OT: Belated RIP, Alan Arkin - Psycho (1960) Discussion

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Arkin's death made me sadder than celebrity deaths usually do. The man was just such a treasure, always bringing intelligence to his varied characters. He never went with the characterization you would expect and his characters often featured inner contradictions that made them feel like real people, even in a feel-good comedy like LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE or a sentimental tearjerker like THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER. Lead or supporting role, he rarely ever phoned it in.

Hollywood tried turning him into a bonafide star back in the late 60s, but he was too much of a character actor to settle into a fixed leading man image. Following his Oscar-nominated turn in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, Arkin was offered a supporting part in the Natalie Wood comedy PENELOPE, but instead he went for a small role in Vittorio de Sica's anthology WOMAN TIMES SEVEN as a suicidal lover too squeamish to actually pull the trigger, and then the homicidal maniac in WAIT UNTIL DARK. He purposely picked diverse parts to challenge himself. I really admire his career stretch between 1966 and 1970 in particular for that reason: no two of those parts were alike and with the exception of the INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU role, he nailed them all.

But his whole career fascinates me, from his heyday in the 60s and 70s, the mostly crap years of the 1980s (CHU CHU AND THE PHILLY FLASH, the awful sitcom HARRY in which he starred as a con artist in charge of a hospital's inventory, etc.), and his resurgence as a character actor extraordinaire from the 1990s through the 2020s. The two roles I'll always associate him with are Roat from Wait Until Dark and Sheldon from The In-Laws-- polar opposite characters, both brilliantly played. At the very least, he lived a long time, had a great career, and seems to have enjoyed a close relationship with his family. Dying at 89 in such a condition is enviable.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

"the rather workmanlike shot of Arkin's stuntman leaping at Hepburn"

There's an interesting story behind that shot!

WAIT UNTIL DARK was famous for its jump scare the moment the play opened in 1966. However, capturing this moment on film proved to be a challenge for director Terence Young. The issue: how to angle the shot. Any filmmaker adapting a play wants to make sure he or she isn't just shooting the story like a stage play, but there's also the temptation to be, as Young put it, "too clever."

The 1966 screenplay suggests the following: "CAMERA PANS as Susy, terrified by things unseen, bolts down the stairs. CAMERA BECOMES STATIC as Susy turns at the bottom of the stairs and runs straight at CAMERA. As Susy approaches the bedroom door, Roat flies out in front of her as though shot from a cannon. Blood drips from his face."

Lots of differences from the finished movie. The bedroom seems to be in a different location entirely and Roat jumps out in front of Susy rather than charging her from behind as in the finished film. Also there's a lot more camera movement. (Not to mention more visible blood. The screenplay called for Susy to stab Roat multiple times instead of the single thrust to the gut she lands in the finished film.)

(to be contd)

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

However, Young didn't opt for this arrangement. At first, he experimented with multiple shots and angles, going for a more artistic and claustrophobic presentation of the jump before settling for the wide shot used in the final version. In a 1972 interview in The Making of Feature Films, he recalled:

"I don't shoot from many angles and I try to cut my films in the camera. In any case, too much cutting can ruin an emotional scene... The climactic scene from Wait Until Dark - a scene which made even the critics at the press show scream- shows a supposedly dead man leap out of nowhere and grab at the blind Audrey Hepburn. I originally filmed this sequence all in close-ups, with five different camera positions. It didn't work. So I tried again- photographing the entire sequence in long-shot, showing the whole set, Audrey Hepburn going up the stairs of her apartment, shaking the door, finding it locked, thinking of the window, coming downstairs again, starting across the room, then bang! he grabs her. It was essential for the audience to see the whole room all the time, in order to shout, 'God! Where did he come from?' There wasn't a single cut in the final version, all that use of close-ups was an attempt to be too clever."

Apparently, studio head Jack Warner didn't like the shot (Ferrer claims he asked, "Why is it so wide??") and wasn't sure it would have the desired jolt effect. Seeing hundreds of people shriek at a preview at Grauman's Chinese proved him wrong.

It's a simple shot ("workmanlike" is a perfect descriptor for Young as a director in general-- not that he was without talent, but he was not one for visual flourishes), but man, it works damn well and it draws shocked expletives from every person I have ever shown it to, many of whom are no stranger to horror. I knew about the scare before seeing the movie and it still made my heart stop when it happened. A movie scare for the ages and endlessly copied ever since.

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[–] liscarkat (18367) a year ago

I, too, saw "Wait until Dark" in a theater in 1968, and it's true, the audience screamed when Arkin's character leapt across the screen towards Hepburn in the dark apartment. My heart was pounding, I jumped out of my seat and damn near fell on the floor! When I see it on tv, I still get nervous when I know that moment is coming.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

(Arkin) purposely picked diverse parts to challenge himself. I really admire his career stretch between 1966 and 1970 in particular for that reason: no two of those parts were alike and with the exception of the INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU role, he nailed them all.

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His Inspector Clouseau was a big mistake but as I recall, they simply couldn't get Sellers for the part -- and it wasn't by Blake Edwards. I guess it was like that "ersatz Bond" -- Casino Royale of 1967. One realized that Arkin's persona could be VERY funny but not for Clouseau. Hitchcock note: a few names down in support was none other than Barry Foster -- Hitchcocks killer in Frenzy. That was the problem with Foster -- he never really rose above support in movies. He became a TV detective lead, I've read.

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But his whole career fascinates me, from his heyday in the 60s and 70s, the mostly crap years of the 1980s (CHU CHU AND THE PHILLY FLASH, the awful sitcom HARRY in which he starred as a con artist in charge of a hospital's inventory, etc.), and his resurgence as a character actor extraordinaire from the 1990s through the 2020s.

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That's an interesting arc, and it happens to character guys, it seems. They hit this long slump -- poor movies, bad roles and then, suddenly, out of nowhere they start working again and BIG. The 80's was tough on a lot of specific stars and directors, actually -- Scorsese struggled, Pacino took a few years off, Nicholson did supporting roles a little bit, etc.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

The two roles I'll always associate him with are Roat from Wait Until Dark and Sheldon from The In-Laws-- polar opposite characters, both brilliantly played.

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Yes, I think that's about right. What's funny today when I look at Wait Until Dark is that I clearly see and hear ALAN ARKIN. Back in 1967, he was much lesser known as a screen personality. As Cary Grant advised new actors, "make a lot of movies so people recognize you like a favorite brand." Arkin wasn't there yet with Wait Until Dark -- so Roat didn't seem LIKE Alan Arkin. He was just this really scary guy with some really deadpan humorous lines. To brave Audrey Hepburn, after he killed his two henchmen:

Arkin: Did you know they wanted to kill me? Those two had comic book minds. You saw right through them.
Hepburn: I saw through you, too.
Arkin: No, not all the way, Suzy. Even now...not all the way. I went along with their plan and now its topsy turvey. Me topsy, them turvey. (Actually he says "Topsey toivey. Me, topsey, dem toivey.")

And the grand comic evil when Roat drags Audrey towards the bedroom and death -- maybe worse.

Audrey: You said you wouldn't kill me.
Arkin: Did I? I must have had my fingers crossed behind my back.

EVIL. Smiling evil. Boy did they cheer when he died. And screamed when he didn't.

As for the guy in the In-Laws, just a perfect set up: his fellow in-law, calm but nutty Peter Falk(a CIA man of weird ideas) keeps putting Arkin in death's path and in one great scene(on a small private jet on the runway), Falk keeps babbling on in insane chatter as Arkin OWNS the scene in cutaways, just sitting there, somewhere between terror and incredulousness ("How did I get stuck with this moron?") True in-laws fans know this line "Run..serpentine!")

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I would need to go through Arkin's imdb list to find more great turns but these three come to mind off the top of my head:

Glengarry Glen Ross: in a room full of angry venal men, and one pathetic one(Jack Lemmon), Alan Arkin comes across -- oddly -- as the only "regular guy" in the room -- how did HE end up with these crooks? (Alas, he's one too.)

The Rocketeer: They called him "Pops" or something and he was the wise old mechanic-mentor to the handsome young hero. You WANTED him there, you NEEDED him there.

Grosse Pointe Blank: John Cusack's best movie IMHO. Dan Ackroyd is actually funny in it and Arkin is great as a psychiatrist, who UNLIKE Dr. Melfi on The Sopranos, is TERRIFIED that his patient is a hit man("You never told me what you did until later!")

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

At the very least, (Arkin) lived a long time, had a great career, and seems to have enjoyed a close relationship with his family. Dying at 89 in such a condition is enviable.

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Great age to live to. He seems to have been beloved by his family and was in demand to the end -- remember, they wanted him BACK for another season of that show with Michael Douglas. And the third season without him just wasn't the same. We were already experiencing "the loss of Alan Arkin."

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

It was essential for the audience to see the whole room all the time, in order to shout, 'God! Where did he come from?' There wasn't a single cut in the final version, all that use of close-ups was an attempt to be too clever."

Apparently, studio head Jack Warner didn't like the shot (Ferrer claims he asked, "Why is it so wide??") and wasn't sure it would have the desired jolt effect. Seeing hundreds of people shriek at a preview at Grauman's Chinese proved him wrong.

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elizabethjoestar, all of that information on the famous "jump shot" was fascinating and a reminder that what plays quickly on the screen may have gone through hours, DAYS of preparation, different takes, different decisions before playing out.

I can't even picture the script version with Roat appearing the foreground(and I expect that Audrey Hepburn said, "Look, I'm only going to stab him once.") The movie version with the long shot is terrifying indeed because we get that long shot for a LONG time and we are engrossed in Audrey's movements and inability to escape(even with Roat supposedly dead) and tripping over the dead Richard Crenna and heading screen RIGHT for help and THEN, Roat makes a spectacular desperate dive from screen LEFT and ...well I'll never forget that scene, the crowd, that night in my life.

And "if you were there" in the full-house theater, the screams did NOT end with Roat's jump. For he manages as he falls to the floor -- mortally wounded -- to grab Hepburn's ankle with his hand(enwrapped in a saran wrap glove filling with blood, a macabre touch) and then she breaks loose and runs (she's blind) to a corner to hide and Roat keeps dragging himself using the knife blade to pull himself along and he has ONE goal before he dies (to KILL Hepburn) and the audience just kept SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING until the scene ended suddenly on Hepburn's final scream.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Man I get the shakes just remembering it -- AND the sudden cut to a police car NOW roaring down the street up to the apartment building, siren blaring, red lights on, Hepburn's husband(Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) inside -- rescuers arrived it seems , too late.

But no. What a great ending.
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It's a simple shot ("workmanlike" is a perfect descriptor for Young as a director in general-- not that he was without talent, but he was not one for visual flourishes),

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Well, Terrence Young directed a couple of the Connery Bonds(two? three?) and I found one interview where he said "and also Wait Until Dark, which turned out well."(Don't be so modest) and I'll say that I didn't mean "workmanlike" against him, but just in comparision to the dynamics of the 'Arbogast overhead," which Hitchcock loaded up with careful details because he COULD:

The overhead shot.
Mother's sudden, very weird "walk stomp" directly at Arbogast.
The knife blade catching a flash of light as she raised it to kill
Arbogast -- screen left -- continuing his walk for a millisecond of complacency before seeing Mother coming right at him(bigger scream from the audience, now)
And even: the shadows on the side wall OF Mother attacking Arbogast -- a small detail that Hitchcock HAD to set up with lighting, etc.

Terrence Young -- having that great big (historic) shock scene -- directed it JUST RIGHT, workmanlike fit the action.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

And note, what was classic about the Wait Until Dark "jump cut" -- what was historic -- was that everybody thought Roat was DEAD...but he wasn't. Now , we've seen that one in so many movies over the decades(like Misery) that we EXPECT it ("She's not REALLY dead.") I think one movie played a joke on that cliche(which was NOT a cliche in WAD)...the dead person STAYED dead. Hah.

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but man, it works damn well and it draws shocked expletives from every person I have ever shown it to, many of whom are no stranger to horror. I knew about the scare before seeing the movie and it still made my heart stop when it happened.

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I didn't know EXACTLY about the scare, but the Time magazine review had me on guard when I came into the theater: it had a photo of Arkin staggering, knife in hand behind Hepburn at the refrigerator.

I had not seen that shot yet, so when Arkin was "dead" I thought -- "Maybe he's not dead -- that photo from Time hasn't happened yet."

But I still jumped and maybe I screamed and I remember this vividly: for about the last 10 minutes of the movie, my leg jumped up and down so uncontrollably that I had to pound it down with my hand -- like Dr. Strangelove.

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A movie scare for the ages and endlessly copied ever since.

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All as true as can be :"for the ages and endlessly copies ever since." (He/she/it is NOT dead, after all!)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I, too, saw "Wait until Dark" in a theater in 1968, and it's true, the audience screamed when Arkin's character leapt across the screen towards Hepburn in the dark apartment. My heart was pounding, I jumped out of my seat and damn near fell on the floor!

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Those of us in the "saw Wait Until Dark on release" category -- older though we may be -- get to take THAT great movie memory with us through our lives. "There when it first happened."

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I can't even picture the script version with Roat appearing the foreground
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It's so weird because in the play he comes out from behind as in the finished film... obviously because that would make the most sense given the way a stage is positioned before an audience. Maybe the screenwriters thought a foreground jump would be more cinematic?
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I expect that Audrey Hepburn said, "Look, I'm only going to stab him once."
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That is very likely. There were interviews before the film's release in which Hepburn shared how squeamish she was about having to stab someone onscreen. (They didn't seem to care about spoilers at all back then-- I also saw a newspaper clipping that spoiled Arkin killing Jack Weston with a car.) Another interesting detail is that Hepburn claimed WUD featured her first movie murder, but it was actually her second-- she shot another character in 1960's THE UNFORGIVEN, but I expect gunning down a man across a room is less unpleasant to film than stabbing an attacker at close quarters. (Despite her resistance to onscreen killing, Hepburn would murder again in ROBIN AND MARIAN-- though using poison instead of a knife.)

Actually, it's weird-- we never see the knife go in. The moment is shot in silhouette, with Arkin pressing himself against Hepburn, making the two one massive shadow. You don't even realize she stabbed him until he falls back and then we get that shot of him on the floor with the knife in his gut. Maybe the staging had to do with her not wanting to partake in too much onscreen bloodletting. Regardless, still effective as hell.
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his hand(enwrapped in a saran wrap glove filling with blood, a macabre touch)
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Always loved that detail-- gross and creepy.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

Glengarry Glen Ross: in a room full of angry venal men, and one pathetic one(Jack Lemmon), Alan Arkin comes across -- oddly -- as the only "regular guy" in the room -- how did HE end up with these crooks? (Alas, he's one too.)

Alan Arkin even when he's not the star is such a welcome surprise in a film. He's got an interesting face and voice and, really, since the very beginning of his career he's always had a querulous air about him, a way of approaching lines that registers as a questioning, intelligent spirit. He often, as in Glengarry, ends up being a surprising point of identification for the audience for this reason. Put another way, he tends to radiate a little more individuality than everyone around him, and even cast among a group of lowlifes or psychos or functionaries of a police state he'll stand out as the one you could imagine actually being, e.g., in Gattaca (1997) to mention a film no one else has yet.

Arkin also showed himself to be a more than useful director, open to experimentation and surreal touches with Little Murders (1971) - the Glengarry Glen Ross of its time? He shares credit for that film with Jules Feiffer (screenwriter/playwright who did Carnal Knowledge the same year) and Gordon Willis (DP) and with his talented cast including peak Elliot Gould (Arkin has a small role) but, take a bow Mr Arkin, you directed the hell out of that film.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

Note that in the key Season 5 ep. of Mad Men 'The Other Woman', whose A-story is Joan sleeping with a client at the company's behest (advancing herself at terrible cost) we also see various other women of the show suffering indignities. In particular, we see Don's young wife Megan relentlessly ogled and made uncomfortable at an unsuccessful audition for the *play* of Little Murders.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

LITTLE MURDERS is fantastic, probably the bleakest comedy I've ever seen. I laughed very hard throughout, but the ending is chilling. I still haven't rewatched it because it gutted me so, but maybe I should. The actor who stole the show there was Donald Sutherland as a hippie minister.

Arkin only directed one more feature film, the far less well-received FIRE SALE, an ensemble comedy about a dysfunctional family. The press hated it and audiences stayed away. (Apparently this film's trailer was the one that always played before STAR WARS when it released in 1977, or so several comments on YouTube say.) I watched it recently and it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's not very successful either. It's just a shame its failure seems to have discouraged Arkin from directing another movie, though he continued to direct a few stage productions in the 1980s.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I haven't seen GROSSE POINTE BLANK yet (my brother-in-law loves it, so I'm sure he'll have me watch it soon enough), but those others are fantastic. THE ROCKETEER is great fun all around and GLEN GLENGARRY ROSS is among the best ensemble movies of all time.

Some others that come to mind:

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, where Arkin plays a sympathetic but cold and willfully isolated deaf-mute. POPI has him walking the fine line between likable and unlikable as a father whose crackpot plan to secure a better life for his sons almost gets them killed. SIMON is a Woody Allen style satire where Arkin plays an intellectual who's brainwashed into thinking he's an alien messiah. The movie is a little too long, but it's funny. THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE is a so-bad-it's-good superhero send-up with Arkin as a drunk caped crusader out to stop evil Christopher Lee. Oh and it's a musical too. By the people who made THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. Yeah.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Falk keeps babbling on in insane chatter as Arkin OWNS the scene in cutaways, just sitting there, somewhere between terror and incredulousness
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Arkin's reactions are just gold. I love the scene on the plane in the runway-- he goes from annoyance and incredulity to terror once he realizes they're going out of the country.

His line deliveries throughout crack me up just thinking about them: "I will not be shot at!" "There are flames on my car!"

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

His Inspector Clouseau was a big mistake but as I recall, they simply couldn't get Sellers for the part -- and it wasn't by Blake Edwards. I guess it was like that "ersatz Bond"
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Casino Royale of 1967. One realized that Arkin's persona could be VERY funny but not for Clouseau.--I couldn't even finish the '67 CASINO ROYALE. What a nightmare.

Yeah, Sellers and Edwards were working on THE PARTY (one of my favorite comedies ever). INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU was burdened by a bad working relationship between Arkin and director Bud Yorkin, and some heavy editing come postproduction that apparently muddled plot clarity. The writing is very meh, though honestly, the movie does have a few good moments that save it from being... eh, on the same lowly level as the Steve Martin movies. I like the scene where Clouseau plays jacks on the train, for instance.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Glengarry Glen Ross: in a room full of angry venal men, and one pathetic one(Jack Lemmon), Alan Arkin comes across -- oddly -- as the only "regular guy" in the room -- how did HE end up with these crooks? (Alas, he's one too.)

swanstep wrote:

Alan Arkin even when he's not the star is such a welcome surprise in a film. He's got an interesting face and voice and, really, since the very beginning of his career he's always had a querulous air about him, a way of approaching lines that registers as a questioning, intelligent spirit.

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Yes. With Mr. Arkin now passed away we can review his long career -- even with some "dips" in the 80s -- and realize that he was one of the actors who ALWAYS delivered -- we felt good to see him enter a movie. A guaranteed laugh in a comedy...a certain empathy and intelligence if not.

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He often, as in Glengarry, ends up being a surprising point of identification for the audience for this reason.

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Yes. I recall being "wowed" by Pacino's speechifying, and by Ed Harris' unbridled rage and, yes, by Alec Baldwin's famous opening cameo as a Very Mean Man sent down to scare hell out of the salesmen("Third prize is...you're FIRED!"). Jack Lemmon was simply too sad to feel "fun" about; Kevin Spacey was there but not Kevin Spacey yet...and, there was Alan Arkin, a comforting presence, a quizzical man -- clearly our point of identification. (And I figured he'd come out of things the best, perhaps.)

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Put another way, he tends to radiate a little more individuality than everyone around him, and even cast among a group of lowlifes or psychos or functionaries of a police state he'll stand out as the one you could imagine actually being,

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Well stated.

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e.g., in Gattaca (1997) to mention a film no one else has yet.

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Indeed. Haven't seen it. I checked his imdb list and man it goes on FOREVER.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I checked his imdb list and man it goes on FOREVER....to wit:

I remembered as I read them:

He was in Argo -- a Best Picture winner -- and I remember he was GREAT, but I don't remember exactly why. Ha.

He was in Edward Scissorhands -- a typical American suburban dad who liked the weird Scissorhands, was willing to keep him as a house guest, and kept calling him "Ed." Arkin was nice when most of the other suburbanites(save his nice wife and family) were NOT.

He was in So I Married An Axe Murderer , as a "cop boss" who gently refused to EVER tell his men "there is heat coming down on me from above to solve this case!" He would protest "But there is NO heat coming down on me for you to solve this case."

He was in Hearts of the West as a silent movie director who yelled at novice silent actor Jeff Bridges: "You are SMALL POTATOES! Small potatoes indeed!" (Arkin was a real highlight in that movie -- it NEEDED him. Sometimes a movie really needed Alan Arkin in it to lift it up for comedy.)

And he had a flat out lead as Dr. Sigmond Freud to Nicol Williamson's Sherlock Holmes in "The Seven Percent Solution."

