One of my goals in life, at least at present, is to make my boyfriend watch all the movies I think he should have seen by now. Because he seems to have a similar goal, I sometimes get to see movies like the early '80s car race flick Cannonball Run. Meanwhile, I force him to sit through stuff like Hitchcock's Rear Window, poor thing. (Just kidding, Sweetie, Cannonball Run was cool.)
Last weekend, I decided it was time for him to see the 1967 suspense film Wait Until Dark, starring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin. It's one of those movies I've seen a bunch of times since I was a young lass and that has always stuck with me.
The film begins with the striking shot of a knife slicing into fabric. The shot pulls back to reveal that it's a doll's belly. A dollmaker inserts numerous packets of heroin into the inside of the doll, meanwhile being rushed along by a stereotypical mid-60s sexpot creature.
The sexpot takes the doll with her on an overseas flight. When she gets to her destination, however, she tracks down Mr. Hendrix, who had picked up the doll when she'd dropped it on the plane. She sticks the doll in Mr. Hendrix's suitcase and runs off.
Audrey plays Susy Hendrix, a woman who has recently become blind in an auto accident. She met her future husband while attempting to cross the street one post-accident day, and ever since, he's been after her to become the "world's champion blind lady." She and Mr. Hendrix inhabit a small basement apartment in the city and apparently have a very happy relationship, though most of their dialogue revolves around Susy's blindness.
Once Mr. Hendrix has brought home the doll, trouble has already begun, though the Hendrixes don't yet know it. Bad guys - most notably Alan Arkin as the apex of '60s sunglass-wearing, cheesy dialect-y bad guy - have been in their apartment while they've been out, scoping out the place, murdering the sexpot (committed offscreen by Arkin), and making arrangements to get the doll from the Hendrixes, whom they think have discovered what it contains.
Mr. Hendrix leaves to go on another business trip, leaving Susy alone in her home, and that's when the bad guys - three in all - create a scenario in which they each play characters (husband's friend from the army, cop, jilted husband/father of jilted husband) in their efforts to recapture the doll.
And it all plays out ... like a play. Wait Until Dark initially was a stage play, and some theaters still put it on today. The film, similar to a stage play, requires few different settings, and most of the action occurs in the living room/kitchen of the tiny apartment.
Yet these few enclosed spaces (as well, as, of course, Susy Hendrix's blindness) enhance the tense quality of the situation. If you're itching to get out of the apartment, it forces you to realize that you can't leave because Susy herself can't leave.
Hepburn makes a convincing and very stylish blind person. I wondered how she got her eye makeup to look so good, but my boyfriend reassured me that when you've been doing it your whole life you don't really need to look at yourself to apply it. And the dark brown turtleneck with light brown suede pants she wears for part of the film will never go out of style.
In all, Wait Until Dark won't fail to incite at least somewhat of an edge-of-seat reaction, though you might find some of the exaggerated characteristics of Alan Arkin's character on the funny rather than frightening side.
The movie also has a plot snitch that can be explained through some rationalizing, but it's hard not to notice it. Susy elicits the help of a young neighbor friend who lives upstairs, but when she finds herself in danger, she doesn't hide out at the friend's parents' place, or try to call the police from her phone, or do anything else that could alleviate her dangerous situation. The story just wouldn't be the same if she did, but it seems like the obvious solution.
Anyway, rent this one if you haven't seen it ever or haven't seen it in awhile. It might be especially fun to show it to someone who hasn't seen it - there's one part that's almost certain to make them jump.
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