Wait Until Dark is the kind of movie that film lovers watch to feel shitty about the state of modern studio filmmaking. The movie was thoroughly engrossing and I absolutely adored it, but every few scenes I kept shaking my head and saying to myself, "Nobody would make this now." Wait Until Dark is a classic thriller, the kind of story you'd read in an Alfred Hitchcock/Ellery Queen Mystery magazine. It's a slow burn, the tension creaking along on a steady uphill trajectory while the lovable protagonist and the villainous antagonists play a fascinating game of cat-and-mouse. Most studios today don't know what to do with a slow burn thriller, choosing instead to fill the screen with as much flesh and blood as possible, murder or sex every 10 minutes accompanied by a generic orchestral sting. Wait Until Dark is classier by far and peopled by honest-to-goodness ACTORS like Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin, not musician-actress hybrids (coughBeyonceObsessedcough) or CW children looking to play grownup (coughCamGigandetRoommatecough). But enough crying about the industry.
The plot of Wait Until Dark is this: Roat (Arkin) is a dangerous heroin dealer and con man whose model wife Lisa has been selling on the side. Lisa arrives in NYC carrying a heroin-stuffed doll but when she discovers that hubby has followed her into town she hands the doll off to Sam, a photographer she met on the plane. Roat locates Lisa's NYC contacts, a crooked cop named Carlino and a con named Mike, and meets them at Sam's apartment so they can try to find the doll and the drugs. Sam turns out to be the husband of Suzie (Hepburn), a woman blinded in a car accident the year prior. Suzie's frustrated by Sam's well-intentioned expectations for her capabilities and by her dependence on others. Complicating matters is neighbor girl Gloria, who helps around the apartment but often takes out her tween frustrations on Suzie. Sam heads out to a photo shoot, leaving Suzie and Gloria alone. After a brief fight that ends in apologies from Gloria and Suzie both, Gloria leaves for the grocery store. Mike comes by the apartment and claims to be an old Marine buddy of Sam's. Suzie is charmed and delighted to meet Mike as Sam doesn't ever talk about his time in the military. Mike, Carlino, and Roat put on an elaborate con (with Mike and Carlino doing Good Cop-Bad Cop while Roat enters in a variety of convincing guises) to locate the doll, but their con backfires as Suzie's more capable than she seems and Gloria slips in to help. Eventually Suzie realizes that even charming Mike is in on the con. She sends Gloria out to get Sam and the police while she plays cat-and-mouse with the cons. The stakes of the game rise and rise until the deadly climax that takes place almost entirely in darkness. Suzie emerges triumphant, though worse for wear, having proved herself more than capable of surviving as a sightless woman.
I'll admit that my contemporary monkey-mind initially had trouble with Wait's slow approach. The movie is structured in a way that introduces the audience to the villains first, waiting until almost a half hour in to let us meet Suzie. In retrospect this was a wise decision as it not only sets up an important tension between the villains but also shows the audience that these guys are dangerous. Hepburn carries with her a certain degree of audience empathy so it isn't as important to see her first, particularly as Suzie's blindness puts us on her side anyway. This slow approach also helps create rising tension, a component sadly lacking in many contemporary horror/thriller films. Contemporary horror/thriller struggles to balance action with the build up to action, resulting in films on the wrong side of either spectrum. So we get the Saw series where every moment is just time between elaborate deaths or House of the Devil where nothing happens at all until the last 5 minutes. By contrast, Wait Until Dark strings the audience along, throwing out tense moments every so often and slowly increasing the risks of the game until our eyes are bugging out of our skulls with wanting to see what happens next. I started this movie skeptical and slumped in my chair but by the end I was literally leaning forward with my face inches from the screen.
The structure wasn't the only element of Wait Until Dark that had me skeptical but eventually won me over completely. Audrey Hepburn's a star, no doubt, but her British accent and attitude are off-putting when Suzie first shows up. Her performance seems awfully mannered, her character melodramatic, and the film uses several "glamour" soft-focus close-ups in that first act. What's really fascinating is how the cinematographer strips away those soft-focus close-ups, the writer motivates the melodrama with dialogue and a relationship with a tween, and Hepburn broadens Suzie's emotional range. It's all done slowly and in such a way that I barely noticed. But I did notice, and I have to believe that it was the intent of the filmmakers to warm us up to Suzie while simultaneously putting her in increasing peril. We come to respect Suzie because we didn't think she was capable of the cunning she later displays, and this cunning also gets her deeper into trouble. The way this movie wins you over is frankly brilliant. But it does require patience, which so many contemporary films and audiences lack. (I know, "Enough bitching about modern film, Newt!" It's just a major element of my reaction.)
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other standout performances in this film. Alan Arkin is superb as the creepy but oddly charming Roat. Arkin imbues Roat with a constantly working intellect tainted by violent impulses. Roat's dangerous because he's smart and because you never quite know what he's going to do next. There's a sly ruthlessness in Roat that you don't get from small-time con Mike. Speaking of whom, Richard Crenna holds his own in the difficult role of Good Cop. In some ways it's easier to play Roat as he's more broadly villainous. By comparison, Crenna has to win over Hepburn, keep Roat off his back, and not make the audience wonder why he doesn't just sock the poor woman in the face and be done. Crenna gives Mike a soft edge that lets the audience know he means business, but he's not a psychotic like Roat. If Arkin/Roat wasn't so much damn fun, I'd say Crenna's was the best male performance in the film. But Arkin really nails the psycho villain role.
As before, here are some random thoughts I had during the film:
- Lisa (played by 60s model Samantha Jones) is so damn 60s HOT!
- Opening music is weird, uncomfortable. I dig it. Good stuff.
- Wait... at the airport, why could we hear the foley sound but not the dialogue? Was that a choice?
- Cold NYC street - oh my god, that looks AWESOME! Stupid L.A. summer...
- Old-school thug types are fantastic. There's just something respectful and classy about them.
- Arkin looks and sounds like a young Raimi kid! It's so weird!
- Movies didn't care about bad ADR as much back then, did they?
- The tension of how much Suzy can figure out and how the thugs can get away with it is pretty great.
- How much does she know? How much has she figured out? I HAVE TO KNOW!!!
- "How would you like to do something dangerous?" "I'd love it!" Hahahahahahaha.... this is only something you would see in an older film. People today are so sensitive about the safety of children, no movie character on earth could endanger a kid like this now. We need to go back to endangering children in movies.
- Jeez, Audrey, dial it back a scoche. The phone line's cut, not your femoral artery.
- Holy shit!!! This climax in the dark is AWESOME!!!
- After all that, Sam's patronizing "you're doing fine" schtick is some bullshit! Suzie should kick him in the balls and be like, "I know I'm doing fine, you dickweed! I just knifed a motherfucker!!!" Seriously, he said that line and I got furious on Suzie's behalf. "You're doing fine." ..... Go to hell, 60s male chauvanism.
As far as the theme goes, I'd say this was a huge success. The film features a blind person. The central tension relies on the fact that she's blind. Her lack of sight informs her character but doesn't define it. All in all, well done.
Between the limited physical space used in the film, the plot motivator of a handicap, and the emphasis on sight (or lack thereof), Wait Until Dark reminded me a lot of Rear Window, my favorite Hitchcock film. This fondness for Rear Window likely colored my feelings here, but I can objectively state that Wait Until Dark is a fine classic thriller that should please any fan of the genre and will greatly reward those who have the patience.
I have to say that this is a very strong opening to the theme, which is a little worrisome. Hopefully at least one of the remaining three films will come close to the brilliance of Wait Until Dark.
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