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I find this a bit weird: Arkin had such a multi-decade career AFTER Wait Until Dark that it is as if the Evil Roat was a different actor entirely -- someone from the 60s who never "caught up" to the rest of Arkin's career, let alone his persona.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

swanstep wrote:

Arkin also showed himself to be a more than useful director, open to experimentation and surreal touches with Little Murders (1971) - the Glengarry Glen Ross of its time? He shares credit for that film with Jules Feiffer (screenwriter/playwright who did Carnal Knowledge the same year) and Gordon Willis (DP) and with his talented cast including peak Elliot Gould (Arkin has a small role) but, take a bow Mr Arkin, you directed the hell out of that film.

Note that in the key Season 5 ep. of Mad Men 'The Other Woman', whose A-story is Joan sleeping with a client at the company's behest (advancing herself at terrible cost)

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Yes it was. I always felt that Mad Men took a very dark turn downwards when Joan did that -- with the acquiesence of pretty much every man in the company(except Don)...and later on, OTHER men accused Joan of getting her partnership...exactly how she DID. Realistic show.

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we also see various other women of the show suffering indignities. In particular, we see Don's young wife Megan relentlessly ogled and made uncomfortable at an unsuccessful audition for the *play* of Little Murders.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar wrote:

LITTLE MURDERS is fantastic, probably the bleakest comedy I've ever seen. I laughed very hard throughout, but the ending is chilling. I still haven't rewatched it because it gutted me so, but maybe I should. The actor who stole the show there was Donald Sutherland as a hippie minister.

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Donald Sutherland AND Alan Arkin himself each did cameos, each in a different way. Elliott Gould had the male lead so his scene with Sutherland was a "MASH the movie reunion."

There can be no doubt that Little Murders is one of the bleakest movies ever made -- from an equally bleak play. It postulates an NYC in which everyone lives behind locked doors because to go out is to risk sniper fire on a daily basis -- and sometimes the bullets breach the apartment windows.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Arkin became the director after Mike Nichols turned the movie down -- too nightmarish and bleak. But there can be no doubt the laughs are there -- Arkin's cop shows up to becry all the unsolved murders assigned to him -- growing every day. Sutherland's preacher is there to marry Gould and his beloved -- while making a wacky speech that(as I recall) rather casts aspersions ON marriage.

As a young teen with a movie jones in the early 70s, I ended up exposed to quite a few "dark depressing films" with the overall message: "America is a nightmare, all is lost." I could say these films left me in a depressive state, but they didn't. They did give me pause for thought, though. "Little Murders" was the worst of them, but I will also note two George C. Scott movies -- The Hospital(about a NYC hospital) and The New Centurions(about LA cops) that were big downers, too. (Scott is suicidal in both movies, and succeeds in one.) Paul Newman's labor of love WUSA(co-starring Anthony Perkins) was an overall political downer -- these movies(starring rich movie stars) were REALLY down on life.

Decades later, things look just as bad but hey -- we made it through the last 50 years, we will make it through the next 50 years..

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I haven't seen GROSSE POINTE BLANK yet (my brother-in-law loves it, so I'm sure he'll have me watch it soon enough),

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Its a lot of fun. Cusack plays a hit man(with a military background) who agrees to go to his 10th year high school reunion -- and kill someone on the side there. Great script, great players, great comic timing -- again, Dan Ackroyd as a nutcase hit man trying to start a "hit man's union" is better than he ever was in movies -- and(bonus) some very funny snappy patter between Cusack and his real life sister Joan as the hit man's secretary.

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but those others are fantastic. THE ROCKETEER is great fun all around and GLEN GLENGARRY ROSS is among the best ensemble movies of all time.

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There came a time, I think, when Alan Arkin "knew how to pick 'em," and ended up in a lot of good movies for different reasons. And then there are the roles he had to quit where we lost him: The Carl Reiner role in Ocean's 11 2001, for one.

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Some others that come to mind:

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, where Arkin plays a sympathetic but cold and willfully isolated deaf-mute.

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Oscar nom, yes? And not too long after Wait Until Dark. But...we know the Academy. Affliction gets nominations and, often, wins.

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POPI has him walking the fine line between likable and unlikable as a father whose crackpot plan to secure a better life for his sons almost gets them killed.

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That's one I have not seen. I have a feeling I'm going to build a big list of unseen Arkins to catch up with.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

SIMON is a Woody Allen style satire where Arkin plays an intellectual who's brainwashed into thinking he's an alien messiah. The movie is a little too long, but it's funny.

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I believe it was written by a Woody Allen co-writer.

I recall visiting the movie district in Westwood Village (next to UCLA) some years after it hosted the megalines of "The Exorcist" in 73/74, and a theater was showing SIMON. I didn't go in, but weirdly I will always connect that release with Westwood Village --because in Westwood Village, ANY premiering movie gets a HUGE marquee sign and GIANT photos of the stars and scenes from the film -- its designed as an event..

Side-bar: Hitchcock's Frenzy(1972) didn't play Westwood Village first but it DID play the Hollywood Cinerama Dome. I saw it there and IT was given the "Westwood treatment" -- several giant versions of the Frenzy poster(with Barry Foster clearly the necktie killer, thus ruining the misdirection of the first half hour), GIANT photos of scenes from the film(like Blaney flinging himself down the prison staircase.) There was then -- and I suppose is now -- something fun and special about seeing a movie playing at one of the Hollywood/Westwood megatheaters.

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THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE is a so-bad-it's-good superhero send-up with Arkin as a drunk caped crusader out to stop evil Christopher Lee. Oh and it's a musical too. By the people who made THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. Yeah.

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Wow. Well Arkin and Lee and Rocky Horror SOUND like a deal. But you cant bat 1000, Mr. Arkin.

Batted close enough for me over the decades though.

"Him topsy, them turvey."

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I can't even picture the script version with Roat appearing the foreground
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It's so weird because in the play he comes out from behind as in the finished film... obviously because that would make the most sense given the way a stage is positioned before an audience. Maybe the screenwriters thought a foreground jump would be more cinematic?

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Maybe -- he would have "filled the screen."

Look, I'm sure the scream would have happened no matter WHERE he jumped from -- folks thought he was dead after all, but what I like about the finished shot -- and here it DOES differ from Mother walking towards Arbogast - is that the killer makes a HUGE, ATHLETIC LEAP through the air at Hepburn and -- and this is great, JUST misses a full tackle of her, hitting the floor with only enough space to grab her ankle.

Thus the scream GROWS with the length of the leap.

Now, I've always figured that leap was made by a stunt man -- you can't see the face -- but I did find, at one time, a "staged photo" from in front of Audrey Hepburn with Arkin clearly visible in mid-leap behind her. Honestly, I dunno, maybe Arkin did make the famous leap on film and that still shot was taken from a different angle.

I can't find that photo of Arkin leaping right now, but I DID find the photo -- on IMDb -- of Arkin crawling up behind Hepburn at the refrigerator with the knife. That's the one that was in the Time magazine review and that had me "on guard" when Arkin was "dead."
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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I expect that Audrey Hepburn said, "Look, I'm only going to stab him once."
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That is very likely. There were interviews before the film's release in which Hepburn shared how squeamish she was about having to stab someone onscreen.

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I think on the DVD doc or elsewhere, its been written that Hepburn actually tried to back out of WUD over the violence and terror of the film -- but Jack Warner held her to her $1 million contract. Still, something quite famous about Wait Until Dark is how really UN-bloody and gory it really is. I can attest to wall to wall screams that night at the movies but -- and perhaps this reflects the more innocent times -- we didn't need blood to drive the screams. Just suspense and tension and terror. For instance, the killing of Richard Crenna has almost no blood at all, but boy did the audience scream when it happened.

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(They didn't seem to care about spoilers at all back then-- I also saw a newspaper clipping that spoiled Arkin killing Jack Weston with a car.)

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Ha. Yeah. A lot of movie promotion back then didn't seem to care about giving things away. It was if they thought they HAD to show the best parts to bring people in.

About Weston getting killed by that car: a magnificently violent "car killing"(against a chain link fence, with a dummy used eventually). I recall that a friend's father picked us up after WUD and as kids, we recounted every killing to him, including Weston's by car. The father listened for a moment and said: "So, the killer TENDERIZED him, huh?"

Consequently, I've always remembered that scene as "when Jack Weston got tenderized in Wait Until Dark."

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Another interesting detail is that Hepburn claimed WUD featured her first movie murder, but it was actually her second-- she shot another character in 1960's THE UNFORGIVEN, but I expect gunning down a man across a room is less unpleasant to film than stabbing an attacker at close quarters.

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I had not read that quote from Hepburn, nor seen THE UNFORGIVEN (one of many movies that was always on TV when I was growing up which I guess I will never see. Of course I have seen Eastwoods just plain UNFORGIVEN many times.

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(Despite her resistance to onscreen killing, Hepburn would murder again in ROBIN AND MARIAN-- though using poison instead of a knife.)

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And a loving murder it was...

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Actually, it's weird-- we never see the knife go in. The moment is shot in silhouette, with Arkin pressing himself against Hepburn, making the two one massive shadow. You don't even realize she stabbed him until he falls back and then we get that shot of him on the floor with the knife in his gut. Maybe the staging had to do with her not wanting to partake in too much onscreen bloodletting. Regardless, still effective as hell.

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Well, the audience was in horror that Arkin WAS going to take her in the bedroom and kill her(and worse?) but we DID know she had the butcher knife now, and as I recall, Hepburn made a "jamming motion" into Arkin's stomach -- once, twice and that's when the audience started cheering.

However: when Arkin falls to the ground clutching the knife in his stomach(?) there is a literal "freeze frame" of his face going motionless which -- I always felt -- was a bit of a giveaway. Arkin couldn't quite "act dead" so the camera did it for him.

--
his hand(enwrapped in a saran wrap glove filling with blood, a macabre touch)
--
Always loved that detail-- gross and creepy.

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Absolutely...and planted way at the beginning of the movie when Arkin is putting on the gloves(then a fairly new 1967 product) and praising them as "disposable off a roll -- from Hammacher Schlemmer!" some sort of New York department store and how Arkin says that is -- well, he did do good comedy.

Anyway, the gloves are "planted" in Act One and pay off bloodily in Act Three.

Which reminds me:

Wait Until Dark, the stage play, was by Frederick Knott, who wrote Dial M for Murder, the stage play and you can "superimpose" Act I of Hitchcock's Dial M(Ray Milland entraps Anthony Dawson into killing for him) over Act 1 of Young's WUD (Alan Arkin entraps Richard Crenna and Jack Weston into joining his crime team). Milland got a great elegant speech to unfurl; Arkin got more of a "psycho comedy hepcat" version -- still the SAME SCENE.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Meanwhile, away from Wait Until Dark:

(The In-Laws): Falk keeps babbling on in insane chatter as Arkin OWNS the scene in cutaways, just sitting there, somewhere between terror and incredulousness
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Arkin's reactions are just gold. I love the scene on the plane in the runway-- he goes from annoyance and incredulity to terror once he realizes they're going out of the country.

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That's right -- I forgot the sequence. All that deadpan and - they are flying AWAY!

I remember all the laughs going to Arkin's reactions, but Falk held up his end -- talking in his Columbo voice but really borderline insane.

A great moment comes near the end, when Arkin and Falk have been tied and blind-folded before a South American firing squad and Arkin actually figures that Falk will get them out of this(paraphrased):

Arkin: So what are you going to do?
Falk: What do you mean?
Arkin: How are you going to get us out of this?
Falk: Well, gee...I dunno. I got nothing. YOU got an idea? I'm all ears...

And then Arkin crying.

Marlon Brando loved the In-Laws, found its writer-director and asked to work with him. The result was the equally funny "The Freshman" with Marlon doing a new take on Don Vito and a pretty funny side plot about Komono Dragons as a delicacy for the superrich.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

And in continuing to memorialize Alan Arkin, I have to again put in my two cents for "Freebie and the Bean"(1974), which remains the biggest LAUGH night of my movie-going life...both in terms of the entire full house and the three(now somewhat older than in Wait Until Dark 1967) male friends with whom I saw the movie. It was not a date night movie, it was for the guys -- it had a real taste for keeping the comedy as violent as possible(like the The Three Stooges with blood) and Arkin was again the straight man to the more nutty other guy(James Caan.)

But hey, Alan Arkin...he had a million of 'em. Lead, support, specialty act. Truly one of the greatest of our era and indeed, his loss stings more than most celebrity passings. He was the kind of star who becomes a "friend."

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

His Inspector Clouseau was a big mistake but as I recall, they simply couldn't get Sellers for the part -- and it wasn't by Blake Edwards. I guess it was like that "ersatz Bond"
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Casino Royale of 1967. One realized that Arkin's persona could be VERY funny but not for Clouseau.--I couldn't even finish the '67 CASINO ROYALE. What a nightmare.

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I think I read somewhere that 1967 Casino Royale actually BEAT 1967 "actual Sean Connery James Bond" You Only Live Twice in earnings -- or cut into it to hold the profits for the Connery below Thunderball. Connery quit the series then for a variety of reasons but maybe seeing the Bond craze start to die was one of them.

I saw Casino Royale on release(its dum-dum climax acteually works better if you are a kid) and I watch it occasionally today. It all makes sense when you understand that Peter Sellers was fired off the movie while still making it -- they "kill him" on screen(through editing) and the movie ends up making no sense at all. Weird: the central set-piece of Fleming's book -- and the 2008 Daniel Craig movie(Bond versus Le Chiffre at baccarat) IS in the 1967 movie, with Sellers versus Orson Welles. And THAT makes sense. Its sort of like how the "Kill HAL before he kills me" sequence in 2001 makes sense in the art film all around it.

And yeah per me: the sheer number of gorgeous women in Casino Royale 1967 was inspirational: Ursula Andress, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Bouchet, Daliah Lavi, Joanna Pettit, a middle-aged but sexy Deborah Kerr...plus assorted "bit part lovelies." Its what the movies are about, some of the time.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Yeah, Sellers and Edwards were working on THE PARTY (one of my favorite comedies ever).

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Mine, too. In the theater with family(and pretty young) I could not BREATHE during some of the comedy segments(like the drunken waiter and the swinging door.)

I never quite got why Peter Sellers Hindu Indian character in The Party didn't get more movies to be in like Clouseau. You know, Sellers would not have a career today. He specialized in accent humor and his Hindu Indian and Chinese characters would not play. French, I guess.

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INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU was burdened by a bad working relationship between Arkin and director Bud Yorkin,

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Yorkin went on to huge success on TV with Norman Lear, but I guess eventually Yorkin was separated off and Lear took all the glory.

Funny: the few Yorkin/Lear movies weren't all that great but they OWNED the 70's on TV. Not with me though. I watched a few All in the Families and decided to go out on Saturday nights instead. Everybody yelling at each other all the time -- a far cry from Hitchcock deadpan.

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and some heavy editing come postproduction that apparently muddled plot clarity. The writing is very meh, though honestly, the movie does have a few good moments that save it from being... eh, on the same lowly level as the Steve Martin movies.

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Never saw those. I"m a "Sellers Clouseau snob," though I do think his 70's versions were more cheapjack and stripped down than the plush first two in the sixties: "The Pink Panther" and "A Shot in the Dark."

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I like the scene where Clouseau plays jacks on the train, for instance.

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I saw Inspecteor Clouseau at the theater with my family -- same theater where I saw The Party -- but no memory of it at all. I watched some of it on cable years later -- that's when I caught Barry Frenzy Foster in the cast -- but no memory of THAT screening, either. I don't remember jacks on the train. Age manifests sometimes.

I'll track down that jacks scene..

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Never saw those. I"m a "Sellers Clouseau snob," though I do think his 70's versions were more cheapjack and stripped down than the plush first two in the sixties: "The Pink Panther" and "A Shot in the Dark."
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The Martin movies can only be described as celluloid cancer. Just garbage. I couldn't finish either one when I caught them on TV in the dim long ago days when I had cable. I've never seen any of the 70s PP films, only the 60s entries. I love A SHOT IN THE DARK though-- everything about that was brilliant. Even without Edwards and Sellers, INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU had a hard act to follow.

Actually another thing CLOUSEAU lacked was Henry Mancini doing the music, which is so essential to the appeal of the first two. Not that the new composer was bad-- I actually quite like the score-- but it doesn't feel as much like a proper PP movie.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Never saw those. I"m a "Sellers Clouseau snob," though I do think his 70's versions were more cheapjack and stripped down than the plush first two in the sixties: "The Pink Panther" and "A Shot in the Dark."
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The Martin movies can only be described as celluloid cancer. Just garbage. I couldn't finish either one when I caught them on TV in the dim long ago days when I had cable.

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I've read bad things about the Martin movies, I just skipped them. I think we have to keep realizing that Hollywood just "cannibalizes properties" until they run them into the ground. What's weird is that supposedly "quality" actors like Steve Martin accept the roles but -- big cash is big cash. (Martin did Father of the Bride and Cheaper By the Dozen remakes too and hell, I SAW him as a stand up in the 70s and ...the hell HAPPENED?

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I've never seen any of the 70s PP films, only the 60s entries.

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Folks so often talk about a 'Golden Age"(or Silver Age) of 70's movies, but except for the Oscar-ish classics and movies like Jaws, I don't always buy in. I recall that the first 70's Pink Panther was "OK, but chintzy" (no studio polish to it) and the ones after that were just lousy EXCEPT for the slapstick of Sellers vs Herbert Lom(who wore out HIS welcome.)

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I love A SHOT IN THE DARK though-- everything about that was brilliant.

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Pretty much the best of the bunch -- it started as a Broadway adaptation(of a Walter Matthau/William Shatner play!) and Clouseau was injected into it.

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Even without Edwards and Sellers, INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU had a hard act to follow.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Actually another thing CLOUSEAU lacked was Henry Mancini doing the music, which is so essential to the appeal of the first two. Not that the new composer was bad-- I actually quite like the score-- but it doesn't feel as much like a proper PP movie.

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Exactly. No Sellers? No Edwards? No Mancini. No Pink Panther. Methinks that Alan Arkin got talked into that one, but he as much as said that he had to work hard to get roles after Wait Until Dark -- not only was he hard to cast(not a matinee idol type) but he'd been SUCH a psycho.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I saw Casino Royale on release(its dum-dum climax acteually works better if you are a kid) and I watch it occasionally today. It all makes sense when you understand that Peter Sellers was fired off the movie while still making it -- they "kill him" on screen(through editing) and the movie ends up making no sense at all.
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I got through about 45 minutes and stopped. Maybe I should try it again. One of my favorite YouTubers mounted an admirable defense of it and perhaps I was just too crabby that day. I do remember liking Deborah Kerr in it... but I like her in anything, so I'm biased.
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I never quite got why Peter Sellers Hindu Indian character in The Party didn't get more movies to be in like Clouseau.
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I found his character very endearing. I especially liked the sweet romance with Claudine Longet. The movie is just so affable that it's become a comfort movie for me. That and the gags are very silent movie-esque-- lots of nods to Keaton and Chaplin.
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You know, Sellers would not have a career today. He specialized in accent humor and his Hindu Indian and Chinese characters would not play. French, I guess.
--
I was thinking this while watching MURDER BY DEATH, where he's in yellowface parodying Charlie Chan (itself a yellowface role played by Warner Oland, if I'm correct), while the guy playing his "adopted Japanese son" is actually Asian. It was so bizarre. But then that whole movie is bizarre.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I got through about 45 minutes (of Casino Royale) and stopped. Maybe I should try it again.

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Eh, probably not. It isn't a movie that gets better as it goes along. I take the ride mainly for the Burt Bacharach score(overall, but the movie yielded both the great Herb Alpert theme song and the Oscar-nommed The Look of Love) and just individual scenes. Hey, Woody Allen's gags pretty much score whenever he is on the screen. (Turns out he was put up in a hotel for the entire production -- paid - and only worked a few days. He wrote Play It Again Sam at the hotel.)

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One of my favorite YouTubers mounted an admirable defense of it

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It CAN be defended -- but not as a "real movie." For instance, William Holden shows up in the first sequence AND the climax, because he was a friend of the producer -- and he's fine but has nothing to do. Jean-Paul Belmondo shows up. LOTS of stars show up. Its more a party than a movie.

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and perhaps I was just too crabby that day.

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I do remember liking Deborah Kerr in it... but I like her in anything, so I'm biased.

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Ha. Recall that Casino Royale had 5 different sequences with 5 different directors -- and John Huston took the Deborah Kerr sequence and that sequence had David Niven and Bill Holden and played...er, OK?

I have to speak to this: in the Huston part -- set in a Scottish castle -- David Niven(as "one" of the James Bonds in the world -- the old one), is led into a bubble bath with a very pretty young "lass" in there to give him a back scrub. Its weird enough -- she looks so young, he looks so OLD and then she announces "I'm 17." Just wouldn't play today but what works is the woman is clearly OLDER than 17 and Niven plays his side totally in fear, unwilling to interact. Mixed feelings on this scene -- it COULD have been sexy if they called the woman 25 and cast a younger man. Mr. Niven aged in later roles, but kept his elegant cool.
--

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I never quite got why Peter Sellers Hindu Indian character in The Party didn't get more movies to be in like Clouseau.
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I found his character very endearing. I especially liked the sweet romance with Claudine Longet.

