Wait Until Dark
Directed by Terence Young, the action doesn't open up much, but stays in the apartment of Hepburn and her husband, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. On his way from Montreal to New York, he is handed a doll by a beautiful young woman. Turns out the doll is full of heroin, and a psychopathic criminal (Alan Arkin) wants it back. He hires two con-men, Richard Crenna and Jack Weston, to retrieve it.
The film's spine is that Hepburn is trying to become a completely independent woman, and is teaching herself to do things that many blind people don't do. She is at first taken in by Crenna's story that he is Zimbalist's old Marine buddy, and that Arkin is playing the aggrieved husband of a wife who has been murdered, possibly by Zimbalist. But Hepburn, no dummy, sees through their ploy, and it leads to a terrific last act with her facing off with Arkin in a darkened room, which gives her equal odds.
The film takes a while to get going, and a few things are questionable--why doesn't Hepburn just give them the doll once they find it? It means nothing to her, and they might go away (although perhaps she thinks Arkin will kill her anyway). Also, there's not that much heroin in the doll--I have no idea of street prices, but it seems like an awful lot of trouble.
Arkin, who has now entered the cuddly grandpa of his career, is quite a revelation as a sadistic killer. Quentin Tarantino tried the role in a Broadway revival in 1998 but it did not go over well. Arkin played the part laid-back, and it was only that he struck, like a cobra, that you saw how disturbed he was. A segment at the end of the film, when Arkin is soaked in gasoline and Hepburn keeps lighting matches, is particularly well done.
Wait Until Dark is a pretty good thriller that is good viewing on a Friday night.
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