman is a criminal in cahoots with the two others, Susy hides the doll. When he walks in with Corlino and Roat following quietly, she tells him the doll is at Sam's studio. The three criminals leave after Roat cuts the telephone cord.When Susy bangs on the pipes, Gloria comes in and Susy sends her to the downtown bus station in a taxi to wait for Sam. When Susy discovers that the telephone cord has been cut, she prepares to defend herself by putting the criminals in the dark along with her, breaking all the light bulbs in the apartment's light fixtures. She also pours a chemical into a bowl.When Talman returns, she refuses to cooperate when he demands that she hand over the doll. Talman has spent the most time with Susy and he has come to admire her for her quiet strength and ability to stand up to the three criminals, despite her disability. He admits to her that he and his confederates are part of a criminal plot and that Sam, as Susy suspected, is completely innocent of any involvement, while Roat is a particular danger. Susy needn't worry, though, Talman says, as he has sent Carlino to kill Roat.However, Roat has killed Carlino instead outside by running him over (anticipating exactly that they would turn against him). As Talman prepares to leave, pausing to say something to Susy as he stands in the doorway, Roat suddenly appears and stabs him in the back.Intent on acquiring the doll, Roat chains the door shut in the dark apartment, pours gasoline on the floor, and sets a piece of newspaper on fire. A desperate battle follows in which Susy throws the chemical solution in Roat's face and she forces him to put out the fire as well as smashes the last lightbulb in the apartment. But the battle ends when Roat obtains light by opening the refrigerator, whose door he props open with a rag in the hinge. Susy, weeping (that she forgot about the refrigerator), pulls the doll out from its hiding place and hands it to him. While Roat cuts open the doll and gloats over the treasure inside, Susy is able, unnoticed by him, to arm herself with a butcher knife.Roat then announces his intention to rape Susy, but, as he leads her to the bedroom, she manages to stab him in the belly. As she stumbles across the floor toward the kitchen window to scream for help, (in the movie's most shocking scene) Roat suddenly leaps out from the darkened bedroom and grabs her ankle. Screaming, Susy wrenches free, but the dying Roat doggedly pursues her, using the knife with which she stabbed him to drag himself across the floor. Susy is at the refrigerator, trying to close its door and thus extinguish its light, unaware of the rag that is preventing its closure. She then gropes for the refrigerator's cord, murmuring desperately, "Where is it?" As the reeling Roat stands with his last strength and staggers toward her with the knife the refrigerator light finally goes out, and Susy's scream merges with the sound of a police siren...The scene switches to the arrival of police cars outside the apartment. When the police enter with Sam and Gloria, Sam finds an unbroken light bulb and we see the room littered with the bodies of Talman and Roat, but no Susy. Finally, as Sam calls out for her, the door of the unplugged refrigerator moves, and Susy emerges from behind it, shaken but alive.

Tags: mystery, suspenseful, horror, murder

Review:
In "Wait Until Dark", I really felt sorry for Audrey Hepburn's Susy Hendrix: blind, lied to by a 'nice' guy who is actually in cahoots with a murderer, sassed by the bespectacled neighbor girl, and then--after a hellish night spent being terrorized by thugs--husband Efrem Zimbalist Jr. walks in and doesn't even give her a hand.
To its credit are the performances of Audrey Hepburn as an insecure "champion blind woman," Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as her encouraging husband, Julie Herrod as her helpful (but rebellious) young friend, and a whole host of (well, three) others as a variety of crooks, cops, and impostors.
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.
Only a handful of actresses were able to display vulnerability as well as AUDREY HEPBURN does in WAIT UNTIL DARK--and she's especially good here because she's playing a woman recently blinded who is learning how to cope with her handicap when the story begins.The plot's suspense depends entirely on how she gradually (very gradually) becomes aware of the danger she's in when three intruders invade her apartment on a pretext--until finally, she learns that what they are really after is a doll stuffed with heroin that has been stored somewhere within her apartment.It's only when the full realization of her situation becomes clear to Audrey that the story builds to the proper amount of suspense this sort of tale should generate.
Before that, things get a little tedious and there's too much interplay between Hepburn and the interlopers before their devious scheme is developed.The heroin seekers are played in rather theatrical style by ALAN ARKIN, JACK WESTON and RICHARD CRENNA and the stage origins of the original are sometimes clearly evident in the claustrophobic apartment setting.Hepburn's blindness is well-simulated, but the tale itself is a bit too contrived to be taken very seriously.