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Yes...the movie made things work in a very odd way -- start to finish, Sellers will DESTROY everything at this Hollywood party(to which he was accidentally invited -- he was to be put on a BLACKLIST for destroying an expensive movie set)...but he's so darn sweet, innocent and lovable that we can't blame him for ANYTHING. The sweet looking Longet is perfect to romance such a sweet man -- and to escape the clutches of a Harvey Weinstein-esuqe producer played by Gavin McLeod.

Irony: sweet Claudine Longet(wife then ex wife of Andy Williams) ended up on trial for shooting her professional skier boyfriend to death. Got off. (Williams attended the trial even though an ex.)

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The movie is just so affable that it's become a comfort movie for me. That and the gags are very silent movie-esque-- lots of nods to Keaton and Chaplin.

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Edwards goal was to make an ALMOST silent movie...and to keep Sellers a very sweet centerpiece. The movie also seemed very knowing about the pretense and phoniness of a Hollywood party circa 1968. Its probably still the same, just with more drugs and outrage.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

You know, Sellers would not have a career today. He specialized in accent humor and his Hindu Indian and Chinese characters would not play. French, I guess.
--
I was thinking this while watching MURDER BY DEATH, where he's in yellowface parodying Charlie Chan (itself a yellowface role played by Warner Oland, if I'm correct), while the guy playing his "adopted Japanese son" is actually Asian. It was so bizarre. But then that whole movie is bizarre.

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Yes, the whole movie is rather offbase -- an all-star cast about ten years past their all-starness(Peter Sellers, David Niven, Truman Capote...Alec Guinness? Star Wars was the next year!) It was one of those "Neil Simon productions" that started to wear out THEIR welcome as the 70's and 80s came.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

A great moment comes near the end, when Arkin and Falk have been tied and blind-folded before a South American firing squad and Arkin actually figures that Falk will get them out of this
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I love when Falk tries using Arkin's dentistry cred to arouse pity in the General. And then Arkin just goes, "THAT'S IT? THE DENTAL THING???" So freaking funny. I wish those two had made more movies of this caliber together (yes, I know BIG TROUBLE exists... I should probably try watching it despite what everyone else says). Their chemistry was so amazing and you can sense they enjoyed their onscreen partnership.

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On FREEBIE AND THE BEAN: it also has some of the best car chases and crashes I've ever seen in a movie, up there with THE BLUES BROTHERS. F&TB is like BULLITT for me where I recall the vibes of the movie more than the actual plot. I couldn't tell you the plot of either movie-- I just remember the atmosphere, the acting, individual scenes.

Arkin reportedly hated the movie ("I only did it for the bread") and always made it known anytime he was interviewed about it-- but sorry, I think it's so audacious and vulgar that it circles back into being funny. And Arkin and James Caan are as iconic a duo as Arkin and Falk. It's certainly a more memorable film than the so-so road movie RAFFERTY AND THE GOLD DUST TWINS, which Arkin also appeared in in 1974. He claimed that film featured his best work to date-- a contention I've never seen anyone agree with then or now lol.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

A great moment comes near the end, when Arkin and Falk have been tied and blind-folded before a South American firing squad and Arkin actually figures that Falk will get them out of this
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I love when Falk tries using Arkin's dentistry cred to arouse pity in the General. And then Arkin just goes, "THAT'S IT? THE DENTAL THING???" So freaking funny. I wish those two had made more movies of this caliber together (yes, I know BIG TROUBLE exists... I should probably try watching it despite what everyone else says). Their chemistry was so amazing and you can sense they enjoyed their onscreen partnership.

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I saw Big Trouble and...as so often if a movie is NOT memorable...I can't remember it. I remember feeling that Falk and Arkin were still great but given nothing to work with and the movie just droned along. I think Falk's pal John Cassavetes directed it, and as we know, he was NOT a mainstream director.

I did some IMdb research and..BOTH The In Laws AND Big Trouble had the same writer -- Andrew Bergman -- but he was fired as director of Big Trouble and replaced by Cassavetes and took his name off it and..big trouble.

Still , Bergman's name was on some funny scripts: The In-Laws, So Fine(with Ryan O'Neal in maybe his last good movie), The Freshman.

Recall also that The In-Laws was remade years later with two big names -- Michael Douglas(in the Falk part) and Albert Brooks(in the Arkin part) and -- though "bigger" in action and stunts -- wasn't very funny at all.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

On FREEBIE AND THE BEAN: it also has some of the best car chases and crashes I've ever seen in a movie, up there with THE BLUES BROTHERS. F&TB is like BULLITT for me where I recall the vibes of the movie more than the actual plot. I couldn't tell you the plot of either movie-

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Well, the plot CAN be found in Bullitt, but not so much in Freebie -- which has a clearly re-shot ending and descends into REAL bloody violence at the end -- but it sure was brutal fun getting there. And one particular gag mid-film had my audience laughing for about three straight minutes.

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Arkin reportedly hated the movie ("I only did it for the bread") and always made it known anytime he was interviewed about it-- but sorry, I think it's so audacious and vulgar that it circles back into being funny.

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Arkin hated it but -- he's hilarious(again) in it, and I've heard it was a great big surprise hit for Warners. Just too un-PC for a sequel. (Great scene of Alex Rocco as a crazed DA tearing into Arkin and Caan at his desk -- Arkin AND Caan deliver the improv. Hilarious.)

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And Arkin and James Caan are as iconic a duo as Arkin and Falk.

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I can still hear my friends laughing...small building up chuckles (when Arkin made a face for instance)...great big laughs. I'll bet it gets mentioned a lot in the Arkin memorials. Poor guy.

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It's certainly a more memorable film than the so-so road movie RAFFERTY AND THE GOLD DUST TWINS, which Arkin also appeared in in 1974. He claimed that film featured his best work to date-- a contention I've never seen anyone agree with then or now lol.

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Never saw it. Usually the plot or advertising or trailer had to draw me in. AND: sounds like Mr. Arkin wasn't necessasrily the best judge of his own work. Happens.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

However: when Arkin falls to the ground clutching the knife in his stomach(?) there is a literal "freeze frame" of his face going motionless which -- I always felt -- was a bit of a giveaway. Arkin couldn't quite "act dead" so the camera did it for him.
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I first saw this film on TCM so when that freeze frame happened I thought the signal was screwing up and I was so angry. It really is so jarring. Then again, Terence Young was cool with undercranking certain scenes in the Bond movies, no matter how much it makes those scenes look like a Keystone Kops short, so maybe he was similarly cool with obtrusive freeze frames.

One more thing about Arkin in WUD you might find funny: Arkin was never known as a heartthrob, but according to a 1969 interview in The Saturday Review, he got some passionate fan mail after Wait Until Dark ("But after I played that perverted psychopath in [Wait Until] Dark, I got hundreds of letters from teen-age girls. They told me they were in love with me. I answered them warmly-- and remotely."). You can read it here, it's hilarious: https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-review_1969-09-06_52_36/page/8/mode/2up?q=popi

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

However: when Arkin falls to the ground clutching the knife in his stomach(?) there is a literal "freeze frame" of his face going motionless which -- I always felt -- was a bit of a giveaway. Arkin couldn't quite "act dead" so the camera did it for him.
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I first saw this film on TCM so when that freeze frame happened I thought the signal was screwing up and I was so angry. It really is so jarring.

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Yeah, its one of those things rather left "permanently on film" that doesn't really work BUT...the terror was so high and the PLEASURE so big(She killed him!) tht maybe we just didn't notice it back then.

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Then again, Terence Young was cool with undercranking certain scenes in the Bond movies, no matter how much it makes those scenes look like a Keystone Kops short, so maybe he was similarly cool with obtrusive freeze frames

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Some of that undercranking stuff just seems "par for the course" in older movies, like the makers HAD to do that(maybe to speed up a fight) and ...so what. Hitchcock was usually better than that...but he has a weird undercrank of a plane being unloaded of passengers in Topaz so..nobody's perfect.

We CAN figure that Arkin couldn't quite play dead well enough and was frozen to get it done.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

One more thing about Arkin in WUD you might find funny: Arkin was never known as a heartthrob, but according to a 1969 interview in The Saturday Review, he got some passionate fan mail after Wait Until Dark ("But after I played that perverted psychopath in [Wait Until] Dark, I got hundreds of letters from teen-age girls. They told me they were in love with me. I answered them warmly-- and remotely.").

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I find that funny --- and not at all surprising. After all, real life psycho killers obtain (non-violent) psycho fans and lovers via correspondence. I suppose Roat had the added flourish of a fictional, funny character who, after all , ALMOST outsmarts everybody and wins (but he didn't bank on Audrey.)

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You can read it here, it's hilarious: https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-review_1969-09-06_52_36/page/8/mode/2up?q=popi

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I will. I LOVE all this Wait Until Dark lore you find -- plus Alan Arkin at the center of it.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Speaking of Harry Roat Jr as a hearthrob, here is a weird "roundelay":

When I first saw Wait Until Dark in '68, I didn't have a "fix" on Alan Arkin, so I responded to his voice and manner, and enjoyed them "pure."

About 17 years later, I watched the premiere episode of "Moonlighting" with "new TV star Bruce Willis."

I had no fix on HIM at that time, either. But here is what I thought:

"This Bruce Willis guy sounds just like Alan Arkin in Wait Until Dark!"

Word.

For the record, NYT critic Bosley Crowther (or was it Vincent Canby) thought that Arkin as Roat was a lookalike/soundalike for...Jerry Lewis!

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I think on the DVD doc or elsewhere, its been written that Hepburn actually tried to back out of WUD over the violence and terror of the film -- but Jack Warner held her to her $1 million contract.
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I've never heard that, though it wouldn't shock me. She was also very overworked by the time she got to WUD-- she had just finished TWO FOR THE ROAD and there was barely any rest time between TFTR and the film before that, HOW TO STEAL A MILLION.

I've heard hat Hepburn was given the WUD play script in the summer of 1965 (months before the show's Broadway debut) by her husband Mel Ferrer and was immediately sold on doing it. Also recall, she always wanted to do a Hitchcock picture-- though we know how her one almost-collab with Hitch went down. Warner Bros. apparently bought the rights to WUD at Ferrer's behest. However, Hepburn did butt heads with Jack Warner over where they were going to shoot the apartment interiors. She wanted it shot in Rome so she could be near her kid. He insisted they use facilities in Burbank and even threatened legal action if Hepburn didn't comply. Warner also complained about her wardrobe being too plain (but what else would a middle-class housewife wear?) and the crew having tea breaks at 4pm every day.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I think on the DVD doc or elsewhere, its been written that Hepburn actually tried to back out of WUD over the violence and terror of the film -- but Jack Warner held her to her $1 million contract.
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I've never heard that, though it wouldn't shock me. She was also very overworked by the time she got to WUD-- she had just finished TWO FOR THE ROAD and there was barely any rest time between TFTR and the film before that, HOW TO STEAL A MILLION.

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Well, we also know that Hepburn took a very serious retirement after Wait Until Dark..9 years (came back with Connery in Robin and Marian) and...we thought she'd never come back. Truth be told, she really didn't come back at full power after Robin and Marian...but it was nice to have her. Surely ending her career with Two for the Road and her Oscar-nommed role in the blockbuster Wait Until Dark(same year) was great way to go out.

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I've heard hat Hepburn was given the WUD play script in the summer of 1965 (months before the show's Broadway debut) by her husband Mel Ferrer and was immediately sold on doing it.

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Notes in passing:

On Broadway: Lee Remick played the blind lady(and would have been good movie casting.)
On Broadway: Robert Duvall played Roat. (I don't see him in the movie at that time.)

Broadway revival 90s: Marisa Tomei played the blind lady.
Broadway revival 90s: Quentin Tarantino played Roat. (I've always wondered: did he remember his lines?)

I think that George C. Scott and Rod Steiger were considered for Roat before the younger, more offbeat Arkin got the role.

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I've heard hat Hepburn was given the WUD play script in the summer of 1965 (months before the show's Broadway debut) by her husband Mel Ferrer and was immediately sold on doing it. Also recall, she always wanted to do a Hitchcock picture-- though we know how her one almost-collab with Hitch went down.

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Yes, Hitchcock junked a whole movie with Hepburn...and did Psycho instead!

I've read that Hitchcock was pitched Wait Until Dark by Jack Warner. Too bad it didn't work out but -- and I think we've discussed this elsewhere -- I think Wait Until Dark needed a younger, hipper director to handle a younger, hipper cast(Arkin and Crenna at least) and that a younger, hipper script was ordered than what Hitchcock would have overseen.

But Hitchcock had not forgiven Hepburn, Universal wouldn't loan him out to Warners anyway and -- a better Wait Until Dark was made. Too bad -- it might have saved Hitchcock's late career with a much bigger hit and audience friendly movie than Frenzy(which was a lesser, more sick hit.)

--

Warner Bros. apparently bought the rights to WUD at Ferrer's behest. However, Hepburn did butt heads with Jack Warner over where they were going to shoot the apartment interiors. She wanted it shot in Rome so she could be near her kid. He insisted they use facilities in Burbank and even threatened legal action if Hepburn didn't comply.

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Something about that Warner Brothers soundstage(and trademark echo-y sound system) felt "A list" to me; I'm not sure Rome studios could duplicate that.

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Warner also complained about her wardrobe being too plain (but what else would a middle-class housewife wear?)

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Those slacks and sweaters were iconic to me -- not particularly sexy, but sensible for fighting a psychopath.

--
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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

and the crew having tea breaks at 4pm every day.

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At Hepburn's request and with Arkin's pleasure(he could be nice.)

I once had a college class at 4:00 pm each day, taught by a British woman in America. She had tea ready for everyone! Including herself in the lead position at the front of the room. Only about 20 people in the class...

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Yes, Hitchcock junked a whole movie with Hepburn...and did Psycho instead!
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And who the hell wants to live in a world without PSYCHO? Not me! Hitchcock might have been butthurt but his career benefited-- PSYCHO is the movie that launched a thousand dissertations. It competes with THE SHINING for film scholarship.
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Those slacks and sweaters were iconic to me -- not particularly sexy, but sensible for fighting a psychopath.
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The clothes were bought at small boutiques in Paris, much like some of her simpler TWO FOR THE ROAD wardrobe, where she was also told to avoid Givenchy for the sake of realism. I love her clothes in WUD though-- that coat she wears in her first scene is fabulous. And those boots too with those striped tights and the skirt. I'd wear that NOW.

I love Lisa's outfit too actually. The bell sleeves, the miniskirt, the boots, the big poofy hair. A+ aesthetic.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

On Broadway: Lee Remick played the blind lady(and would have been good movie casting.)
On Broadway: Robert Duvall played Roat. (I don't see him in the movie at that time.)
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Arthur Penn of THE MIRACLE WORKER and BONNIE AND CLYDE fame directed the Broadway play and was upset he couldn't do the film version. He often described the WUD film as the project that got away. He also made it plain he would have wanted to use the Broadway cast. When WUD was revived in the 90s, he even called up Tarantino and told him, "Don't play it like Arkin-- play it like Duvall did." I'm guessing he was with the 60s critics on Arkin's performance. Boo.
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I think that George C. Scott and Rod Steiger were considered for Roat before the younger, more offbeat Arkin got the role.
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They were indeed. Terence Young said he wanted the "cold and brutal" vibes Scott could have brought, but in the end, he liked how Arkin "brought new dimensions of pure evil" to the character. I gotta say, it's hard for me to imagine a Roat over 35 (Arkin turned 33 in the middle of filming). The youthful 60s counterculture boogie man vibes are just linked to the character for me.

And if we want to see Steiger as a psycho killer who likes playing dress up as much as Roat, then NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY exists-- with WUD alumni Lee Remick no less!

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Now, I've always figured that leap was made by a stunt man -- you can't see the face -- but I did find, at one time, a "staged photo" from in front of Audrey Hepburn with Arkin clearly visible in mid-leap behind her. Honestly, I dunno, maybe Arkin did make the famous leap on film and that still shot was taken from a different angle.
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I once got into a discussion with a friend over whether or not it was a stuntman. I was always unsure, while she insisted it was him. I examined a gifset of the jump posted on social media and while I can't be 100% sure, I think it is Arkin.

Two stuntmen are credited for WUD, but I always assumed they were for the car killing. One of the stuntmen was Carey Loftin, the famous stunt driver best known for being one of the drivers behind the wheel of the green Ford Mustang in BULLITT-- I'm guessing he was Arkin's stand-in behind the wheel of the Pontiac. I assumed the other was the initial stand-in for Carlino when he tries running... before being replaced with that glorious dummy, of course.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

[POPI]'s one I have not seen. I have a feeling I'm going to build a big list of unseen Arkins to catch up with.
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POPI is weird-- one I'll need to rewatch. I thought the movie itself was uneven tonally, it wastes Rita Moreno on a nothing part, and obviously Arkin playing a Puerto Rican would not fly now, but his characterization is fascinating. He's tough on his kids (he slaps them around and calls the older boy a "r*tard"-- a big no-no now) and is willing to let other people adopt them to give them a better life (the tenement they live in is beset by petty crime and some psychopathic bullies who beat the kids and decapitate a bird in front of them).

Seeing the preferential treatment of Cubans by the government (the US wants to stick it to Castro by providing for deserters from communist Cuba), Arkin sticks his young sons on a boat off the Florida coast, orders them to only speak Spanish when the Coast Guard inevitably picks them up so they'll pass as Cuban refugees, and then sets them adrift. For a while, it looks like they've probably perished and Arkin's character realizes how insane his plan was. He's been a prickly, odd figure till that point, but when he starts getting drunk, he's nothing less than heartbreaking and it doesn't feel forced or unearned. It's a remarkable performance in a middling work, though it does seem to have a cult following.

The time capsule element of the movie is interesting: they shot it on location in 1960s Spanish Harlem. It's worth seeing and you can watch it free on Tubi.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Now, I've always figured that leap was made by a stunt man -- you can't see the face -- but I did find, at one time, a "staged photo" from in front of Audrey Hepburn with Arkin clearly visible in mid-leap behind her. Honestly, I dunno, maybe Arkin did make the famous leap on film and that still shot was taken from a different angle.
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I once got into a discussion with a friend over whether or not it was a stuntman. I was always unsure, while she insisted it was him. I examined a gifset of the jump posted on social media and while I can't be 100% sure, I think it is Arkin.

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I am quite willing to concede now that Arkin actually DID make the jump. For one thing, I found that photo of him from in front of Hepburn, JUMPING behind her , his face clearly visible -- maybe they staged it "special," but maybe it was snapped during the actual scene.

A GIF freeze frame would obviously help with identification.

I suppose I always thought it was a stunt man because in the movie, its a long shot, we are far away from Roat jumping and we can't see his face clearly. There is also the sheer athletic ability evidenced in the leap.

However, Arkin was young in 1967 and the years proved him to be a very fit man as visible on screen. I'm sure he COULD make the jump.

Seems a bit of a waste, though, if Arkin DID make the jump, not to show his face better.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Two stuntmen are credited for WUD, but I always assumed they were for the car killing.

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Aka "the tenderizing." Ha -- a nod to someone's father of decades ago.

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One of the stuntmen was Carey Loftin, the famous stunt driver best known for being one of the drivers behind the wheel of the green Ford Mustang in BULLITT-- I'm guessing he was Arkin's stand-in behind the wheel of the Pontiac. I assumed the other was the initial stand-in for Carlino when he tries running... before being replaced with that glorious dummy, of course.

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That's one of the more unique kills in thriller history. Very realistic -- the screeching sound of the engine and tires is so LOUD -- THAT makes you scream. And it is a pretty seamless cut from actual stuntman getting chased/hit by car and dummy getting pulverized( a GOOD dummy, I could imagine it as a human being.)

That's a thing about Wait Until Dark. With Audrey Hepburn in the lead, it really isn't interested in blood and gore(even at the somewhat reduced Psycho level) at all. The first victim (the gorgeous Mrs Roat) is an unbloodied corpse; Crenna is dispatched in a rather "twist" killing; Weston goes violently but bloodlessly(it is a nice take on Roat's psychopathy -- how VIOLENTLY that car is driven, back and forth, back and forth.) And then we get the cruel but evenly matched back and forth between Arkin and Audrey in fhe final 20 minutes -- suspense and release galore, minimal blood.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

He was in Argo -- a Best Picture winner -- and I remember he was GREAT, but I don't remember exactly why. Ha.
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It's a small role as a Hollywood producer, but he's very funny. For me, the best parts of that movie are any scene with Arkin and/or John Goodman. They're freaking gold. The whole movie is a good thriller, but those two are the cherry on top, two old pros still able to charm.
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He was in Edward Scissorhands -- a typical American suburban dad who liked the weird Scissorhands, was willing to keep him as a house guest, and kept calling him "Ed." Arkin was nice when most of the other suburbanites(save his nice wife and family) were NOT.
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He's funny in that too. I love when asked about his profession, the wife just says, "He's a bowling champion" or something like that.
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He was in So I Married An Axe Murderer , as a "cop boss" who gently refused to EVER tell his men "there is heat coming down on me from above to solve this case!"...He was in Hearts of the West as a silent movie director who yelled at novice silent actor Jeff Bridges: "You are SMALL POTATOES! Small potatoes indeed!"
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I still need to see both of those. Really want to see HEARTS OF THE WEST if only because I enjoy watching movies about the silent era.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

He was in Argo -- a Best Picture winner -- and I remember he was GREAT, but I don't remember exactly why. Ha.
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It's a small role as a Hollywood producer, but he's very funny. For me, the best parts of that movie are any scene with Arkin and/or John Goodman. They're freaking gold. The whole movie is a good thriller, but those two are the cherry on top, two old pros still able to charm.

