Wait Until Dark

Veteran James Bond director Terence Young helms this fine adaptation of a Frederick Knott (Dial M for Murder) play. Slow-moving, talky and a bit contrived, Wait Until Dark (1967) works due to skilled direction and an excellent cast.

High-strung professional criminal Roat (Alan Arkin) hires two novice crooks (Richard Crenna and James Weston) into a bizarre scheme to retrieve a doll filled with heroin. The doll was hidden in the apartment of Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn), a woman who was recently blinded in an accident and is still adjusting to her handicap. When Susy's husband (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) is away, Roat and his colleagues play an elaborate con on Susy to have her locate the doll in question. However, with the help of precocious upstairs neighbor Gloria (Julie Herrod), Susy gradually gets wise to the crooks and finds herself fighting for her life.

Wait Until Dark could be a one-note gimmick, but Young makes it into an ace thriller. The story is opened up just enough to work as a movie but the film remains mostly on one set. This has the benefit of keeping the action focused but also makes it very talky and a bit stiff and slow-going at points. The story is clever but somewhat hard to swallow; fortunately, the film doesn't keep Susy in the dark any longer than it needs to and Young overcomes the rough patches inherent in the material.

For much of its length, the film moves in fits and starts, but gains momentum as it moves along. Young and writers Robert and Jane-Howard Carrington cleverly allow Susy to slowly catch on, with some neat aural clues allowing her to see through (hey, another pun!) the crooks's scheme. The movie really comes to life in the last half hour, when Susy confronts a murderous Roat. This extended sequence is a masterpiece of suspense that Hitchcock would envy, as the two attempt to gain the upper-hand in various states of darkness; the plotting is extremely clever and the tension does not let up for a second.

Audrey Hepburn is in top form, convincingly playing Susy as a strong yet vulnerable woman, trapped in the ultimate nightmare and struggling to keep her wits about her. It could easily be a gimmick of "Audrey Hepburn as a blind lady" but Hepburn's superb performance transcends such judgment. Alan Arkin (Sunshine Cleaning) makes one slimy bad guy, and Richard Crenna (The Sand Pebbles) and Jack Weston (The Thomas Crown Affair) provide solid bench support.

Wait Until Dark ends up a top-notch thriller. It transcends its stage origins to become a rivetting, nerve-wracking and well-crafted film.