Wait Until Dark (film)

Plot

A woman named Lisa (Samantha Jones) takes a flight from Montreal to New York City, smuggling bags of heroin sewn inside an old-fashioned doll. When she disembarks, Lisa becomes worried upon seeing a man watching her at the John F. Kennedy International Airport and gives the doll to a fellow passenger, professional photographer Sam Hendrix (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) for safekeeping. She is roughly escorted away by the man. Later, when she calls Sam about the doll, he and his wife Susy (Audrey Hepburn), who is blind from an auto accident, are unable to find it.

A few days later, con artists Mike Talman (Richard Crenna) and Carlino (Jack Weston) arrive at Sam and Susy's apartment, believing it to be Lisa's. Harry Roat, Jr. (Alan Arkin), the man who met Lisa at the airport, arrives to persuade Talman and Carlino to help him find the doll. After the con men discover Lisa's body, Roat blackmails them into helping him dispose of it and convinces them to help him find the doll. The next day, Roat sends Sam on a photography assignment. Once Susy is alone, the criminals begin an elaborate con game, posing as different people to win Susy's trust. Implying that Lisa has been murdered and Sam will be suspected, the men persuade Susy to help them find the doll. Mike gives her the number for the phone booth across the street as his own after falsely warning her of a police car outside.

Susy grows suspicious of Carlino and Roat. Gloria (Julie Herrod), a girl who lives upstairs, sneaks in to return the doll and tells Susy that there is no police car outside. Susy finally realizes that the three are criminals and hides the doll. She tells them that the doll is at Sam's studio and the three leave after Roat cuts the telephone cord. Carlino stays behind to stand guard outside the building. Susy sends Gloria to the bus station to wait for Sam. When she 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 bulbs in the apartment except for the 'safe-light.' When Mike returns, he realizes that she knows the truth and demands the doll, but she refuses to cooperate. Mike has come to admire Susy for her quiet strength and ability to stand up to them, despite her disability. He admits to her that he and his confederates are part of a criminal plot, while Roat is the particular danger. He assures her that he has sent Carlino to kill Roat. However, having anticipated their plan, Roat has killed Carlino instead and then kills Mike.

Intent on acquiring the doll, Roat threatens to set the apartment on fire. Susy finally agrees to give him the doll but throws a chemical at Roat's face and unplugs the 'safe light' as the apartment is plunged into darkness. Roat obtains light by opening the refrigerator. Susy, realizing that she has lost the battle, pulls the doll out from its hiding place and hands it to him. While Roat is distracted with it, Susy is able to arm herself with a large kitchen knife. Roat then goes to rape Susy but she stabs him and flees. She is unable to escape the chained front door and stumbles to the kitchen window to scream for help, but Roat grabs her ankle. She wrenches free and conceals herself behind the refrigerator door. Just as he stands to stab her, she unplugs the refrigerator, leading to total darkness yet again. We hear Susy scream in the dark. The police arrive with Sam and Gloria, and Susy is found, unharmed, behind the refrigerator door. She embraces Sam, crying. Roat is finally dead.

Cast

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film, composed by Henry Mancini, was adapted to the film's climax: dark, oppressive and terrifying. Mancini combined with the orchestra two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart, melodic instruments—sitar, electric harpsichord, electric guitar, and a whistler in the main title (a haunting, minor-mode melody in the style of Experiment in Terror). Mancini also composed an alternate main theme that was not used in the film and can be found as "Henry Mancini Alternate Main Title". The title song "Wait Until Dark" was composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.

Exhibition

To immerse viewers in the suspense of the climactic scene, movie theater owners dimmed their lights to the legal limits, and then turned them off, one by one until the audiences were in complete darkness.

Reception

The film was one of the most popular of its year, earning North American rentals of $7,350,000.

Bosley Crowther called it a "barefaced melodrama, without character revelation of any sort, outside of the demonstration of a person with the fortitude to overcome an infirmity"; he liked Hepburn's performance, saying "the sweetness with which Miss Hepburn plays the poignant role, the quickness with which she changes and the skill with which she manifests terror attract sympathy and anxiety to her and give her genuine solidity in the final scenes".

Time magazine said the film had a "better scenario, set and cast" than the play's Broadway production that preceded it, and while "the story is as full of holes as a kitchen colander", "Hepburn's honest, posture-free performance helps to suspend the audience's disbelief" and she is "immensely aided by the heavies: Jack Weston, Richard Crenna, and Alan Arkin....With virtuosity, Hepburn and Arkin collaborate to revive an old theme—The-Helpless-Girl-Against-the-Odds—that has been out of fashion since Dorothy McGuire and Barbara Stanwyck screamed for help in The Spiral Staircase and Sorry, Wrong Number.

Roger Ebert gave the movie three and a half stars and wrote "Miss Hepburn is perhaps too simple and trusting, and Alan Arkin (as a sadistic killer) is not particularly convincing in an exaggerated performance. But there are some nice, juicy passages of terror (including that famous moment when every adolescent girl in the theater screams), and after a slow start the plot does seduce you".

The film currently holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was ranked tenth on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for its riveting climax.

Accolades

American Film Institute recognition