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That's the thing -- I remember LIKING Arkin in Argo -- and now I remember liking Goodman too -- but I can't remember exactly what they did in the plot other than, yes, I remember the scam movie making and a very good suspense scene near the end with Arkin(and Goodman?) trying to get something done on a time limit...or DELAYED on a time limit?

Since I think this is something that can happen at any age(so I've been told), I'm not particuarly upset that I can't remember the plot of movies I see within a couple of years of seeing them. Clearly, my aging brain has decided there's no point in keeping a movie plot in limited space. If Psycho is nicely locked in, scene by scene, that because I've seen the movie once a year for 50 years. And I first saw Psycho when I was young(evidently memories from youth "lock in" better). And the story is simplicity itself(I can recite Psycho scene by scene, but for the life of me, I can't remember Rear Window scene by scene.)

Anyway, I should see Argo again sometime, and enjoy Arkin(and Goodman) all over again.
--

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

He was in So I Married An Axe Murderer , as a "cop boss" who gently refused to EVER tell his men "there is heat coming down on me from above to solve this case!"...He was in Hearts of the West as a silent movie director who yelled at novice silent actor Jeff Bridges: "You are SMALL POTATOES! Small potatoes indeed!"
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I still need to see both of those. Really want to see HEARTS OF THE WEST if only because I enjoy watching movies about the silent era.

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Hearts of the West is a very offbeat film with indeed a very rare subject: silent movies. Its another movie where Arkin, in a small part, brings the whole movie up and gets some laughs.

The producer was Tony Bill, a one-time actor(Come Blow Your Horn, Ice Station Zebra) who had just hit paydirt as one of the producers of The Sting. Hearts of the West was "his baby" and he showed it at one of those college seminars I went to in LA back in the 70s. Which brings me to this point: Tony Bill is one of -- two? three? -- Hollywood people whom I met ...in the Men's Room, "side by side" so to speak. Right after seeing Hearts of the West. You know, you nod briefly and say "good movie." Nothing untowards. Simply nature called at the same time. The other one I met that way was the guy who played murder victim Hollis Mulwray in Chinatown. Ha.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

The producer was Tony Bill, a one-time actor(Come Blow Your Horn, Ice Station Zebra) who had just hit paydirt as one of the producers of The Sting.
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He also produced one of Arkin's most obscure movies: DEADHEAD MILES, a bizarre trucker comedy where Arkin is a Texan-accented criminal who steals a big rig and journeys with an English hitchhiker across the country. I can't call it a good movie (neither did the studio-- they never released it outside of film festivals and the occasional TV screening) but it is mesmerizing. It has a small cult following and I've watched it twice.
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Hearts of the West was "his baby" and he showed it at one of those college seminars I went to in LA back in the 70s. Which brings me to this point: Tony Bill is one of -- two? three? -- Hollywood people whom I met ...in the Men's Room, "side by side" so to speak. Right after seeing Hearts of the West. You know, you nod briefly and say "good movie." Nothing untowards. Simply nature called at the same time.
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That's hilarious! My dad had a coworker who met Shia Lebouf in a bathroom. It seems to be the most awkward place for celeb encounters. The closest thing I ever had to a celeb encounter was being at a Disney World show and then suddenly Honey Boo Boo was in the crowd. People lost their sh*t. And then Honey felt the need to make a few loud comments during the fireworks. Joy.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

And he had a flat out lead as Dr. Sigmond Freud to Nicol Williamson's Sherlock Holmes in "The Seven Percent Solution."
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And he has the most epic tennis match in movie history. Also the best line in movie history. Cornered by a team of horses, Freud screams to Holmes and Watson: "These are the most intelligent horses in the world and THEY HAVE BEEN TRAINED TO KILL!!!" Like wow. THAT deserved an Oscar nom if the Oscars were worth anything. That movie walks a fine line between intelligent mystery and pulp silliness-- I adore it, ridiculous accent from Duvall and all.
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I find this a bit weird: Arkin had such a multi-decade career AFTER Wait Until Dark that it is as if the Evil Roat was a different actor entirely -- someone from the 60s who never "caught up" to the rest of Arkin's career, let alone his persona.
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It was a role he didn't like playing, so it's a road not pursued beyond what he did in that film. It's so funny because in a for-radio interview made during filming (you can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4fQ6H-OJ70&t=518s), he said he had always wanted to play a bad guy and was eager to take on the challenge, but once filming was done, he was disgusted with the part and ready to leave it and all onscreen villainy behind.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

And he had a flat out lead as Dr. Sigmond Freud to Nicol Williamson's Sherlock Holmes in "The Seven Percent Solution."
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And he has the most epic tennis match in movie history. Also the best line in movie history. Cornered by a team of horses, Freud screams to Holmes and Watson: "These are the most intelligent horses in the world and THEY HAVE BEEN TRAINED TO KILL!!!" Like wow. THAT deserved an Oscar nom if the Oscars were worth anything. That movie walks a fine line between intelligent mystery and pulp silliness-- I adore it, ridiculous accent from Duvall and all.

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That's another one I remember seeing -- and the theater I saw it at -- but nothing much about it, except I DO remember the horses scene, and I do remember thinking that Robert Duvall was bizarre casting for Watson. (Hey, Duvall played Roat on stage and here he is in a movie with Roat from the movie!)

Its an interesting revelation about Alan Arkin's flexible star quality that he's "brief support" in Hearts of the West, and a full lead in "The 7 Percent Solution." He simply kept taking all types of roles and sometimes scored.

--
CONT.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I find this a bit weird: Arkin had such a multi-decade career AFTER Wait Until Dark that it is as if the Evil Roat was a different actor entirely -- someone from the 60s who never "caught up" to the rest of Arkin's career, let alone his persona.
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It was a role he didn't like playing, so it's a road not pursued beyond what he did in that film.

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Its probably good that he stopped at Roat. You really can't outdo the character or the performance, or the co-star(Hepburn) or the movie he was in. Its truly a scare classic.

I've read that Anthony Perkins was offered lots of horror movies and psychos in the immediate years after Psycho, but kept turning those parts down (Example: Roddy McDowall's psycho in Shock Treatment.) He's a straight villain in Five Miles to Midnight and a red herring nutcase in Pretty Poison, but mainly his roles were "normal" until he caved for the Psycho sequels and other horror movies in the 80s and 90s. But its the same deal as Arkin as Roat -- you play a GREAT psycho villain, only once, that's enough.

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It's so funny because in a for-radio interview made during filming (you can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4fQ6H-OJ70&t=518s), he said he had always wanted to play a bad guy and was eager to take on the challenge, but once filming was done, he was disgusted with the part and ready to leave it and all onscreen villainy behind

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More Wait Until Dark PR treasure! This is great.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I'm gonna play out my Wait Until Dark memories because ...why not?:

ONE: My first screening of Wait Until Dark -- full house, screaming crowd, unforgettable memory -- was at a neighborhood Los Angeles theater in 1968. It was on a double bill with a WESTERN -- "Firecreek" with James Stewart and Henry Fonda(playing a villain BEFORE Once Upon a Time in the West.) But they pulled "Firecreek" for a 'Major Hollywood Sneak Preview" -- ANOTHER Western, with Burt Lancaster, called "The Scalphunters." So we all had to watch "The Scalphunters" before we could see Wait Until Dark. It was a long night.

TWO: My family moved away from Los Angeles, but we returned on visits. On one such 1970 visit, I saw the same friends with whom I saw WUD in 1968 -- and there it was. Re-release. Same theater as in 1968. With a WESTERN, again! This time -- John Wayne in Chisum. We went "for old times sake." ANOTHER full house. AGAIN with the screaming. The two showings have merged into one. Plus Westerns. Those wacky double bills.

THREE: Eventually I'm in high school and part of a clique who cut a deal(using a teacher as sponsor) to show monthly 16mm movies to raise money for school projects. I was one of the choosers -- but not the only one. School brass would NOT let me order Psycho -- it still had that reputation, and get this: school brass DID clear Bonnie and Clyde, Brides of Dracula, The Haunting, Freaks and a creepy 1969 movie(turned down by Hitch, directed by Mark Robson) called "Daddy's Gone a Hunting," in which a woman aborts the baby of a psycho and he comes after her new baby(sired by Paul Burke, of Robson's Valley of the Dolls...but I digress.)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Anyway, I got Wait Until Dark ordered and we got two full house(school gym) shows out of it and I had the 16mm film a few days early so we would show the last reel during lunch hours(this was pre-VHS/DVD) and watch people jump at "the scene." It was a lot of fun. Wait Until Dark rather followed me from the late 60s and into the early 70s...and lots of other people enjoyed it, too.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

My first screening of Wait Until Dark -- full house, screaming crowd, unforgettable memory -- was at a neighborhood Los Angeles theater in 1968. It was on a double bill with a WESTERN -- "Firecreek" with James Stewart and Henry Fonda(playing a villain BEFORE Once Upon a Time in the West.) But they pulled "Firecreek" for a 'Major Hollywood Sneak Preview" -- ANOTHER Western, with Burt Lancaster, called "The Scalphunters." So we all had to watch "The Scalphunters" before we could see Wait Until Dark. It was a long night.
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So weird that it was paired with westerns! I recall someone online once seeing it on the double bill with the rat-infested horror flick WILLARD in the early 70s. Now that had to be an odd double bill!!
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a creepy 1969 movie(turned down by Hitch, directed by Mark Robson) called "Daddy's Gone a Hunting," in which a woman aborts the baby of a psycho and he comes after her new baby(sired by Paul Burke, of Robson's Valley of the Dolls...but I digress.)
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I saw that last year!! It was directed by Mark "Valley of the Dolls" Robson. It comes off like the love child of your usual psycho thriller and VALLEY OF THE DOLLS for sure. It even had a sappy theme song sung over several scenes like Dionne Warwick's ballad in DOLLS. It's weird because Robson had a background with Val Lewton's horror work in the 1940s, but DADDY'S GONE A HUNTING isn't terribly Lewtonesque.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

a creepy 1969 movie(turned down by Hitch, directed by Mark Robson) called "Daddy's Gone a Hunting," in which a woman aborts the baby of a psycho and he comes after her new baby(sired by Paul Burke, of Robson's Valley of the Dolls...but I digress.)
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I saw that last year!! It was directed by Mark "Valley of the Dolls" Robson. It comes off like the love child of your usual psycho thriller and VALLEY OF THE DOLLS for sure. It even had a sappy theme song sung over several scenes like Dionne Warwick's ballad in DOLLS. It's weird because Robson had a background with Val Lewton's horror work in the 1940s, but DADDY'S GONE A HUNTING isn't terribly Lewtonesque.

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As I mentioned, this was shown as part of a "high school film festival" in which i participated in the scheduling but a teacher supervised several of us. I wonder NOW how THAT movie ended up in our schedule. I think the teacher chose it -- as a cautionary tale about abortion, maybe? It was a pretty controversial movie in its time, and Hitchcock did turn it down.

As he turned down the original Cape Fear . You asked why in another post I can't find , and the only answer I have is this:

In some book or article on HItchocck, someone found a list of "movies Hitchcock turned down" all the way from the forties(The Spiral Staircase) to the 70s (Black Sunday, which would have been impossible for the elderly and infirm Hitchcock to direct.)

Cape Fear was on that list.
Daddy's Gone a Hunting was on that list.
The Boston Strangler was on that list.
Earthquake was on that list.
Rosemary's Baby was on that list(but I doubt it was even offered, really.)
Wait Until Dark was on that list.
Even Cleopatra(1963) was on that list -- Hitchcock was offered the movie to replace a fired director before Joe Mankewicz took it. The stabbing of Caesar mgith have been quite a scene.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I will guess that Hitchcock didn't find the brutal Max Cady(Robert Mitchum version) a "worthy elegant villain." Too much the macho monster, not the dandies that were Uncle Charlie, Bruno Anthony and Bob Rusk -- certainly not the deceptively nice man that Norman Bates was.

Hitchcock was just arriving from Paramount for his final Universal stretch in 1961-1962, Cape Fear was a Universal movie, so he would gotten the offer then. The movie as we have it has one of the greatest Bernard Herrmann scare scores ("The Best Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock Score for a Movie Hitchcock Never Made") and Martin Balsam in a good supporting role as the small town police chief impotent to stop Cady's terror crusade(Balsam lives, for once.) It has been said that the staircase leading to a hotel from where Cady has "done the unspeakable" to Barrie Chase is...the Psycho staircase in disguise.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I've read that Anthony Perkins was offered lots of horror movies and psychos in the immediate years after Psycho, but kept turning those parts down (Example: Roddy McDowall's psycho in Shock Treatment.) He's a straight villain in Five Miles to Midnight and a red herring nutcase in Pretty Poison, but mainly his roles were "normal" until he caved for the Psycho sequels and other horror movies in the 80s and 90s.
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He did also play a bad guy in a Charles Bronson movie called SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR. He's a doctor whose wife (played by the oh-so-adored-and-not-horrible Jill Ireland) is cheating on him, so he picks up the amnesiac Bronson from a hospital, tells him Ireland is HIS cheating wife, and waits for Bronson to commit murder for him. A good premise, but the movie was so bad I couldn't finish.
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More Wait Until Dark PR treasure! This is great.
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I love it too: actually, it's kind of embarrassing because I'm the one that uploaded the video. The original vinyl is part of my record collection and is definitely the weirdest bit of memorabilia I own. My only other video on my youTube channel to date is a fan commentary track for WAIT UNTIL DARK as well (considering how much info is stored in my damn brain about the movie, I needed SOME kind of outlet!), and seeing as those are the only 2 videos on there, I probably look pretty obsessed... I mean, I am, but still. (Hoping to make a second commentary soon-- the sort of PSYCHO knockoff NIGHT MUST FALL with Albert Finney... who appeared alongside Hepburn in her other 1967 movie, TWO FOR THE ROAD. It truly is a small world.)

But I love that radio record. I love hearing the construction in the background or Arkin being a bit nervous about his role (a New York Times article from early1967 has the interviewer going shopping with Arkin as he picks up part of his Roat costume from a store that sells leather jackets and then later Arkin expresses his nervousness about playing a character unlike any he'd done before) (CONT)

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

...and Jack Weston crapping on method acting. It's just a lot of fun. I'm glad I found this vinyl on eBay-- I really wish Warner Bros would include material like this on their home releases. A nice special edition with these interviews and then maybe the 1982 TV movie version as a bonus.

Alas...

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I love it too: actually, it's kind of embarrassing because I'm the one that uploaded the video.

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Excellent!

The original vinyl is part of my record collection and is definitely the weirdest bit of memorabilia I own.

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Sounds "good and rare."

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My only other video on my youTube channel to date is a fan commentary track for WAIT UNTIL DARK as well (considering how much info is stored in my damn brain about the movie, I needed SOME kind of outlet!),

---

I'll check that out! Good for you!

I am realizing here and now that, in a decidedly different way from Psycho -- Wait Until Dark was a formative "fear experience" of my slightly too-young to-see-them youth(if I'd been older at the time, maybe no such impact.) Psycho still has its creepy black and white Gothic ambiance(with a modern noir motel twist) but Wait Until Dark was a solid old-fashioned THRILLER and had a lot of impact.

---

nd seeing as those are the only 2 videos on there, I probably look pretty obsessed... I mean, I am, but still. (Hoping to make a second commentary soon-- the sort of PSYCHO knockoff NIGHT MUST FALL with Albert Finney... who appeared alongside Hepburn in her other 1967 movie, TWO FOR THE ROAD. It truly is a small world.)

---

I suppose in any era, the list of movie stars is comparative smaller than you'd think.

Modernly right now we seem to have DeNiro and Pacino at the top(Nicholson and Hackman are retired, Hoffman is out of action), with Eastwood as a novelty act(93!)

Then you get these "bunch ups" of aging action guys(Harrison Ford, Sly Stallone, Arnold very reduced, and sadly, Bruce Willis in name only) in their seventies, and then another "bunch up" of sixty-something guys: Tom Hanks, Denzel, Kevin Costner(who turns out to be a LOT richer than a thought, his divorce shows us -- you can never really fail in Hollywood at that level anymore), Kurt Russell, Jeff Bridges(battling back from a serious cancer scare and...I'm still worried for him.)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

...and you can find at least one or more of those guys in EVERY movie now.

I realize the list goes on: Tom Cruise uber alles(but he's not quite as old as the late sixties guys) and then a wobbly next generation that has tons of superheroes but comparatively few stars (I"m watching out for RDJ in Oppenheimer.) And then Dwayne Johnson -- ever the Rock -- who evidently just became the highest paid star in Hollywood and ...wha?

I don't forget Matt Damon. Who has the role in Oppenheimer played by Paul Newman in Fat Man and Little Boy. I give up.

Consequently...back way up...Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney were bound to meet up on screen SOMETIME. HE was one of a pack of "angry young British men"(and not so angry): Peter O'Toole(whom Hepburn worked with) and Richard Burton(whom Hepburn did not) but...they were all around back then.

I always like how the canny Alfred Hitchcock -- cruising on Vertigo/NXNW/Psycho fumes -- managed to get THE two male stars of the 60s, other than Steve McQueen, in two films: Sean Connery and Paul Newman. And that was it. Those were the last two to sign on with Hitchcock from the male side. Julie Andrews was a pretty big female star.

Newman was in EVERYTHING back then. Matt Damon's in everything now, I guess.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

But I love that radio record. I love hearing the construction in the background

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That makes a live on-the-street interview "real."

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or Arkin being a bit nervous about his role

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Surprising. He SO sold it. But I think on the DVD he said that Warners honchos didn't quite buy his Roat until the sudden moment he pulled his knife on Crenna and Weston in psycho paranoia.

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(a New York Times article from early1967 has the interviewer going shopping with Arkin as he picks up part of his Roat costume from a store that sells leather jackets

------

Its cool to learn when an actor chooses their wardrobe "off the rack." Roat's leather jacket wasn't like the Fonz...it was very LONG, and secured with a flamboyant belt that stuck out. Roat was almost...dashing. But he also wore the sunglasses inside(and at night) and had that greased down hair(KIND of a Jerry Lewis effect) and..it was great.
Roat was one of those creeps with no back story and one felt it would be horrifying to LEARN it. (Arkin simply said he was on every drug known to man.)

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins also bought their Psycho clothes "off the rack." Janet with her white blouse/black skirt outfit(identical to an Eva Marie Saint outfit in NXNW) and then that now-bizarre and matronly wool suit dress that is the last outfit she will ever wear.

I will always wonder if Htichcock and Perkins discussed Norman's wardrobe: it was one outfit worn three ways:

"The base": White shirt, gray slacks, loafers.

With Marion: "Add a gray jacket (someone said Perkins looked "like a gravedigger." )

With Arbogast: "Jacket off. Add a black crewcut sweater (Perkins' own favorite attire off screen and in photos; with a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari look here.)

With Sam and Lila: For the bright white sunlight of Sunday afternoon exposure -- jacket off. Sweater off. White shirt(against a white sky)...an outfit for putting a dress for the fruit cellar.

Simplicity itself for Mr. Perkins -- as unforgettable as Mr. Roat's black leather jacket.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

and then later Arkin expresses his nervousness about playing a character unlike any he'd done before)

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It may have been daunting indeed. First of all, I believe his training (Chicago Second City?) was as a COMIC actor..and his Russian accent in The Russians Are Coming was built for comedy. Here he was expected to be evil, threatening, BAD. (Its hard to come back from terrorizing Audrey Hepburn. Like Bruce Dern killing John Wayne.)

And then there was...Hepburn herself. Think of being Alan Arkin...in Movie Number Two of his career...going head to head with Hepburn for the final act of the movie(probably at least two weeks of filming, just the two of them on stage.) She was already a legend.

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...and Jack Weston crapping on method acting.

--

I"d LOVE to hear that. I don't think I ever saw Jack Weston ever interviewed. Modernly EVERYBODY does their promotional interivews for release and on DVD docs. But actors of a certain era -- Jack Weston, Martin Balsam, Richard Boone -- its hard to find ANY interviews with them.

I saw Martin Balsam on talk show once in his entire life. It was the afternoon Mike Douglas Show. Balsam was fine and funny -- never mentioned Psycho once. I recall his main story was about working in live television in the 50s. He played a man who was to jump out a window to his death floors below. A mattress was on the other side of the window. Balsam jumped and screamed and -- bounced up in the air right back in front of the window! Pretty funny.

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

It's just a lot of fun. I'm glad I found this vinyl on eBay-- I really wish Warner Bros would include material like this on their home releases. A nice special edition with these interviews and then maybe the 1982 TV movie version as a bonus track.