"Wait Until Dark" is a great thriller that works mostly because of it's story line and performances.Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman named Susie, whose husband is out.
The twists get a bit confusing at times, but they provide good shocks for the audience.Audrey Hepburn does a good job of playing a blind woman, and knows exactly how to act.Men come and go throughout her apartment, and it's up to the audience (and her) to figure out the plan.
Wonderful Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman in a movie with intense sequences of terror and suspense.
This is highly suspenseful and cerebral mystery that tells about a photographer(Efrem Zimbalist)arriving into N.Y. airport when a young woman(Samantha Jones) delivers secretly a heroin-filled doll.Later his blind wife(Audrey Hepburn),finding alone in their apartment is terrorized by a duo of nasties crooks(Richard Crenna,Jack Weston)and a cruel psycho(Alan Arkin)looking for the drug stuffed doll hided in her basement flat.It's a battle of wits between intelligent blind woman and evil villains and winds up pitting two rival,the obstinate blind girl and brutal psycho against each other in order to save herself and destroy them both.The film contains tension,thriller,drama,mystery and shocks ,including decent scares with tense terror sequences especially in its final part,in a creepy denouement,near of the end with a crazy killer trying murder her.Although is sometimes slow moving and stagy,however is entertaining for the continuous suspense.Audrey Hepburn is sensational in one of her best films and terrific performance by Alan Arkin as a grisly murderer.Sinister and mysterious atmosphere is finely made by the cameraman Charles Lang and appropriate musical score by the classic Henry Mancini(Pink Panther's creator score).The film is produced by Mel Ferrer(Hepburn's husband) and based on Frederick Knotts's writings.The motion picture is well directed by Terence Young ,author of two best James Bond films(Dr No and From Russia with love)and again directed to Audrey Hepburn in a failed film titled ¨Bloodline¨.The movie will like to suspense enthusiastic and Hepburn fans.Rating : Better than average..
I'j not a big fan of thriller plays (and I've acted in this one), but well-made with superb casting - mainly Ms. Hepburn & Mr. Arkin with gliding, smooth support from Mr. Crenna & Mr. Weston; superbly lit with a great set and menacing music, it was Hepburn's last film for nine years and she should have won Best Actress (nominated), and I pick Bonnie & Clyde to win ALL the other categories (acting-wise), she kicks into gear and then retires..until ROBIN & MARION nine years later.Anyway, most stage-play thrillers don't make it on FILM, but this one is very claustrophobic and believable because of Hepburn (who studies with blind people for a while).
Excellent,very underrated suspense where Audrey Hepburn shows how mucheclectic 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..
One of those high-concept suspense thrillers that falls apart the second you start analyzing its plot, "Wait Until Dark" goes around the world and back again in order to set up its premise -- blind woman being stalked by criminal thugs -- and then sits back and lets the actors do all of the work.
Audrey Hepburn makes this a much better movie than it has any right being, and Alan Arkin delivers a weird but effective performance as the off-kilter psycho who comes after her for some heroin he believes is stashed in her apartment.
The film gives away its stage origins -- most of the action is confined to Hepburn's apartment, and director Terence Young doesn't do a lot to give his movie a cinematic quality.
(NOTE: As much as I liked Mia Farrow in SEE NO EVIL(1971) (another movie with a blind woman in a scary situation), Audrey Hepburn certainly matched her intensity in a movie that had a more complex and sophisticated plot.)  Great Movie..
One of my favorite films, Audrey Hepburn terrificly portrays a blind woman who unkowingly possesses a doll that has heroin hidden inside and three men who will do anything to get it back.
Alan Arkin has said that his role as Roats in this film was difficult for him, because he, like everybody else, did not enjoy having to terrorize a character played by lovely Audrey Hepburn.
But what an excellent job of acting and film making.Audrey Hepburn stars as a recently blinded and newly married young lady whose husband unknowingly comes into the possession of a heroin-filled doll.
The three bad guys, Crenna, Weston, and the very evil Arkin hatch elaborate ploys to get the doll back.Well acted with great dialogue WAIT UNTIL DARK has aged very well and is worth the rental..
