Wait Until Dark

Warner Brothers (1967) Color, 108 Min's


In this movie Audrey Hepburn plays a young blind woman, (blinded right before the movie starts)her husband helps her adjust. The item of interest in this film is a doll, (unknown by Hepburn) stuffed with something, a gang of cons and killers wants badly enough to kill. Allan Arkin plays Roat, who blackmails ex-cons (Richard Crenna and Jack Weston) to find the doll. They send Susy's(Hepburn)  husband away on business. After gaining her trust Mike(Crenna) underhandedly convinces her she has to help them find the doll. The last twenty minutes is suppose to be harrowing. (I personally do not find it so.)

Trivia:

At the time the film was released, each light in the theaters were turned off in turn as Susy smashed the light bulbs. Taking the lighting down to the lowest legal limit for the last twelve minutes of the movie.

At the beginning there is a warning:  'During the last eight minutes of this picture the theatre will be darkened to the legal limit, to heighten the terror of the breathtaking climax which takes place in nearly total darkness on the screen. If there are sections where smoking is permitted, those patrons are respectfully requested not to jar the effect by lighting up during this sequence. And of course, no one will be seated at this time.


While making an interview for the DVD, it is claimed that Alan Arkin spoke about once when he was attending a viewing of the film when he heard what was called "a scream from like a thousand people, which scared me." When he asked what it was, he was told, "It was you!" Arkin also said that this went on at screenings of the film for months, and at the climatic moment of the film the viewers went "Berserk!"


Quotes:

Susy Hendrix: Sam, are you looking at me?
Sam Hendrix: Yes.
[Susy sticks her tongue out at him]

Susy Hendrix: Sam, are you there?
[pause]
Susy Hendrix: No, Susy, I'm not here.

Sam Hendrix: [Susy calls his studio] Hendrix here.
Susy Hendrix: [mocking his tone] Hendrix here too.

Sam Hendrix: Susy, is that you?
Susy Hendrix: No, Batman!

Susy Hendrix: Gloria?
Gloria: Yeah?
Susy Hendrix: How would you like to do something difficult and terribly dangerous?
Gloria: I'd love it!