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That would be worth doing. Keach as a different kind of scary Roat(the make-up, the women's jewelry); Katherine Ross as Suzy -- rather no-names in the Crenna and Weston parts, but they were good.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins also bought their Psycho clothes "off the rack."
--
I was listening to Stephen Rebello's PSYCHO commentary today and was not surprised to learn that. That's part of what sets PSYCHO apart from other Hitchcock films of its era: there is no glamor at all. Everyone looks rough around the edges and their clothes reflect their middle class backgrounds. It also makes the movie feel grimier. Compare it to REAR WINDOW and DIAL M FOR MURDER, with Grace Kelly's (gorgeous) dresses. Great movies, but more evocative of escapist thrills than PSYCHO's more ontological evocation of all the violence that underlies so-called polite society.
--
And then there was...Hepburn herself. Think of being Alan Arkin...in Movie Number Two of his career...going head to head with Hepburn for the final act of the movie(probably at least two weeks of filming, just the two of them on stage.) She was already a legend.
--
It would feel like a mortal sin to even just pretend to want to brutalize that woman. It probably didn't help that Hepburn bruised a lot while they were filming those scenes and that she was a sweet person offscreen too. (I've always found their showdown slightly symbolic of the transitional period in which the film was made-- the Old Hollywood associated with Hepburn's elegance and optimism contrasted with the darker, weirder New Hollywood Arkin would be part of throughout the next decade. Of course in real life, the "kids with the beards" would win out, as William Holden said in FEDORA.)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

(We're at 97 posts here so far. Such a nice honoring of the deserving Alan Arkin, with Hitchocck, Perkins and Psycho weaving in and out.)

I;ll go for 100.

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He did also play a bad guy in a Charles Bronson movie called SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR. He's a doctor whose wife (played by the oh-so-adored-and-not-horrible Jill Ireland) is cheating on him, so he picks up the amnesiac Bronson from a hospital, tells him Ireland is HIS cheating wife, and waits for Bronson to commit murder for him. A good premise, but the movie was so bad I couldn't finish.

--

I saw that movie, first run - was it in 1970 or 71? This was a bumpy time for American films in a different way from today. Hollywood studios were struggling with attendance and my local theaters were filling up with "foreign films" -- the international push was well underway.

And I went to that movie because Tony Perkins was in it, and was digging him back then. He was an odd mix with Charles Bronson, that's to be sure. And it was one of many movies that did NOT live up to Psycho, alas.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins also bought their Psycho clothes "off the rack."
--
I was listening to Stephen Rebello's PSYCHO commentary today and was not surprised to learn that.

---

Yes. Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins confirmed this in different interviews.
Perkins said that Hitchcock PERSONALLY pulled $200 out of his wallet, handed it to Perkins and said "purchase your wardrobe out of that." I remain interested at how specific Norman's uniform is(with changes) in the Marion, Arbogast, and Sam and Lila scenes with him. Whose choice to USE those clothes that way? (For instance, Norman likely wears the jacket on meeting Marion because its raining out, he probably grabs the jacket when he grabs the umbrella. Perkins' PERSONAL liking of the black crewneck sweater he wears with Arbogast pays off: in the well lit darkness, Perkins looks as beautiful in that scene as anywhere else in the movie.

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Janet Leigh said that she went to an "off the rack" suburban store called Jax to buy Marion's wardrobe. I think she may have seen North by Northwest and elected to mimic one of Eva Marie Saint's outfits for the real estate office scene -- thereafter she's in a "uniform" (the gray wool suitdress) as famous as Cary Grant's gray suit in NXNW and Tippi Hedren's green suitdress in The Birds.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

That's part of what sets PSYCHO apart from other Hitchcock films of its era: there is no glamor at all.

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I've read 1960 reviews of the time, and critics were certainly surprised by the cheap look of the movie -- even as(I contend) the images are as rich and three-dimensional as any of Hitchcock big budget movies, there is also a "sparseness" to the clothes, many of the rooms...Hitchcock knew what he was doing. He had seen "Diabolique" and Wiliam Castle's "House on Haunted Hill" and -- I'll bet -- another William Castle movie called "Macabre"(which happens in a small California town like Fairvale) -- and he wanted to emulate contemporary B horror flicks in the 50s.

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Everyone looks rough around the edges and their clothes reflect their middle class backgrounds.

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Yep. I always like to compare Psycho to To Catch a Thief, in which many characters are "the idle rich"(even Cary Grant's ex-thief), wearing designer clothes and jewelry and ball gowns -- THOSE people don't worry about money at all.

Psycho does have a precursor in The Wrong Man, another black and white Hitchcock with characters hard pressed for money.

BTW, for sheer "un-Hitchcockian flavor" in a Hitchocck movie, I love the documentary style long shot in The Wrong Man -- with hard to hear dialogue -- when a juror stands up in the box and protests "Do we have to keep listening to this?" and draws Fonda a mistrial(he was ready to convict.) It is a "hyper realistic moment" (from the real case) and it, too, predicts the grittiness of Psycho.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

It also makes the movie feel grimier. Compare it to REAR WINDOW and DIAL M FOR MURDER, with Grace Kelly's (gorgeous) dresses. Great movies, but more evocative of escapist thrills than PSYCHO's more ontological evocation of all the violence that underlies so-called polite society.
--

Funny: I mentioned To Catch a Thief, you mention Rear Window and Dial M and the crossover of course is -- Grace Kelly -- who won an Oscar when she "went dowdy" for The Country Girl.

But yes, Psycho got its "look" from Hitchcock's determination and imagination and that's one of the things that makes it look like a uniqe classic. "Wait Until Dark" on the other hand, was in Technicolor and felt plush even in presenting Hepburn's modest apartment(and workplace of her photographer husband.)

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I remain interested at how specific Norman's uniform is(with changes) in the Marion, Arbogast, and Sam and Lila scenes with him. Whose choice to USE those clothes that way?
--
Next time I watch the movie (which might be soon, it's one of my go-tos I never tire of), I'll have to keep a lookout for Perkins' wardrobe. Everyone tends to focus on Marion's costuming and how it reflects her morality at any given moment, but I've never even thought about Norman's clothes. Except the turtleneck. He looked great in that.
--
I've read 1960 reviews of the time, and critics were certainly surprised by the cheap look of the movie -- even as(I contend) the images are as rich and three-dimensional as any of Hitchcock big budget movies, there is also a "sparseness" to the clothes, many of the rooms...Hitchcock knew what he was doing.
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Didn't they claim the film looked like a TV movie? Which is insane because the cinematography is so rich and beautiful.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Psycho does have a precursor in The Wrong Man, another black and white Hitchcock with characters hard pressed for money.
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THE WRONG MAN is so often overlooked, but yeah, it has that grittier look-- and it's probably the most depressing Hitchcock film, bar none. FRENZY is gritty too-- none of the characters are glamorous and the costumes I most recall in that are Babs' bright orange ensemble and Brenda's green blouse, but more because of the colors and less because the clothes themselves were glamorous. It's a very, very 1970s movie in aesthetics.
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Funny: I mentioned To Catch a Thief, you mention Rear Window and Dial M and the crossover of course is -- Grace Kelly -- who won an Oscar when she "went dowdy" for The Country Girl.
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I forgot about the end of DIAL M, though, when Kelly comes back from prison and looks like absolute hell-- bags beneath the eyes, limp hair, a grey dress. It's a total reversal of the beautiful red gown from the early scenes or her smart burgundy suit when having drinks. For all my love of it (rewatches have given me a deeper appreciation of the film's structure and cinematography), DIAL M is a very mechanical movie, more about seeing the plot unfurl than empathizing with any of the characters, but that moment does provide Tony's attempted crimes with a real human toll.
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"Wait Until Dark" on the other hand, was in Technicolor and felt plush even in presenting Hepburn's modest apartment(and workplace of her photographer husband.)
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Terence Young wanted to shoot WUD in black-and-white but Jack Warner wouldn't let him. In 1972, Young ruefully noted, "color is now obligatory under the rule of television." I think B&W would have suited the film. I think it's a shame that mainstream movies can no longer be in B&W-- the phobia of monochrome movies never made sense to me.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

We're at 97 posts here so far. Such a nice honoring of the deserving Alan Arkin, with Hitchocck, Perkins and Psycho weaving in and out.
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The guy really deserves it. I could talk about him all day tbh.
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And I went to that movie because Tony Perkins was in it, and was digging him back then. He was an odd mix with Charles Bronson, that's to be sure. And it was one of many movies that did NOT live up to Psycho, alas.
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It's a shame because when you say, "A thriller with an evil Tony Perkins and an amnesiac Charles Bronson," I expect either a hidden gem or at least fun camp, but I got neither! I was hoping for a weird but fun actor mash-up like RED SUN, where Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune go on an adventure in the old west. Not the best movie in the world, but the offbeat pairing was not wasted (that movie was also directed by Terence Young!).

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Its cool to learn when an actor chooses their wardrobe "off the rack."
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It is. I think Ferrer said on the DVD that Arkin picked his makeup for all three Roats. He definitely had a sense of humor about it: the blonde wig he wears as Jr always cracks me up with how bad it is-- so bad it's amazing.
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Roat's leather jacket wasn't like the Fonz...it was very LONG, and secured with a flamboyant belt that stuck out. Roat was almost...dashing. But he also wore the sunglasses inside(and at night) and had that greased down hair(KIND of a Jerry Lewis effect) and..it was great.
--
Arkin said in later interviews that he based his Roat characterization on several drug addicts he knew in Chicago in the early 60s. Gotta wonder if any of the costuming choices were influenced by any of that.
--
Roat was one of those creeps with no back story and one felt it would be horrifying to LEARN it.
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It's clear he's a frustrated theater graduate who wants to prove he can make his makeup and acting skills usable within a drug dealing career. Don't tell him he wasted those four years!!

But for real, yeah-- the mystery and unknowability adds to the creepy vibe. I feel too many scary movies try making their villains understandable/sympathetic, but that makes them less scary. Arkin's often hard to read in WUD-- like there's an emptiness behind the eyes, like he doesn't even have a soul or he materialized out of thin air.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Its cool to learn when an actor chooses their wardrobe "off the rack."
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It is. I think Ferrer said on the DVD that Arkin picked his makeup for all three Roats. He definitely had a sense of humor about it: the blonde wig he wears as Jr always cracks me up with how bad it is-- so bad it's amazing.
--

Yeah -- Roat's various "disguises" always struck me as -- "disguises you use with a blind person." Ha. Though Roat is upset when the young neighbor girl sees him.

I recall my 1968 audience being a little impatient with that second act con act -- they chattered somewhat, a bit bored -- but it really does take Wait Until Dark up and over the usual slasher plot.

---
Roat's leather jacket wasn't like the Fonz...it was very LONG, and secured with a flamboyant belt that stuck out. Roat was almost...dashing. But he also wore the sunglasses inside(and at night) and had that greased down hair(KIND of a Jerry Lewis effect) and..it was great.
--
Arkin said in later interviews that he based his Roat characterization on several drug addicts he knew in Chicago in the early 60s. Gotta wonder if any of the costuming choices were influenced by any of that.
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Probably. I fluffed a comment of Arkin about Roat's state of mind(made on the DVD doc, I think) : that Roat is taking so many drugs at the same time that he is rather "neutralized"(Arkin used a better term.) Its always hard to tell the effect of drugs on people...versus a slurring drunk, they can be quite centered and focussed...but on their OWN inner world.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Roat was one of those creeps with no back story and one felt it would be horrifying to LEARN it.
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It's clear he's a frustrated theater graduate who wants to prove he can make his makeup and acting skills usable within a drug dealing career. Don't tell him he wasted those four years!!

--

That's hilarious! But it makes sense, right? Roat perhaps was one of those theater guys who hangs around Off Broadway workshops and -- on the side -- became an enforcer for the Mafia(yes, the Mafia) but started to use to much of his own product. He looked like a Beatnik, not a pre-hippie.

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But for real, yeah-- the mystery and unknowability adds to the creepy vibe. I feel too many scary movies try making their villains understandable/sympathetic, but that makes them less scary. Arkin's often hard to read in WUD-- like there's an emptiness behind the eyes, like he doesn't even have a soul or he materialized out of thin air.

--

He has some "outside moments" -- like the classic "Don't touch me!" when Crenna does at the van(so many killers don't like to be touched.) And when he's not in "performance mode"(spinning his evil speeches at the henchmen and at Hepburn) he's uncommunicative, practically grunts.

Also: we first see him at the airport -- waiting for Lisa ("Mrs. Roat") and its clear that she made a BIG miscalculation(that she would get away with her theft) and Roat's very ready to do very bad things to her. He grabs her without a word and steers her to her doom.

A very nuanced performance.

CONT

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

That's hilarious! But it makes sense, right? Roat perhaps was one of those theater guys who hangs around Off Broadway workshops and -- on the side -- became an enforcer for the Mafia(yes, the Mafia) but started to use to much of his own product.
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It is interesting that you never learn exactly who he works for-- but that adds to the mystery element. You don't want to know too much.( Also, gotta wonder-- does he normally dress like a beatnik or was that just another disguise to throw everyone off? Maybe when he's not working, he goes by Lon Chaney Sr's motto: "Offscreen there is no Lon Chaney.")
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Also: we first see him at the airport -- waiting for Lisa ("Mrs. Roat") and its clear that she made a BIG miscalculation(that she would get away with her theft) and Roat's very ready to do very bad things to her. He grabs her without a word and steers her to her doom.
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The look on her face when she sees him at the observation deck says everything-- our first hint he's bad news even before he opens his mouth or hurts anyone. (Another difference from the play, where Lisa and Roat never knew each other previously. He was just hired to track her down, get the heroin back, then kill her. Which makes me wonder what Roat and Lisa's relationship looked like in the movie before she betrayed him, because she clearly recognizes him-- they make an odd pair of partners in crime. Some people on the WAIT UNTIL DARK board have asked if the two were actually married; for obvious reasons, I have my doubts.)

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

A very nuanced performance.
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Yes, definitely a lot more to it than your standard mustache-twirling, hence our ability to dissect it and still feel there's such mystery there. A recent obituary of Arkin quoted an academic who had a really great observation about the performance that really aligns with what we've been saying:

"Take the 1967 film version of the thriller “Wait Until Dark,” Libera says. Arkin plays the slippery villain in that one, terrorizing Audrey Hepburn. But what and who is he? A beatnik? A guy pretending to be a beatnik? A psychopath? “He’s layering characters on top of characters,” Libera says, “and as an actor he had an ability to move behind a character’s lines and a character’s initial circumstances. He let you know that there are other worlds to explore behind the facade of every character."" (Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/alan-arkin-appreciation-keep-calm-and-carry-on-toward-the-edge-of-certain-disaster/ar-AA1dgUnZ)

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Yeah -- Roat's various "disguises" always struck me as -- "disguises you use with a blind person." Ha. Though Roat is upset when the young neighbor girl sees him.
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They're really only for the benefit of the girl ("Remember, there's a nice little pink kid running around the house. And she wears glasses.") and she gets a good look at both disguises. (This also implies he has a miniature costuming department in his van. I find that delightful.)

Another note: In the 60s, there was this weird push to sell Arkin as the next Peter Sellers (was it his use of accents?). A lot of WUD's PR focused on Arkin playing "three roles"-- kind of like how Sellers played multiple roles in LOLITA and DR STRANGELOVE. Yet you don't see any of that in the official trailers, which were more keen on stressing the "lights out" finale.
--
I recall my 1968 audience being a little impatient with that second act con act -- they chattered somewhat, a bit bored -- but it really does take Wait Until Dark up and over the usual slasher plot.
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Not an uncommon reaction. To be fair to them, the trailers and posters only sold the creepy, violent stuff, not ex-convict community theater. If you saw the trailer, you would probably think the whole movie was just the home invasion stuff and not the caper that makes up the middle.

I love it though. It's the sort of overelaborate scheme you'd see in farce comedy (and tbh, it kind of is briefly-- Weston cleans up fingerprints obnoxiously while grilling Hepburn, Arkin checks his Mark Twain makeup in the mirror while ransacking her bedroom, the ex-cons give each other congratulatory pats on the shoulder anytime they think they did a great job), but the more it unravels, the more danger Hepburn's in.

CONTD

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

You don't want the criminals to succeed in terrorizing her (one of my sisters commented, "They are so MEAN" during the middle part), but the more she knows, the more likely they are to resort to violence. (And when I first saw this, I had no clue about Crenna and Weston's other roles are nicer characters, so I was nervous their desperation COULD make them violent.)

It's a wonderful slow burn, and really very dynamic story-wise: Susy's initially the dupe, her psychological insecurities inflamed by the phony con, and then she becomes a detective, examining inconsistencies and clues as to the real identity of her guests, and only when the jig is up does she have to defend her home and her life.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Yeah -- Roat's various "disguises" always struck me as -- "disguises you use with a blind person." Ha. Though Roat is upset when the young neighbor girl sees him.
--
They're really only for the benefit of the girl ("Remember, there's a nice little pink kid running around the house. And she wears glasses.") and she gets a good look at both disguises.

---

Aha. I forgot that! Funny that he had the disguises ready, but i suppose most of the time , he was running his cons on sighted people.

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(This also implies he has a miniature costuming department in his van. I find that delightful.)

---

There you go. Recall that Rod Steiger one year later in No Way to Treat a Lady played a Broadway impresario who strangled all his female victims in various disguises of face and voice -- Irish, German, "gay," ...woman. In case witnesses saw him enter homes, etc.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Another note: In the 60s, there was this weird push to sell Arkin as the next Peter Sellers (was it his use of accents?). A lot of WUD's PR focused on Arkin playing "three roles"-- kind of like how Sellers played multiple roles in LOLITA and DR STRANGELOVE. Yet you don't see any of that in the official trailers, which were more keen on stressing the "lights out" finale.

--

Yes on the trailer, though in the movie itself, Arkin gets three separate "curtain call" shots from the movie:

Roat Sr
Roat Jr
Roat

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I can't recall if Arkin played multiple ethnic roles in one movie, but he WAS in demand as a man who could play different ethnic roles in DIFFERENT movies:

Russian: The Russians Are Coming..
French: Inspector Clouseau
Puerto Rican: Popi
Hispanic: Freebie and the Bean(he's "the Bean.")
German: The 7 Percent Solution (Freud)

Some of this stemmed from his "swarthy features"(dare I even identify them as such?) but that's how movies got cast back then.

I remain -- bemused? -- by the push towards correct ethnic casting in today's day and age. We all know the same argument: why can't ANY ethnicity play ANY ethnicity?

I consider the best performance in an ethnic role to be Eli Wallach as the Mexican bandit leader in "The Magnificent Seven." Wallach was a New York Jewish man whose roots I cannot offer here, but he was GREAT as Caldera.

When they remade The Magnificent Seven in 2016, they made sure to make the villain a white man and most of his henchmen white(save one Native American as I recall.) What this seemed to ignore was that in the original, the VILLAINS were Mexican, but so were the HEROES -- one of the 7 and the farmers who hired and fought alongside the 7. The Mexican government and film commission(?) were adamant that the Mexican farmers be brave and fight.

Came 2016 -- just bad white guys, and white farmers.

CONT

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I can't recall if Arkin played multiple ethnic roles in one movie, but he WAS in demand as a man who could play different ethnic roles in DIFFERENT movies
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Yeah, that sort of thing was accepted back then. Even as late as the 90s, you could have Antonio Banderas playing an Arab in THE 13TH WARRIOR.
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When they remade The Magnificent Seven in 2016, they made sure to make the villain a white man and most of his henchmen white(save one Native American as I recall.) What this seemed to ignore was that in the original, the VILLAINS were Mexican, but so were the HEROES --
--
I freaking forgot that remake even existed. Amazing how so many reboots made in the 2000s and 2010s just fade from memory.

Maybe that's why I don't get overly upset when classics are remade. the same thing will happen if Robert Downey Jr's VERTIGO remake goes through, mark my words.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Recall that Rod Steiger one year later in No Way to Treat a Lady played a Broadway impresario who strangled all his female victims in various disguises of face and voice -- Irish, German, "gay," ...woman. In case witnesses saw him enter homes, etc.
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It's clear Steiger's character and Roat attended the same college theater program. Throw in Ross Martin's crossdressing Red Lynch from EXPERIMENT IN TERROR and Peter Seller's roleplaying Quilty in LOLITA, and we could have an AVENGERS style crossover with theatrically-minded psychopaths.
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Yes on the trailer, though in the movie itself, Arkin gets three separate "curtain call" shots from the movie
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I love that credit! I recall a podcaster claiming WUD is "a very serious movie" with no humor, but that's plainly untrue. Aside from Arkin lacing his menace with humor, this credit is pretty cheeky, almost highlighting how absurd the con plot is.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I always like how the canny Alfred Hitchcock -- cruising on Vertigo/NXNW/Psycho fumes -- managed to get THE two male stars of the 60s, other than Steve McQueen, in two films: Sean Connery and Paul Newman. And that was it.
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I can't even imagine McQueen and Hitchcock on the same set. The ego battle would have been insane.

I rather like Connery in MARNIE (even if I want to hit his character with a brick)-- I think he sold the character's erotic obsession well and he was a handsome dude to say the least. Newman was very meh in TORN CURTAIN-- I can guess he and Hitch didn't get along.

I wonder what his 70s films would have been like with the big stars of that era. Wasn't Burt Reynolds considered for FAMILY PLOT? That would have been something!

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I always like how the canny Alfred Hitchcock -- cruising on Vertigo/NXNW/Psycho fumes -- managed to get THE two male stars of the 60s, other than Steve McQueen, in two films: Sean Connery and Paul Newman. And that was it.
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I can't even imagine McQueen and Hitchcock on the same set. The ego battle would have been insane.

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Yes, I noted McQueen because -- by the mid-sixties, He and Newman were the two biggest young American stars(YOUNG; John Wayne was still big); James Bond had made Connery -- clearly a star in look, voice and build -- an "insta-star."