But its suspense is diluted somewhat by a too talky script, the result perhaps of its origin as a play.Overall, "Wait Until Dark" is a good movie to watch once, mainly for the acting achievements of Arkin and Hepburn..
When Susy returns, Mike lures her telling that he is an old friend from the Army of Sam, while Carlino and Roat pushes Susy in a sick game trying to find where the doll might be."Wait Until Dark" is a classic theatrical thriller, supported by a great screenplay and ,agnificent and unforgettable performances, highlighting Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin.
I enjoyed this film as a mystery/thriller.It's excellently acted and very well directed.Audrey Hepburn is really convincing as a blind woman and I love Alan Arkin's performance as a cold-blooded killer.The ending is a real rollercoaster of thrills and suspense.So if you like this genre check out this atmospheric mystery/thriller..
They play act their way into the apartment while the man is away leaving only the blind wife Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn).The whole setup is way too complicated.
Terrence young-who was better known fro directing two James Bond films-and the cast, who are better known for being in romantic comedies, show they can also perform a straight thriller.The plot is simple: would-be heroin dealers harass a blind woman looking for a heroin filled doll in her apartment while the husband is away.
Audrey Hepburn is perfect as Susie, a blind woman caught up in a conspiracy when her husband Sam (Efram Zimbalist Jr) is given a toy doll with a very special secret inside.
Filled with joltingsuspense (check out the chilling, if not totally believable climax) and great performances between Hepburn and Arkin, WAIT UNTIL DARK wins as a one-of-a-kind thriller movie..
Both have a similar style though, a style common to many late-1960's dramatic films.An additional, though perhaps frivolous, reason to watch "Wait Until Dark" is seeing both Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna in earlier movie roles.
I remember clearly all the talk of the last ten minutes of the film, which were the most intensely frightening filmed to that time.The script is dated in some ways: villains never swear and instead say things like "buzz off, kid!" The premise of a complicated scheme to locate a doll stuffed with heroin doesn't fly today when heroin is sent by the boat load.Still, Wait Until Dark shows what's missing in suspense movies of today: a tightly knit structure in which the payoff is delayed.
Contrast this to "horror" movies of today, like the recent remake of "Dawn of the Dead," in which you're shown the zombies in the first 10 minutes before you have time to care about the characters.So don't let the dated nature of the material deter you: see Wait Until Dark and re-discover what constitutes true suspense..
What a really great movie!*possible spoilers*1967's Wait Until Dark is a dark and ultimately intense thriller about a blind woman (Audrey Hepburn) whose home is invaded by criminals bent on recovering their lost doll.
The latter says, point blank, that it's the scariest film ever and that Alan Arkin's steely performance as Roat is the "greatest evocation of screen villainy ever." The former is Ebert's point about the "idiot plot", which many of us have seen in movies of dramatic and thriller and romantic comedy varieties, where a character or characters could get out of the predicament or just general situation they're in by saying something or calling someone or, in this case, locking a door.
I can argue both of these opinions- Ebert's since it's not entirely an idiot plot (Susy has some complex reasons for not alerting the police when she can with the young girl, albeit she tries to call via operator before disconnection), and King's since, frankly, it's not totally scary by today's standards and Arkin, while really brilliant, has been topped over time.But so much of this picture works so well because the writing is focused on characters in a set-up situation that unfolds like a game.
(The recent Jodie Foster thriller "Panic Room", which also features a woman in danger from three criminals and which owes a lot to "Wait Until Dark", was similarly confined to a single house, although that was based on an original screenplay, not a stage play).This was Audrey's last film before her nine-year absence from the cinema (due to events in her private life), but she was still clearly an actress at the height of her powers.
Audrey Hepburn is a doll in this movie,and then there's the other {lethal} doll to consider.And consider we shall,being the focal point and core of story.Let me begin by saying that I find this to be among THE best thrillers of all time.It gave me the jitters when I originally saw back in the 60',and still does.Credit the penetrating and piercing music that scorches and scores the background of almost every scene,with such a probing yet simple killer lullaby.Just hearing that simple melody gets my attention.It is perfectly placed and utilized within movie,and adds greatly to intensity of upcoming drama.
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 recently watched this film late night when I couldn't sleep, and after only a few minutes, I was completely hooked.Audrey Hepburn was brilliant in it, and I think the character of Susy is a brilliant role model for all blind, or recently blind people.
Adaptations of stage plays can cause considerable difficulties for filmmakers.WAIT UNTIL DARK is especially claustrophobic and stagey;but in this case,it actually works in it's favour.Terence Young directed some absolute howlers in his film career(ACTION OF THE TIGER,INCHON,BLOODLINE among them),but he made some very fine efforts too(DR NO,FROM Russia WITH LOVE,the two best James Bond films),including this one.The film starts off slowly and uncinematically,with a wordy,stage-bound setting up of the plot,but gradually suspense and thrills build up unto the rousing final duel between the blind Audrey Hepburn and psychotic murderer Alan Arkin.Both give first class performances;an excellent actor usually known for his comic roles,it's unusual to see Arkin playing such a maniac though he does it convincingly,and Hepburn makes you believe she is genuinely blind even in real life.The film's pulsating last 15 minutes are as gripping and thrilling a sequence as ever committed to celluloid,with superbly well-judged moments of nerve-jangling shock.The supporting performances are OK,but why didn't child actress Julie Herrod ever make another film?
The final scenes between her,Audrey,and the usually rather stiff Efrem Zimbalist Jnr are very well done and touch the emotions.Henry Mancini's score is sometimes effective but seems on occasions overtly familiar to CHARADE(1963),an Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant classic Mancini composed several years earlier.The film would've been absolutely outstanding if it wasn't for the indifferent opening scenes,and rather more light relief:the only bits of real humour come at the end credits,when we see Arkin credited as ROAT,ROAT JNR,and ROAT SNR(JNR and SNR were obviously impersonations as part of the subterfuge to steal the heroin-stuffed doll),but it's still a very good thriller nonetheless..
At first everything seems to go well as they try to convince Susie of giving them the doll, but Rote is a cold killer and starts to loose his patience...As this movie proves: a good thriller doesn't need many sets or characters to be very effective.
Thanks to the fine story and the excellent acting by Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna and Jack Weston, this movie never seems to loosen its grip on you.
As a conclusion I would like to say that if you are interested in a very nice thriller with some nice acting, a great story full of suspense and a timeless feeling, than I wouldn't think twice and watch this little gem.
Wait Until Dark is a good- not great- but very good suspense thriller about a blind woman left alone in her apartment being tormented by three characters who think there's a stash of heroin located somewhere inside.
In this classic movie, the elegant Audrey Hepburn is a young blind woman, left alone by her husband in their apartment.
The set-up of this movie is pretty interesting- a group of criminals (led by the extremely nasty Harry Roat - Alan Arkin, in a terrible performance) have to find a dope-filled doll which accidentally ended up in the hands of a young woman.
Limited thrills and suspense in this film version of the Knott play with Hepburn playing a blind woman who is terrorized by three crooks in pursuit of a doll that has heroin inside of it.
So where's her husband (Zimbalist) when she needs him, and how is a 10-year old girl going to help, especially when the gang's chief assassin (Arkin) looks like he pulls wings off butterflies.The movie's adapted from a stage play, so it's no surprise the scenes are pretty much confined to Susy's apartment.
The surface of Wait Until Dark presents an emotional, becoming performance from Audrey Hepburn, a wonderfully entertaining villain by the great Alan Arkin, the perfect urban atmosphere distinguished in 1960s cinema, and very tense and extensive scenes of suspense.
Audrey Hepburn, so great in light comedies and dramas like BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, SABRINA and CHARADE, and even musicals (MY FAIR LADY, anyone?) completely took her fans and movie-going audiences by surprise as Suzy, the "champion blind lady" who must outwit three desperate thugs, searching her apartment for a heroin-filled doll she doesn't know she possesses, while her photographer husband, Sam (Efram Zimbalist, Jr.) is away.Richard Crenna is at his best as the most sympathetic of the three bad guys,and Jack Weston is a great comic foil for his compatriots.
Wait Until Dark (1967) is a thriller about a recently blinded woman Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn).
The suspense genre was born on this sort of film and should honestly go back.The movie centers around a recently blind woman Susy Hendrix(Audrey Hepburn) who is terrorized by thugs seeking a doll full of drugs.
Wait Until Dark (1967) Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Jack Weston, Samantha Jones, Julie Herrod, D: Terence Young.