Interesting: I have read that Hitchcock considered Connery for Mitch in The Birds(but didn't offer it?) and that he OFFERED Paul Newman "Marnie"(but Newman wasn't interested. Connery ended up in Marnie after Newman AND Rock Hudson turned it down; Newman ended up in Torn Curtain even as Hitchcock tried to secure the lead for..Anthony Perkins!(Said Perkins himself -- Hitch wanted to un-do the Norman Bates curse.)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

But back to Steve McQueen. It seems to be gone now, but for a long time you could find on the IMdb Psycho page a photo of Steve McQueen visiting Tony Perkins and Janet Leigh on the Psycho "soundstage." None of the sets are visible, and both Perkins and Leigh are in street clothes, not their costumes(street clothes being a flamboyant white jacket, black shirt and tie for Tony, a very nice dress and pearls on Janet.) McQueen is in a sweater that tells me he was making the Hitchcock TV episode "Man From the South" at this time -- the famous one about Peter Lorre, Steve McQueen, a cigarette lighter...and a meat cleaver.

Hitchcock didn't direct Man From the South -- obviously, he was directing Psycho -- but it is a reminder that a great many major stars worked on the TV series even if not in Hitchcock movies. I count McQueen(TWICE, and one of them was SciFi-ish), Walter Matthau(as a tough mobster and as a crooked highway cop), Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson(and I'm sure , some major female stars but I can't remember them...)

Hitchcock told the press he wanted to work with McQueen in the 70's -- while McQueen was in reclusive retirement -- on a movie from an Elmore Leonard novel called "Unknown Man 89"(or some number.) Hitch wanted to get in on that Dirty Harry/Charley Varrick action -- he hoped for McQueen, Bronson, or Reynolds in the role. But he was just too old to get the book(which he bought) made. He also offered Clint Eastwood "The Short Night"(spy movie) over a lunch at Hitchcock's office which Eastwood called "the strangest lunch I've ever had." Hitch wanted to work with the tough guys!

As for McQueen he once commented on Hitchcock's phrase "actors are children" which was always more mean than "actors are cattle"(which was rather jokey.) Said McQueen "I thought Hitchcock was mean to say that, but, he's kind of RIGHT -- we ARE children, we get whatever we want."

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Meanwhile Richard Burton said once that Hitchcock's "actors are cattle" remark is why "I will never work with him." Burton backed this when he turned down Richard Blaney in Frenzy. (And he was the BEST casting, given the older man in the book.

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I rather like Connery in MARNIE (even if I want to hit his character with a brick)-- I think he sold the character's erotic obsession well and he was a handsome dude to say the least. Newman was very meh in TORN CURTAIN-- I can guess he and Hitch didn't get along.

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I expect the difference is that Connery was "new and hungry" - looking to prove himself as movie star beyond James Bond, and Newman was established and in demand, eventually convinced he'd made a mistake in accepting Torn Curtain.

Newman had a general quote(not specific to Torn Curtain) about how, when he didn't believe in a scene, "I play it leaning against a wall" -- without full energy or commitment. A fair amount of his work in Torn Curtain feels that way -- especially the exposition with the "farmer"(spy) on the tractor. Still, I thought Newman handled the many nervous moods leading up to the deadly fight with Gromek...quite well. I think Hitchcock forced Newman to turn off the mugging and overplaying of some roles and "get serious."

Still: I'm very glad that we have an Alfred Hitchcock movie with Paul Newman, and one with Julie Andrews, and one with Sean Connery -- its good to have as many big stars in as many eras as possible "seen through Hitchcock's lens."

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I wonder what his 70s films would have been like with the big stars of that era. Wasn't Burt Reynolds considered for FAMILY PLOT? That would have been something!

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Poor Alfred. He TRIED to get all sorts of major 70s stars to work with him, and they all said no. He'd been daring in his willingness to work with Connery and Newman -- younger, difficult men -- when folks like Ford and Wilder were sticking with John Wayne and William Holden. And by the 70s, he tried to work with Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino and Robert Redford and Burt Reynolds. It was sort of touching. "Hitch never gave up."

Hitch had three flops before he made Frenzy but I always thought that Frenzy was a well-reviewed hit and SHOULD have given Hitchcock the clout to get major actors for Family Plot. But they all said no:

Lumley(Good Guy)

Jack Nicholson
Al Pacino

Adamson (Bad guy)

Burt Reynolds
Roy Scheider (hot off of Jaws)

Fran: (Bad gal)

Faye Dunaway

and....Robert Redford(said he got an offer) ...but for the good guy or the well-tailored bad guy? I think it would have been fun to see Redford as the evil Adamson.

But...no go.

That said, Barbara Harris was certainly a "name" all through the 70's, I felt she wasn't an unknown(and great in her part.) Bruce Dern -- on friend Nicholson's recommendation -- WAS good as the hero Lumley..

And William Devane was simply GREAT as Adamson. I don't think either Burt Reynolds or Roy Scheider had his qualities(great voice, big teeth, werewolf in a suit look.)

Karen Black was the biggest name as Fran the Bad Gal -- but alas, the least in terms of acting(some really bad line reading.)

Still, imagine Family Plot with this cast:

Jack Nicholson (Lumley)
Robert Redford(Adamson)
Faye Dunaway (Fran...just off Chinatown with Jack)
Barbara Harris(gets to stay as Madame Blanche -- Hitchcock refused to consider Liza Minnelli -- the studio's choice -- for the part.)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Frenzy needed offers to British stars, and we had these confirmed rejected offers from:

Michael Caine (the psycho rapist-strangler Bob Rusk)

Richard Burton (anti-hero Richard Blaney)
Richard Harris (Blaney)

Glenda Jackson
Vanessa Redgrave (murder victim Brenda Blaney)

Lynn Redgrave (less graphic murder victim Babs Milligan)

Note that Hitch almost cast "the Redgrave sisters" as murder victims -- and their father was Michael Redgrave from The Lady Vanishes.

Note: I'd say Hitchcock SHOULD have had a shot at working with Michael Caine -- he wasn't that picky, he took everything -- but Bob Rusk was just too far(and Hitchcock didn't offer Blaney to Caine: Why?) Also, I say that Caine's vicious mob killer in Get Carter(who DID kill women) was pretty close to Rusk

Note: Hitchcock loved Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard(1974.) He couldn't get Reynolds for Family Plot, but cast three other actors from tht movie: Ed Lauter(villain Joe Maloney), the tombstone carver and the cemetary worker.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

The Redgrave sisters as the victims would have been an interesting selling point. However, it's so hard to see Vanessa Redgrave agreeing to the part of Brenda. In the grand scheme of the movie, it's a small role. Babs is the meatier of the two, if only because she gets a bit more spunk.

Hard to imagine Glenda Jackson in the role either. (RIP-- another great performer we lost. Just watched her in HOPSCOTCH the other day.)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

The Redgrave sisters as the victims would have been an interesting selling point.

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On the one hand, I think the "gimmick" would be interesting, but it remains hard for me to see ANY known actress going through the Brenda Blaney rape murder scene. So Vanessa would have been out on general principles.

I think Hitchcock actually more pursued Lynn Redgrave for Babs -- and indeed, Glenda Jackson(a recent Oscar winner for the very sexual Women in Love) for Brenda.

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However, it's so hard to see Vanessa Redgrave agreeing to the part of Brenda. In the grand scheme of the movie, it's a small role. Babs is the meatier of the two, if only because she gets a bit more spunk.

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Well, Babs is the longer part. And its shocking when SHE gets it, too. As I've noted before , it is as if Ruth Roman were to be killed after Miriam is in Strangers on a Train, or Vera Miles after Marion in Psycho.

I think the bottom line is that Hitchcock knew that, however short a part Brenda Blaney was, audiences would never forget the horrible, suspenseful hell she was put through in his most brutal and heartbreaking murder. Near unknown Barbara LEIGH-Hunt(note the similarity to Janet LEIGH) was up the challenge AND unforgettable: it was like seeing a real, nice person, condemned to death. It HURT. The murders in Charade and Wait Until Dark are "fun" in comparison.

Not only was Hitchcock at a low reputational ebb when he tried to cast Frenzy -- he was pitching THREE really unappetizing roles: a psychotic rapist-strangler(none other than John Wayne advised Michael Caine, "never play a rapist"); a downtrodden born loser with a horrible temper and self-pity; and the nice female victim of a horrendous sex murder. Honestly, what STAR would want any of those roles? Hitchcock soon figured out: no star did. But many mere near-unknown ACTORS would take the roles. To work with Hitchcock...

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Hard to imagine Glenda Jackson in the role either.

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Its funny. For years, only the failed Michael Caine/Rusk casting was made known in the Hitchcock record, but a book on Frenzy revealed actual offers to Jackson, Richard Burton , and Richard Harris. Hitchcock tried a LOT of names, got noes, had to go with unknowns.

With Glenda Jackson, he probably figured he was pitching a woman who was familiar with controversy and sexual movies (Marat/Sade is on her resume) but..evidently not interested in the Hitchcock Version.

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(RIP-- another great performer we lost. Just watched her in HOPSCOTCH the other day.)

Yes, RIP some time ago. Oddly, I recall Jackson's comment when her boisterous co-star and heavy drinker Oliver Reed (who would have made a great Richard Blaney) died during a drinking game in a pub while making Gladiator: "At least he died with his boots on."

Hopscotch was one of two movies Glenda Jackson made with Walter Matthau. She gave him prestige and he gave her Hollywood bonafides, they were middle-aged, not particularly good looking, but sexual and funny together -- it was clearly an attempt at Tracy/Hepburn and I think, at least with House Calls(the other one), quite a success. Hopscotch was good in a different way.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

but it remains hard for me to see ANY known actress going through the Brenda Blaney rape murder scene. So Vanessa would have been out on general principles.

Vanessa R. is one of the few actresses who *wouldn't* have ruled out the Brenda on general principles; she certainly had no aversion to nudity or general extremity in the service of a director's vision. I imagine, however, that Redgrave might well have been a little weary and wary of film extremity in 1971 in particular, having just completed The Devils (1971) with Ken Russell. In that film Redgrave cavorts naked *a lot*, sees to it that the object of her mad passions is burned at the stake, and ends up fondling (and, in the directors cut never released on dvd or blu-ray, masturbating with) the charred bones of her victim. This doc. from Mark Kermode has the details if you're interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeg1yIvalSo
Redgrave was pretty much the paradigm of the 'brave' performer at the time, hence was well-worth asking about the Brenda-role, but I can easily see how the timing may have been wrong for her.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Hitchcock told the press he wanted to work with McQueen in the 70's -- while McQueen was in reclusive retirement -- on a movie from an Elmore Leonard novel called "Unknown Man 89"(or some number.) Hitch wanted to get in on that Dirty Harry/Charley Varrick action -- he hoped for McQueen, Bronson, or Reynolds in the role. But he was just too old to get the book(which he bought) made. He also offered Clint Eastwood "The Short Night"(spy movie) over a lunch at Hitchcock's office which Eastwood called "the strangest lunch I've ever had." Hitch wanted to work with the tough guys!
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Oh my God, I never knew that! A 70s Hitchcock action picture!

It is sad he was rejected by many stars in the 70s. What was Hitchcock's public perception like in the 70s? Was he considered a has-been, even with FRENZY? Like, I think of someone like Spielberg, who's been making movies for 52 years now-- that's the equivalent of what Hitchcock's mileage by the time FAMILY PLOT came out-- and yet, he doesn't seem to have trouble with getting stars necessarily... then again, stars aren't what they were.

Idk, it seems less odd that Spielberg is still making movies in the 2020s than Hitchcock, who got his start writing intertitles for silent movies, was still making films in the New Hollywood era.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Hitchcock told the press he wanted to work with McQueen in the 70's -- while McQueen was in reclusive retirement -- on a movie from an Elmore Leonard novel called "Unknown Man 89"(or some number.) Hitch wanted to get in on that Dirty Harry/Charley Varrick action -- he hoped for McQueen, Bronson, or Reynolds in the role. But he was just too old to get the book(which he bought) made. He also offered Clint Eastwood "The Short Night"(spy movie) over a lunch at Hitchcock's office which Eastwood called "the strangest lunch I've ever had." Hitch wanted to work with the tough guys!
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Oh my God, I never knew that! A 70s Hitchcock action picture!

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I think what this demonstrates is that Hitchcock -- who watched all manner of movies in his private screening room to get "a taste of the times" -- wanted to make an action movie in 1978 or so as he wanted to make a horror movie with Psycho in 1959. The younger Hitchcock pulled off the switch with Psycho, the older Hitch simply couldn't get it done with Unknown Man...89?

I bought that book and it was good in the Leonard tradition. As I recall the hero was a process server and his female love interest was an alcoholic...which Hitchcock noted in his press release: he wanted that love affair on the screen("Notorious meets Jackie Brown.") I recall one bit where the hero fired a shotgun at the bad guy and a window shattered and the bad guy said "That all you got?"

Clint Eastwood took a lunch in Hitchcock's office mainly to get to take lunch with Hitch. "I didn't much like the script," Eastwood said, and he said that Hitchcock's head didn't move as they talked - only his eyes. Eastwood did tell Hitch that he made Play Misty for Me "in the Hitchcock tradition." So the lunch had THAT going for it.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

It is sad he was rejected by many stars in the 70s.

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Yes. There is a 1972 interview with HItchcock promoting Frenzy with this exchange:

Interviewer: You haven't used any big stars in Frenzy.
Hitchcock: Well...they weren't necessary. The story is what matters.
Interviewer: Then would you say that Alfred Hitchcock is the star of Frenzy?
Hitchcock: Sure.

But Hitchcock REALLY knew that he'd been turned down right and left. And some critics AND interviewers noted that Barry Foster looked like Michael Caine. "Did you think of casting Caine?" Hitch deflected. One time, his answer was expertly wacky: "But if I'd cast Caine, I would have had to cast an equally big star in the other role." The end. And?

And what surprises me is that AFTER Frenzy broke the late curse..he STILL couldn't get major stars. With Frenzy, Brits had turned him down. With Family Plot, Yanks did.

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What was Hitchcock's public perception like in the 70s? Was he considered a has-been, even with FRENZY? Like, I think of someone like Spielberg, who's been making movies for 52 years now-- that's the equivalent of what Hitchcock's mileage by the time FAMILY PLOT came out-- and yet, he doesn't seem to have trouble with getting stars necessarily... then again, stars aren't what they were.

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I've kind of been making a study of this phenomenon. We can go back to Stanley Kubrick, at age 69-70(when Hitchcock made Topaz) landing Tom Cruise AND Nicole Kidman(then husband and wife) and trapping them for a year or more(more for Tom) for Eyes Wide Shut. No problems whatsoever. Then Kubrick died at 70.

Meanwhile, I think Spielberg is now the age that Hitch was when he made Family Plot, and I'll bet that Spielberg could hire any actor today. That said, his last two movies(flops) didn't have major stars in them. Got Oscar noms, though.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Idk, it seems less odd that Spielberg is still making movies in the 2020s than Hitchcock, who got his start writing intertitles for silent movies, was still making films in the New Hollywood era.

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Even including his health and alcohol problems, Hitchcock remained pretty articulate and evidently able to direct in his late 70s . One reason he died at 80 is that he seems to have lost all inspiration. (That said, he DID look awful at his 1979 AFI event.)

I sometimes wonder what would happen if Hitchcock got to be in his 60s and 70's in TODAY'S age. He might have gotten more studio support and more stars willing to work with him and screenwriters willing to "boost up the script quality." We'll never know. Good screenwriters were turning him down after Marnie - -until he landed Anthony Shaffer(hot from Sleuth) for Frenzy and -- voila! -- a good movie.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

More: Hitchcock in the late sixties ran into what his peers did: a new Counterculture which wished to use the movies as part of the revolution.

Dennis Hopper, hot off of Easy Rider, famously yelled at George Cukor at some Hollywood party: "We will bury you!" Cukor and Hitchocck and Wilder and others barely hung on and then retired or died. But surprise: Hopper crashed and burned too. Spielberg and Lucas were waiting.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I do remember thinking that Robert Duvall was bizarre casting for Watson. (Hey, Duvall played Roat on stage and here he is in a movie with Roat from the movie!)
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I thought of that when I first saw the movie. And another fun coincidence: Arkin and Stacy Keach were together in THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, and Keach would play Roat in the 1982 TV adaptation of WUD.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I do remember thinking that Robert Duvall was bizarre casting for Watson. (Hey, Duvall played Roat on stage and here he is in a movie with Roat from the movie!)
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I thought of that when I first saw the movie. And another fun coincidence: Arkin and Stacy Keach were together in THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, and Keach would play Roat in the 1982 TV adaptation of WUD

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Wow...rather a handoff -- Duvall to Arkin to Keach and all working with each other. That's literally showbiz. But Arkin got the movie and movies are...for the ages when they work.

I saw the Keach version on HBO and I think its on YouTube...Roat starts putting on make-up and jewelry to threaten Suzy...was that in the play?

And as I passed over earlier, I think it is nifty that Alan Arkin worked in several scenes with Anthony Perkins in Mike Nichols Catch-22. It IS "Harry Roat meets Norman Bates" though only Perkins still looks like his original character. And Martin Balsam has scenes in Catch 22 with Perkins, too.

There is an issue certainly known to many actors that once they are in a BIG movie -- hit, classic, hit AND classic -- they always seem a little reduced in later movies. Anthony Perkins did, and though Arkin did more serious work(Glengarry Glen Ross) and character work, I for one, always thought about Roat and missed both Roat and his great movie.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I remember how Jaws turned Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss into "instant leading men" and all three got some great movies AFTER Jaws...but none of the movies WAS Jaws. That was still their finest moment -- particularly together on screen.

And I KNOW that The Goodbye Girl won Dreyfuss an Oscar and Roy Scheider showed real range in the musical All That Jazz and Robert Shaw -- before dying young -- got...Swashbuckler?(Ever see that? Shaw in a skintight red jumpsuit as a pirate? HAH.) No,actually Shaw got the great Black Sunday and the lesser The Deep(a bigger hit) but...Jaws was their monument. Like Wait Until Dark is Arkin's monument. LIke Psycho is Anthony Perkins monument.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I remember how Jaws turned Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss into "instant leading men" and all three got some great movies AFTER Jaws...but none of the movies WAS Jaws. That was still their finest moment -- particularly together on screen.
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Can't argue with that.
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Robert Shaw -- before dying young -- got...Swashbuckler?
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I have NEVER heard of that. Just looked it up and it looks ASTOUNDING. There's a reason there was a curse on pirate movies from the 70s through the 90s lmao. It reminds me, I need to watch Sean Connery in ZARDOZ, where he wears the most epic movie costume I have ever seen.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I remember how Jaws turned Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss into "instant leading men" and all three got some great movies AFTER Jaws...but none of the movies WAS Jaws. That was still their finest moment -- particularly together on screen.
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Can't argue with that.
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Nope. That movie remains great to me for many reasons, but the shark(so famously NOT on screen for much of it) is only one. That 'terrific trio" of mismatched men was key, too. And they seemed a little diminished when they split up into other movies.

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Robert Shaw -- before dying young -- got...Swashbuckler?
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I have NEVER heard of that. Just looked it up and it looks ASTOUNDING. There's a reason there was a curse on pirate movies from the 70s through the 90s lmao

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I saw it on release. It was, unfortunately, "a Universal production" and had that cheapjack look(in 1976, the same year the same look in Hitchcock's Family Plot was overcome by Hitchcock's own talent.)

One critic caught something funny about Swashbuckler : the main leads in a movie needing "lithe athletic dancer-like men" to swordfight were "big galoots" (Hero Shaw, sidekick James Earl Jones, villain Peter Boyle.) Still, its fun and Robert Shaw's red jumpsuit is a thing to behold.

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. It reminds me, I need to watch Sean Connery in ZARDOZ, where he wears the most epic movie costume I have ever seen.

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"The Red Diaper." We're reminded that pre-Bond, Sean Connery was a bodybuilder ala Arnold(but without the steroids) and here he was perfectly willing to show the goods. In a time when it was usually women in those bikinis, it seemed a nice gesture on his part.

Weird movie, though. Boorman's payment for Deliverance -- and Burt Reynolds was his first choice, but evidently turned down the diaper.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I saw it on release. It was, unfortunately, "a Universal production" and had that cheapjack look(in 1976, the same year the same look in Hitchcock's Family Plot was overcome by Hitchcock's own talent.) One critic caught something funny about Swashbuckler : the main leads in a movie needing "lithe athletic dancer-like men" to swordfight were "big galoots" (Hero Shaw, sidekick James Earl Jones, villain Peter Boyle.) Still, its fun and Robert Shaw's red jumpsuit is a thing to behold.
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It looks like my kind of goofy.
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"The Red Diaper." We're reminded that pre-Bond, Sean Connery was a bodybuilder ala Arnold(but without the steroids) and here he was perfectly willing to show the goods. In a time when it was usually women in those bikinis, it seemed a nice gesture on his part.
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It's definitely an iconic movie costume. A friend of mine is a big Connery fan and we've had ZARDOZ on the radar forever now.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Roat starts putting on make-up and jewelry to threaten Suzy...was that in the play?
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Nope, not at all. That was something Keach added. In an interview, he said he thought Arkin did very well in the movie and he wanted to make his version as distinct as possible in order to not just copy a performance he respected. It's definitely... a politically incorrect choice by modern standards lol but it's also the most memorable thing about the otherwise undistinguished TV movie.

However, dialogue wise, the 1982 version uses the play script almost word for word, which unfortunately means Keach misses out on the 1967-exclusive "me topsy, dem toivey" speech.
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And as I passed over earlier, I think it is nifty that Alan Arkin worked in several scenes with Anthony Perkins in Mike Nichols Catch-22. It IS "Harry Roat meets Norman Bates" though only Perkins still looks like his original character. And Martin Balsam has scenes in Catch 22 with Perkins, too.
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I always think of CATCH-22 as a little PSYCHO reunion. Perkins also reunited with Orson Welles on that film-- Welles had directed Perkins in THE TRIAL almost a decade before.
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There is an issue certainly known to many actors that once they are in a BIG movie -- hit, classic, hit AND classic -- they always seem a little reduced in later movies. Anthony Perkins did, and though Arkin did more serious work(Glengarry Glen Ross) and character work, I for one, always thought about Roat and missed both Roat and his great movie.
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It definitely feels so with Perkins. I've yet to see a post-PSYCHO film that feels fully worthy of what we know he could do because of that film. He wanted to do another movie with Hitchcock but alas it never went through.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

There is an issue certainly known to many actors that once they are in a BIG movie ... they always seem a little reduced in later movies. Anthony Perkins did....[Arkin too after WUD]
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It definitely feels so with Perkins.

It's worth understanding why this happens with certain acts of casting: the director *sees* something in the actor something that's legible to the camera that the actor may not have even fully confessed to themselves or previously had as part of their star persona, some secret side to themselves or real potential for madness or violence they're officially unaware of. Because of the real personal revelation involved in these acts of casting the film has a little more juice in it that it would otherwise have, and if it becomes a classic, the actor not only will have trouble topping the role ever again, their star persona is permanently changed and various roles that were previously open to them no longer will be. A female case of this is Kathleen Byron being cast by Michael Powell as the unstable nun Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus (1947).Famously Powell sent Byron a telegram that she'd got the part adding "The trouble is you'll never have such a good one again." And Byron found herself pigeonholed as a neurotic and 'bad girl' ever after. Powell may have helped close off other possibilities for Byron by publicly disclosing their (illicit, Byron was married) affair and sharing salubrious stories of their behind the scenes friction across several films. One episode, wittily denied by Byron, is elliptically described by Powell as involving a naked Byron threatening him with a large revolver.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

@swanstep I didn't know any of that about Powell and Byron! that's crazy. She definitely was amazing in that part though. Such a shame it affected her career like that.

But there are certain actors who played villains and despite any other parts, the memory of their cinematic malevolence never dissipates. That's me with Judith Anderson: awesome actress. Saw her in EDGE OF DARKNESS the other day as a Norwegian freedom fighter struggling against attraction to a German. But every time I see her, I just think of Mrs. Danvers in REBECCA-- she was just too good at being bad!

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

@eliz. The converse case works too. There was a quite good Rebecca made for tv in the ‘90s with Diana Rigg (then in her 60s I’d guess) playing Mrs Danvers. Rigg is a great actress but she’s inherently loveable and can never be as flat out scary as Judith Anderson, never radiate that level of malevolence. Ultimately it’s a kind of gift to be able to terrify, to have manic energy to spare, etc. rather than something any actor can learn to do.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Roat starts putting on make-up and jewelry to threaten Suzy...was that in the play?
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Nope, not at all. That was something Keach added. In an interview, he said he thought Arkin did very well in the movie and he wanted to make his version as distinct as possible in order to not just copy a performance he respected. It's definitely... a politically incorrect choice by modern standards lol but it's also the most memorable thing about the otherwise undistinguished TV movie.

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Well, I sure remember it -- it made Roat that much weirder in his menace. Politically incorrect, yes but -- especially then, still a character trait to be conjured with.

Stacy Keach has always had a great, deep voice(stage trained) and in some ways that worked against him vs Arkin's hepcat banter. I suppose using the jewelry etc allowed him to stand out.

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However, dialogue wise, the 1982 version uses the play script almost word for word, which unfortunately means Keach misses out on the 1967-exclusive "me topsy, dem toivey" speech.
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Aha. This is what I mean when I say that I'm glad Hitchcock did NOT director Wait Until Dark. I don't think he was have hired screenwriters with that hip a tone. Nor would he really have known what to do with Alan Arkin.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

though Arkin did more serious work(Glengarry Glen Ross) and character work, I for one, always thought about Roat and missed both Roat and his great movie.
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At least we got that one great performance in that one great movie. Imagine living in an awful parallel universe where WAIT UNTIL DARK got franchised-- WAIT UNTIL DARK 2: ADVANCED DARKNESS.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit.

But I think Arkin had a very good run in the 60s and 70s-- some really iconic stuff, even if every movie wasn't a classic. I've seen almost all of it and tbh I'm dreading the day when there will be no "new" discoveries for me.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

though Arkin did more serious work(Glengarry Glen Ross) and character work, I for one, always thought about Roat and missed both Roat and his great movie.
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At least we got that one great performance in that one great movie. Imagine living in an awful parallel universe where WAIT UNTIL DARK got franchised-- WAIT UNTIL DARK 2: ADVANCED DARKNESS.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit.

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Ha. And yikes...we just KNOW that a terror hit as big as Wait Until Dark would generate some sort of sequel in this day and age. But Arkin's character is dead and I'll be Hepburn would be replaced by some "lesser light" to face off against some new foe. The gimmick would still be: blind heroine.

I just threw up in MY mouth...

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

But I think Arkin had a very good run in the 60s and 70s-- some really iconic stuff, even if every movie wasn't a classic. I've seen almost all of it and I'm dreading the day when there will be no "new" discoveries for me.

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I've given this a lot of thought the past two days(its nice to take my mind off of real life) and I now think that Alan Arkin and Wait Until Dark are NOT a good example of one movie taking over an actor's career.

Certainly not as happened with Anthony Perkins(though let's face it, that was pretty much a once in a lifetime "change in the persona" of a "nice guy") and really not as with the Jaws guys(because Shaw died a few years later and never DID beat Jaws, and the other guys faded.)

I'd say that, actually, the "Alan Arkin persona everybody knew" emerged in the Freebie and the Bean/In Laws period -- an intelligent, funny improv guy with a short haircut and a swarthy look. THAT Arkin stayed with us for the decades to come -- right up through The Kominsky Method(the series with Michael Douglas.)

I DO remember that I felt that "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" and "Popi"(neither of which I have seen) rather immediately took "scary Roat" away from me in my younger years -- it was clear that Roat was a "one off." But its rather like Stephen King said: you couldn't beat Roat.

Which reminds me: Anthony Perkins ended up listed Number Two on the AFI List of "Greatest Movie Villains" (after Darth Vader) and yet Norman Bates through most of his movie is NOT presented as a villain. Though he's not presented as a totally good guy either -- his accomplice complicity in burying the victims marks him for jail early on.

I suppose Anthony Perkins as Norman(in the ORIGINAL only) plays best as a villain the SECOND time you see Psycho -- when you KNOW he's the killer and therefore his every moment is charged with "Mrs. Bates within."

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Which reminds me: "The all time great villain" that is Norman Bates VERY MUCH carries "Mrs. Bates" as part of that character; its a "two-fer."

Mrs. Bates is the clear forerunner of Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy and the rest. A terrifying monster with a big knife and no mercy. How she comes at Marion in the shower and Arbogast on the stairs was truly the stuff of nightmares and she never really seems like ANTHONY PERKINS. (Note in passing: the overhead shot from high above of Mother running at Arbogast is famous, but the CLOSER overhead shot of Mother invading the shower and leaning into beautiful Marion is more sickening : that old crone in the shower WITH Marion.)

Anyway, Norman Bates ONLY beats Harry Roat if you say "And Anthony Perkins, Margo Epper and Mitzi the Little Person as Norman Bates." (Margo and Mitzi played mom in the shower and staircase attacks.)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

And as I passed over earlier, I think it is nifty that Alan Arkin worked in several scenes with Anthony Perkins in Mike Nichols Catch-22. It IS "Harry Roat meets Norman Bates" though only Perkins still looks like his original character. And Martin Balsam has scenes in Catch 22 with Perkins, too.
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I always think of CATCH-22 as a little PSYCHO reunion.

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It gets better. Martin Balsam is in Catch 22 -- but he replaced STACY KEACH who had the role of Col. Cathcart and was fired on location(very angry in interviews about that.) So we could have had Norman and Two Roats, but we got Norman, Roat, and Arbogast.

The scene in which Balsam gives Perkins orders while Balsam is on the toilet I have always called "Arbogast's Revenge."

And Balsam and Perkins worked together one more time -- on Murder on the Orient Express(1974.) I had thought that Perkins and Balsam were the only "Psycho" actors to reunite , but I proved wrong: John Gavin and Vera Miles are in Back Street(1961), the year after Psycho.

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Perkins also reunited with Orson Welles on that film-- Welles had directed Perkins in THE TRIAL almost a decade before.

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Yes. Per books I have read(on Mike Nichols, Perkins and Welles) when Welles flew in to the Mexico location of Catch-22, he drove Nichols nuts but made a beeline to Perkins and THOSE two sat and talked for hours, old pals.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

And then there was...Hepburn herself. Think of being Alan Arkin...in Movie Number Two of his career...going head to head with Hepburn for the final act of the movie(probably at least two weeks of filming, just the two of them on stage.) She was already a legend.
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It would feel like a mortal sin to even just pretend to want to brutalize that woman. It probably didn't help that Hepburn bruised a lot while they were filming those scenes and that she was a sweet person offscreen too.

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It must have been tough on Arkin. I"ve read often of actors having to do scenes terrorizing the other actor, or insulting the other actor , and deeply apologizing between takes(as the very nice Richard Widmark did with Sidney Poitier after saying racist lines in "No Way Out.") I'm sure that Arkin was that way with Hepburn.

On the other hand, Robert Mitchum went so berserk(acting-wise) in his final attack on Polly Bergen in Cape Fear(1962) that Bergen reportedly recoiled in fear after the take...and Mitchum didn't apologize.

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(I've always found their showdown slightly symbolic of the transitional period in which the film was made-- the Old Hollywood associated with Hepburn's elegance and optimism contrasted with the darker, weirder New Hollywood Arkin would be part of throughout the next decade. Of course in real life, the "kids with the beards" would win out, as William Holden said in FEDORA.)

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Well stated. That's how it felt in 1967. Audrey Hepburn was My Fair Lady, Arkin was pretty modern.

On the other hand, we had seen Hepburn terrorized by other thugs seeking a hidden fortune -- in Charade (1963.) But she had Cary Grant to protect her in that one.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I"ve read often of actors having to do scenes terrorizing the other actor, or insulting the other actor , and deeply apologizing between takes(as the very nice Richard Widmark did with Sidney Poitier after saying racist lines in "No Way Out.") I'm sure that Arkin was that way with Hepburn.
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Worst example of that I know of was with poor Veronica Carlson and Peter Cushing on FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED. The producer wanted "more sex" in the movie, this being 1969 and all... so he mandated a pointless rape scene with Cushing and Carlson. Cushing was disgusted, but did the scene and then took Carlson to lunch as an apology.
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On the other hand, we had seen Hepburn terrorized by other thugs seeking a hidden fortune -- in Charade (1963.) But she had Cary Grant to protect her in that one.
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Also the bad guys there aren't sadists. They're willing to kill, but all they want is the money. Roat "just wants to do evil things." I always got the sense he planned on torturing/assaulting/killing Susy no matter what happened and that he always planned on killing the two men. The criminals in CHARADE were ruthless, but they weren't personally interested in what became of Regina and would have left her alone the moment they got what they wanted. Roat doesn't play that way.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

I"ve read often of actors having to do scenes terrorizing the other actor, or insulting the other actor , and deeply apologizing between takes(as the very nice Richard Widmark did with Sidney Poitier after saying racist lines in "No Way Out.") I'm sure that Arkin was that way with Hepburn.
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Worst example of that I know of was with poor Veronica Carlson and Peter Cushing on FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED. The producer wanted "more sex" in the movie, this being 1969 and all... so he mandated a pointless rape scene with Cushing and Carlson. Cushing was disgusted, but did the scene and then took Carlson to lunch as an apology.

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Lunch? Strikes me as that much more embarrassing but...kindly gesture.

I'm reminded that actors Barry Foster(rapist-killer Rusk) and Barbara Leigh Hunt, according to Foster on the Frenzy DVD doc, were three days on that rape-murder scene, and Foster said that the two had to agree to get through it, try to joke around between takes.

I figure three days were broken down into three segments: (1) Opening suspenseful dialogue (2) Rape and (3) Nectkie Strangling. So maybe only one day was REALLY bad.

David Thomson wrote that the rape murder scene was "exploitative of the actress," but Leigh Hunt did give an interview that she felt the scene was necessary to show "just what this man was capable of," and was not bothered by doing it.

Meanwhile: there is footage on Youtube of Hitchcock directing the strangling. It is a single take of Foster violently pulling on that tie("fixed in place") while Leigh-Hunt struggles and I tell you -- its very disturbing even in "make believe" to see them enact such a brutal and cruel(and totally arbitrary) taking of life. Wait Until Dark NEVER went this far in Roat's violence against Hepburn and that's why it stands as an entertainment where Frenzy fully cannot.
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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

On the other hand, we had seen Hepburn terrorized by other thugs seeking a hidden fortune -- in Charade (1963.) But she had Cary Grant to protect her in that one.
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Also the bad guys there aren't sadists. They're willing to kill, but all they want is the money. Roat "just wants to do evil things."

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I'll take that point but there is the scene in Charade where James Coburn keeps tossing flaming matches onto Hepburn's clothed chest(she gets her fingers burned batting them away) and George Kennedy comes at her with his steel hook and just misses her, burying it in the door. They were scary ENOUGH ..but indeed really just out to scare her.--

I always got the sense he planned on torturing/assaulting/killing Susy no matter what happened and that he always planned on killing the two men.

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Yes to all three. As he said to Suzy about the two men:

"Did you know they wanted to kill me? I knew it. I knew it before THEY knew it." (Cue Topsy-Toivy line.) They probably just moved the schedule up.

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The criminals in CHARADE were ruthless, but they weren't personally interested in what became of Regina and would have left her alone the moment they got what they wanted. Roat doesn't play that way.

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No. Charade never really goes to where Wait Until Dark goes: horror. And a truly psychopathic killer whose sexual capacities are left unsaid.

THAT said: I recall that some reviews pointed out that Charade was pretty violent for a Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn movie. I always felt that Psycho had influenced the violence even as Charade didn't go that far: all three of the bad guys are violently murdered -- one's throat is slashed(ala Arbogast in the Psycho novel.) The killer turns out to be a "surprise" bad guy we hardly suspected.

They ARE linked as favorite thrillers of mine -- and though each lacks the cinematic style of Hitchocck, BOTH out-do Hitchcock in "hipness" -- at least for the 60s.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

They were scary ENOUGH ..but indeed really just out to scare her.
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Oh yeah, their methods are pretty messed up, but they come from a place of frustration rather than malice. Scobie could have REALLY screwed up their plan if that hook had connected.

Now, Dyle's way of picking everyone off was pretty sadistic: drowning, asphyxiation, etc. But he wanted revenge on people who left him to die, and the most he threatens Regina with is a bullet. He'll kill her, but it's nothing personal and it's to cover his tracks.
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Charade never really goes to where Wait Until Dark goes: horror. And a truly psychopathic killer whose sexual capacities are left unsaid.
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Yeah, the implications of Roat's plans for the thwarted bedroom trip at the end are chilling enough (he also left Geraldine on the table, which implies he might've strangled her with the scarf when he was done). No need to get graphic (alas, in the 70s sexual violence often seemed to be thrown into horror films and even thrillers for shock value-- see the godawful LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT). Hell, if it HAD gotten even a quarter as nasty as the scene in FRENZY, the audience might have hunted Arkin down-- make it RIP Alan Arkin 1934-1967 lol.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

THAT said: I recall that some reviews pointed out that Charade was pretty violent for a Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn movie.
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And it is! I remember finding the movie very macabre the first time I saw it. But like Hitchcock, there's a cheeky sense of humor about the killings-- plus all the characters who die horribly are jerks, from Regina's scumbag husband to Scobie. The killings only chill the audience because 1) they're nasty ways to go and 2) the audience knows Regina's fate might be similarly gruesome if she's not careful.
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They ARE linked as favorite thrillers of mine -- and though each lacks the cinematic style of Hitchocck, BOTH out-do Hitchcock in "hipness" -- at least for the 60s.
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CHARADE and WAIT UNTIL DARK were both made by younger filmmakers-- though not young, fresh-faced filmmakers (Stanley Donen was 39 when CHARADE came out, Terence Young was 52 when making WUD). In the 60s, Donen seemed fascinated with visual and stylistic experimentation in the Nouvelle Vague mode, most obvious in TWO FOR THE ROAD (how I wish the husband in that weren't so unlikable; I might actually like the movie) and present to a lesser extent in the earlier CHARADE. You have the PSYCHO-inspired violence, the trippy opening credits, lots of creative visual flourishes Donen would later unleash in overload on the lesser ARABESQUE.

Young was traditional and straightforward in his style, but he was incredibly influential in establishing the cinematic James Bond modus operandi-- and therefore a major influence on that most 60s of genres, the spy picture. So in the 60s, he was still in his heyday. (The crash wouldn't come until the mid-70s, with schlock like THE KLANSMEN, BLOODLINE, and then 1981's INCHON, the cream of the crap.)

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I DO remember that I felt that "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" and "Popi"(neither of which I have seen) rather immediately took "scary Roat" away from me in my younger years -- it was clear that Roat was a "one off." But its rather like Stephen King said: you couldn't beat Roat.
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Such a range in just those three parts: arch villain, tragic character, borderline insane but sympathetic father. (Try watching POPI at least-- that movie is so strange and insane. You could only have made that in the late 60s.)
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Which reminds me: "The all time great villain" that is Norman Bates VERY MUCH carries "Mrs. Bates" as part of that character; its a "two-fer."
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That's another performance that reveals so much on rewatch. Norman is at once monstrous and sympathetic, despicable but likable. I think that's why they were able to crank out at least one decent PSYCHO sequel-- he's that rare "villain" you wish could be redeemed and happy, mainly because it's possible to project all the negative stuff onto "Mother," though considering that Norman killed his mother, it's not that simple. Not at all.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

e.g., in Gattaca (1997) to mention a film no one else has yet.

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Indeed. Haven't seen it. I checked his imdb list and man it goes on FOREVER.

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GATTACA is awesome, a really underrated 1990s science fiction film. Arkin plays an investigator-- he comes off like a 1940s noir detective in a futuristic setting. A small but memorable part.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

Former NY Times Critic, AO Scott has a nice appreciation (originally released at the beginning of the school year) of Gattaca up on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43gAIBzXzsw

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

GATTACA is awesome, a really underrated 1990s science fiction film. Arkin plays an investigator-- he comes off like a 1940s noir detective in a futuristic setting. A small but memorable part.
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Former NY Times Critic, AO Scott has a nice appreciation (originally released at the beginning of the school year) of Gattaca up on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43gAIBzXzsw

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OK...I'll go find it. I remember the title but I didn't go see it...perhaps by now I've revealed that futuristic things aren't my thing. I recall putting off seeing 'The Terminator" in 1984 because it just sounded like a B- SciFi flick...it took word of mouth and some OpEds to get me in the theater and of course, I loved it.

And hey....Gattaca has Alan Arkin in it!

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Oh nice! I think the film underperformed when it came out, but it's gotten more appreciation over time. It deserves it. I prefer science fiction with ideas to big blockbuster flash bang (Star Wars aside).

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

Oh nice! I think the film underperformed when it came out

1997 was one of the most packed years for movies of my lifetime so it was very easy for a Gattaca to get a little lost in the crush. Not only were both the brainy ends of Hollywood and arthouse thrumming with possibilities (The Sweet Hereafter, Boogie Nights, LA Confidential, Affliction, The Butcher Boy, Jackie Brown, Live Flesh, Nil By Mouth, Funny Games, Fireworks, In the Company of Men, Firelight, On connaît la chanson), Hollywood's mainstream stuff was blow-the-doors-down entertaining that year (Face/Off, My Best Friend's Wedding, Titanic, Good Will Hunting, Starship Troopers, Wag The Dog and probably a whole bunch I'm forgetting).

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

A lot of big titles there! I need to catch up on 1990s titles-- I tend to prefer older fare, but I've been challenging myself to watch more things made after I was born. My favorite movie from 1997 is the horror anime PERFECT BLUE-- itself quite Hitchcockian.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

@Eliz. Perfect Blue is excellent. I knew I was forgetting something big! I love all of that director, Satoshi Kon's work (he died terribly young from Pancreatic Cancer in 2010) with Paprika (2006) being my favorite. Nolan stole scenes from Paprika for his Inception, just as Aronofsky stole a bunch of Perfect Blue's shots for his Requiem For a Dream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt0ulBpi2zA
and much more of Perfect Blue for his Black Swan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh0kIF0no9k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdlZZPfOM3M
Satoshi Kon along with Ghost in the Shell's director Mamoru Oshii have been crazily influential on a lot of prestigious Hollywood films and TV over the last 20+ years.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Oh yeah, BLACK SWAN is at times all but a remake of PERFECT BLUE, only not half as good. I saw that one years before I ever saw PERFECT BLUE, when I was about 17 and it was just out on DVD. I had never seen such a graphic "Art film" before so I recall being shocked by the sexual scenes. I rewatched it ten years later, with a lot more movies under my belt, and was far less impressed.

I've only seen PERFECT BLUE and MILLENNIUM ACTRESS, so I need to seek out the rest of Kon's work. He was truly a talent.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Oh nice! I think the film underperformed when it came out
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1997 was one of the most packed years for movies of my lifetime so it was very easy for a Gattaca to get a little lost in the crush. Not only were both the brainy ends of Hollywood and arthouse thrumming with possibilities (The Sweet Hereafter, Boogie Nights, LA Confidential, Affliction, The Butcher Boy, Jackie Brown, Live Flesh, Nil By Mouth, Funny Games, Fireworks, In the Company of Men, Firelight, On connaît la chanson), Hollywood's mainstream stuff was blow-the-doors-down entertaining that year (Face/Off, My Best Friend's Wedding, Titanic, Good Will Hunting, Starship Troopers, Wag The Dog and probably a whole bunch I'm forgetting).

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I have mentioned before, there is a book out there postulating 1999 as the best movie year of the 90s. For me, it was much more clearly 1997, starting with Titanic as the blockbuster event and then moving on down through the above films -- mine AND yours, swanstep -- included.

In the weird calculus of my movie lists -- Jackie Brown is my favorite QT movie but it is NOT my favorite movie of 1997 -- that would be LA Confidential, which also won for the DECADE because I always run a vote among my 10 years of the decade. I dunno...works for me.
Meanwhile, Pulp Fiction holds as my favorite of 1994, and 1994 comes in a close second to 1997 as a favorite year (Pulp Fiction, Ed Wood, True Lies and yes, I even like Forrest Gump for what it meant at a societal level.)

So I'll just have to go looking for Gattaca. I did a little reading on it, and this is the movie where Uma Thurman worked with Ethan Hawke and ended up married to him and having children with him -- one of whom , Maya Hawke, had a good small part in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood(as the Manson girl who quit the job and took off with the car) and has a larger one in Asteroid City.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Maya Hawke also makes a cameo appearance "talking to dad about Paul Newman" in that Zoom project that Ethan Hawke did ABOUT Paul Newman. Its a weird project because Ethan chooses to look like a homeless person/unmade bed, take your pick and looks considerably LESS a movie star than Paul Newman. (I did like his work in The Magificent Seven, though, in a role he begged from Training Day co-star Denzel.)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Now, I've always figured that leap was made by a stunt man -- you can't see the face -- but I did find, at one time, a "staged photo" from in front of Audrey Hepburn with Arkin clearly visible in mid-leap behind her. Honestly, I dunno, maybe Arkin did make the famous leap on film and that still shot was taken from a different angle.
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I once got into a discussion with a friend over whether or not it was a stuntman. I was always unsure, while she insisted it was him. I examined a gifset of the jump posted on social media and while I can't be 100% sure, I think it is Arkin.

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Returning on this point:

I FOUND the photo from in front of Audrey Hepburn with Alan Arkin clearly jumping at her. It is in imdb Wait Until Dark photos "41 of 70." His face is so clearly visible(with a truly scary look on it) that I can't help but think this shot was staged.

Still, I am ready to believe that's him for the "big jump in wide shot."

Also in that imdb collection: the shot of Arkin crawling up on Hepburn at the refrigderator at the finale. The shot that ALMOST spoiled the surprise of the jump for me.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

It's definitely a promotional shot from the looks of it. Man, his face is incredibly f**ked up there-- he never gets quite that angry in the movie. Except that one moment where he shouts at her not to mess with the dark room light. He only loses his cool when he absolutely thinks he does not have the upper hand, which is rare and therefore scarier than if you have a villain who shouts all the time.
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Still, I am ready to believe that's him for the "big jump in wide shot."
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Instead of constantly asking him what it was like to work with Hepburn, someone should have asked Arkin if he did the jump dammit!

Too late now...
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Also in that imdb collection: the shot of Arkin crawling up on Hepburn at the refrigderator at the finale. The shot that ALMOST spoiled the surprise of the jump for me.
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It still kills me that they were so casual with spoilers back then. Nowadays, Marvel actors don't even get a full script because studios are so scared of spoilers.

Still, nothing is worse than David Prowse spoiling the "I am your father" twist in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK before the movie opened. Luckily it was in a local paper.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

It's definitely a promotional shot from the looks of it. Man, his face is incredibly f**ked up there-- he never gets quite that angry in the movie.

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Its almost like somebody "painted" on a crazier expression on Arkin's REAL features.

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Except that one moment where he shouts at her not to mess with the dark room light. He only loses his cool when he absolutely thinks he does not have the upper hand, which is rare and therefore scarier than if you have a villain who shouts all the time.

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Agreed. I think its the moment when she asks Roat if he is looking at her; he nonchalantly says yes -- and she throws a flowerpot filled with "hypo"(photographic chemical liquid used by her husband in his profession) in Roat's face. He RAGES and famously yells "Don't touch that!" throwing his knife at Suzy so that it arrives in the wall next to her just as she shuts off the lights.

Its a great "edit action drama" moment -- I believe when Suzy cut the lights...the theater did, too. (Well, they turned them down SOMETIME.)

But also:

Psycho was cancelled from its 1966 showing on the CBS Friday Night Movie, but Wait Until Dark MADE it to a 1972 showing(as I recall) on the CBS Thursday Night Movie. And that "shock action" moment of Roat yelling "don't touch that!" and the knife hitting the wall as Suzy hit the lights -- was the way they ADVERTISED the showing of Wait Until Dark that night.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Indeed, when you think about it, Wait Until Dark could probably have been shown in its entirety that night. I did watch it, but I don't remember. Seems to me they only would have had to cut down the car tenderizing scene ...

...meanwhile, versus Wait Until Dark, Psycho indeed had more horrific elements: the long stabbing of Janet Leigh(I don't care HOW stylized, we were put through it), the long clean-up and burial of Leigh(stomach churning), the slash to Arbogast's face (nothing that bloody in the "Roat jump"), the brutal leap upon Arbogast to finish him off...the truth about Mother(stuffed.)

No WONDER Psycho got cancelled on CBS. (They evidently cut most of that footage, anyway...)
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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Still, I am ready to believe that's him for the "big jump in wide shot."
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Instead of constantly asking him what it was like to work with Hepburn, someone should have asked Arkin if he did the jump dammit!

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Yeah! I mean, I have just "un-believed" myself out of thinking it was a stunt man.

A simliar pair of secrets remain unanswered about Psycho. Margo Epper famously stabbed at Janet Leigh and Marli Renfro in the shower -- but -- who killed Arbogast? Anthony Perkins said a "little person named Mitzi" made the run out the door at the detective, but she looks full sized to me(then again, Martin Balsam was pretty short.) And that "finishing off" on the foyer floor? THAT woman looked pretty BIG. Margo Epper again?
Martin Balsam would never discuss Psycho(even to Stephen Rebello) so we'll never know.

For that matter, we really don't know who stabbed Anne Heche in Van Sant's Psycho, or William H. Macy and...it seems nobody has ever cared to find out!

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Also in that imdb collection: the shot of Arkin crawling up on Hepburn at the refrigderator at the finale. The shot that ALMOST spoiled the surprise of the jump for me.
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It still kills me that they were so casual with spoilers back then. Nowadays, Marvel actors don't even get a full script because studios are so scared of spoilers.

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I guess that to the extent I was a "little bit sophisticated" at that age, it follows from my reading Time and Newsweek reviews pretty closely, and looking at the photos.

Hence, I just didn't think that Roat was dead -- that scene in the Time photo had not happened. But I wasn't sure...and it probably had me on edge when the jump DID happen.

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Still, nothing is worse than David Prowse spoiling the "I am your father" twist in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK before the movie opened. Luckily it was in a local paper.

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Yikes! Never heard that. However, per Stephen Rebello, Psycho had a similar big mouth -- Lurene Tuttle(Mrs. Chambers) evidently told some local paper "Tony Perkins dresses up as his mother" and that had to be shut down. And one of the trade papers announced -- even as Psycho had not started filming yet -- "Tony Perkins goes Transvestite in Psycho." But that was a trade paper, not widely read(I take it someone read Bloch's novel.)

Meanwhile, talk about keeping spoilers unspoiled: Here's Psycho opening in New York and the East Coast in June, and somehow it got to Los Angeles and the West Coast in August...without the twist revealed? Well, there was no internet back then and people only read their local papers and reviews didn't give it away anyway.

Plus: I figure a lot of people knew soon enough about the shower murder and the twist ending -- and went to see Psycho anyway for the experience. I'm figuring that only Arbogast's murder was a real surprise to them.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Funny: an OT thread on the Psycho page about Alan Arkin circles back on topic TO Psycho, but the Psycho/Wait Until Dark nexus -- as a movie theater scream experience -- is strong.

And though Anthony Perkins WAS branded as Norman Bates -- and returned to the role three times(the downside to letting Norman live in the original) -- I daresay Alan Arkin's Roat has gone down in movie history as pretty important as well.

When you think about it -- the one-two punch of Russians Are Coming(a hit -- though I never thought it was THAT funny) with its Oscar nomination and the BIG hit of Wait Until Dark probably fully launched Arkin as a "hidden star" of the late 60s and 70s whom people sort of forgot WAS one (all the way to The In-Laws in 1979.)

A lot of 70's stars went down in the 80s , and I suppose Alan Arkin was one of them but -- he came back BIG as a character actor in support and occasionally as a star again.

CONT

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Funny: an OT thread on the Psycho page about Alan Arkin circles back on topic TO Psycho, but the Psycho/Wait Until Dark nexus -- as a movie theater scream experience -- is strong.
--
The two movies do share DNA. I feel the marketing for PSYCHO definitely influenced WUD's famous "lights out" campaign, not to mention the announcement that "NO ONE'S ALLOWED IN THE THEATER DURING THE LAST 15 MINUTES." It's ballyhoo that actually dates back to 1927's LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, but it's good ballyhoo and clearly it worked.
--
And though Anthony Perkins WAS branded as Norman Bates -- and returned to the role three times(the downside to letting Norman live in the original) -- I daresay Alan Arkin's Roat has gone down in movie history as pretty important as well.
--
At the very least, he's the earliest big example of "he's not quite dead" as a trope.
--
When you think about it -- the one-two punch of Russians Are Coming(a hit -- though I never thought it was THAT funny) with its Oscar nomination and the BIG hit of Wait Until Dark probably fully launched Arkin as a "hidden star" of the late 60s and 70s whom people sort of forgot WAS one
--
RUSSIANS is more a chuckle movie than a belly laugh movie, but I think it does good in mixing absurdity and suspense. And that's what makes Arkin's performance so strong in it: you absolutely buy the character's terror. The situation is farce to us, but life-or-death to him.

Btw, there's an interesting piece on Arkin from a 1973 book titled "The modern actor" which is digitized on Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/modernactor0000bill/page/114/mode/2up?q=arkin). The writer compares Arkin to a bigger star like Robert Redford and says he would prefer Arkin anytime because Arkin does not "change his costume more than his performance." The author praises Arkin's ability to portray such diverse characters and attributes that in part to his nondescript, non-movie star appearance.

CONTD.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I don't share the author's disdain for Redford (there is a place for charismatic movie stars and Redford has made too many enjoyable movies for me to ever dismiss him like that), but as an actor, Arkin's work impresses me far more, I have to agree.

One more Arkin-related item. A few months ago, I found a digitized radio interview with Arkin from 1968 (https://archive.org/details/ClaireClouzotInterviewsAlanArkin1968).

He largely discusses his upcoming film, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, but he also brings up his other work. It's a fascinating interview for a few reasons:

1) Arkin and the interviewer discuss the changes in the American movie industry that we now call the New Hollywood movement. The interviewer is skeptical the movement is even happening, while Arkin is adamant that Hollywood is going to enter a new golden age.
2) Arkin sh*ttalks Jean-Luc Godard-- having suffered through Godard's films, I gotta admit it tickled me a bit.
3) Arkin is notably... on edge throughout this interview. He sounds vaguely annoyed at points. It's weird.
4) Going back to WUD, he briefly talks about it being "fun" to play a bad guy (that's a 180 from what he's said in all the years since, but maybe he was still playing nice because WUD was so recent a release) and how the critics didn't get what he was trying to do with the part.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Funny: an OT thread on the Psycho page about Alan Arkin circles back on topic TO Psycho, but the Psycho/Wait Until Dark nexus -- as a movie theater scream experience -- is strong.
--
The two movies do share DNA. I feel the marketing for PSYCHO definitely influenced WUD's famous "lights out" campaign, not to mention the announcement that "NO ONE'S ALLOWED IN THE THEATER DURING THE LAST 15 MINUTES."

---
Oh, yeah...lots of movies tried to emulate Hitchcock's ad campaign with Psycho -- which I thought started with William Castles B-horrors (Macabre, The Tingler, House no Haunted Hill) but turns out not to...

---
It's ballyhoo that actually dates back to 1927's LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, but it's good ballyhoo and clearly it worked.
--
LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT...huh? I"ll have to look that up.

I think I've read that movies like Dracula and Frankenstein were promoted with ambulances outside the theaters and "fake fainters" and the like. Ballyhoo was always such fun.

Things eventually got too sophisticated, I guess. I don't recall The Exorcist or Jaws or Halloween getting any "gimmick" ads.

Alien had a great "come on" ad line, though: "In space, nobody can hear you scream." I understand ad men get a bonus when they come up with lines that THAT. (Ad women, too.)

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

And though Anthony Perkins WAS branded as Norman Bates -- and returned to the role three times(the downside to letting Norman live in the original) -- I daresay Alan Arkin's Roat has gone down in movie history as pretty important as well.
--
At the very least, he's the earliest big example of "he's not quite dead" as a trope.

---

I'll bet a trip to Youtube MIGHT reveal a clip reel of "dead don't die" jumps...and I suppose there was one before Roat...but I was there in the 60s and the Roat jump was IT. Its one reason WUD could be re-released in 1970 to full houses all over again.

Part of the "origin" issue here is just how evil and hateful Roat WAS, and how he very much tortured Hepburn without physically harming her -- he brushed a scarf against her cheek(she was blind), he lit a fire rag(she was TERRIFIED) and he generally lorded over her to the point where you just wanted to get into the screen and punch him. (A more erudite precursor to Scorpio in Dirty Harry and the lesser known Rusk in Frenzy.)

So when she finally KILLED HIM...(or so we thought) the audience was SO happy and the thing was that his final jump not only terrified everybody , Roat's clear intent to KILL SUZY before dying himself simply sent the whole theater crazy.

Meanwhile: Halloween had Michael Myers coming back to life at Jamie Lee Curtis ...too many times for my taste, and Jamie Lee kept dropping the knife and just sitting there before the next jump.

And eh...all sorts of other movies. Misery, again, comes to mind.

BUT(a lede i buried above) I am certain that some movie played a gag on the "dead don't die" jump, by positioning the heroine with a dead villain near by, angling the camera to set up the jump, just sitting there and -- then the camera moved in and..nothing. The dead villain was still dead.

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

When you think about it -- the one-two punch of Russians Are Coming(a hit -- though I never thought it was THAT funny) with its Oscar nomination and the BIG hit of Wait Until Dark probably fully launched Arkin as a "hidden star" of the late 60s and 70s whom people sort of forgot WAS one
--
RUSSIANS is more a chuckle movie than a belly laugh movie, but I think it does good in mixing absurdity and suspense. And that's what makes Arkin's performance so strong in it: you absolutely buy the character's terror. The situation is farce to us, but life-or-death to him.

---
Been a long time since I've seen The Russians Are Coming, but I do recall that Arkin's Russian did have to be somewhat menacing(tying people up) to avert an international incident.

I saw it in theaters, but it ended up on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies around 1970, and I watched it.

More to the point: a pair of high school guys I knew just LOVED to imitate Arkin's Russians from that movie, to wit: "E--MARE-JANCY! E-MARE-JANCY! Please to get off streets!" I mean this was their catch phrase on campus, at parties. Its what young guys do.

The movie had a Jack ("Mad" Magazine) Davis "big crowd" poster to draw comparisions to "Mad Mad World" and it had Jonathan Winters in it from that movie, and I for one was expecting more in the way of madcap chases. But it was really more "topical" than that -- an early attempt to thaw the Cold War -- and for that it made its name.

BTW, I found a trailer made for "Russians" 1966 release where star Carl Reiner improvs an interivew with "Russian" Alan Arkin(in full costume). As I recall , it was funny enough, and let Arkin introduce himself to audiences "in character."

Carl Reiner had been only a "bit" in Mad Mad World, but got the lead in Russians after -- at a minimum -- Jack Lemmon turned it down. And Reiner(a TV staple of course, on both sides of the camera) had Eve Kendall herself -- Eva Marie Saint -- as his wife. From Brando to Grant to...Reiner.

CONT

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

More to the point: a pair of high school guys I knew just LOVED to imitate Arkin's Russians from that movie, to wit: "E--MARE-JANCY! E-MARE-JANCY! Please to get off streets!"
--That's the best line in the movie. Go on any YouTube video or read any blog review of it, and you'll inevitably see people quoting it, complete with the exaggerated accent.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

The scarf thing is really upsetting-- beyond her being blind, there's also the very real chance he might start strangling her with it since it (I remember that being my chief fear the first time I saw the movie). He also tries stroking her face with his hand, which is a whole other world of gross.

Compare the non-violent "torture" in this scene to the very physical torture in 2010s WUD-ripoff BLINDSIDED. That movie basically has the same plot, except they replaced the con and the non-physical torture with outright torture. It's boring as hell. The whole movie feels pedestrian, while WUD still feels sinister, even with minimal bloodshed. The threat of violence against a character you like is so much more palpable than graphic bloodletting in a lazy ass Netflix movie.
--
So when she finally KILLED HIM...(or so we thought) the audience was SO happy and the thing was that his final jump not only terrified everybody , Roat's clear intent to KILL SUZY before dying himself simply sent the whole theater crazy. --
What makes that jump so good is that 1) it's not a fakeout-- there's an actual threat behind it, and 2) Roat only "resurrects" once. Compare that to later slashers where you can get several fakeout scares and bad guys coming back from every injury known to man. The HALLOWEEN example you mentioned is a good one. I love that movie but the constant dropping the knife is just so annoying. At least, in WUD, Susy doesn't drop the knife-- it's stuck in Roat and why should she assume he's going to get back up with it wedged there?

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

I think I've read that movies like Dracula and Frankenstein were promoted with ambulances outside the theaters and "fake fainters" and the like. Ballyhoo was always such fun.
--
1920s and 1930s horror and suspense films thrived on that kind of ballyhoo. The 1925 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA made it a point to hide Lon Chaney's gruesome makeup in all advertising, so it could truly shock audiences. People allegedly screamed and fainted in the theater at the sight of it. I imagine in an era where the movies were mostly gore-free, a death's head like that could seem borderline obscene.

(Would you believe that the studio was nervous about that movie being TOO scary? They wouldn't milk horror as a genre until the one-two punch of DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN in 1931. In 1925, horror was mostly handed off to the German film industry and so PHANTOM was briefly re-edited to emphasize romance and comedy. This was a bust and so the film was re-edited again to emphasize the gothic thrills.)

I've read a lot about FRANKENSTEIN '31 over the years and the ballyhoo on that one was awesome. Theater employees dressed as the Monster stalking the street, nurses in the lobby with smelling salts, warnings to make sure to take out a life insurance policy in case patrons were scared to death-- great stuff! Though there were genuine screams in that one to be had-- I've read accounts of the scene with Karloff breaking into Mae Clarke's boudoir and stalking behind her briefly unseen caused audiences to audibly freak out. (Apparently, just filming the scene freaked Clarke out. The Karloff makeup was too much for her. Karloff, ever the gentleman, told her if the scene became too much for her to glance at his finger, which he would wiggle, just to remind her that it was him under all that makeup. Crazy!)

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Alien had a great "come on" ad line, though: "In space, nobody can hear you scream."
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The trailer for ALIEN gets my vote as the best movie trailer of all time. It might be because I saw that trailer at an impressionable age, under theatrical circumstances.

Disney World used to have an attraction called The Great Movie Ride, where you would be taken "into" the world of the movies. One of the setpieces involved being on the Nostromo with the xenomorph thrashing in smoke and strobe lights above you (it scared the HELL out of tiny little me). However, before you got onto the ride, you had to wait in line and the queue included walking past a giant movie screen which played on a loop the original trailers for all the movies you would "visit." One of these was for ALIEN.

The problem with trailers of every single era is that most follow a set formula. How many trailers for bestseller adaptations from the 30s through the 50s show a physical book opening to kick off the ad? How many ads in the decades since have had cheesy voiceovers or obnoxious Inception horns? Few trailers bother to tailor the marketing to the content in an original way. ALIEN's trailer was one of precious few. The sound design evokes screams and a hammering heartbeat as you're treated to tight, shadowy images of panicked actors and cold space. It's AWESOME.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

The Alien teaser trailer you're talking about might have been influenced by the awesome 'Baby-carriage on a mountain-top/Pray for Rosemary's Baby' teaser trailer for Rosemary's Baby:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjpA6IH_Skc

Both these trailers manage to be flat-out terrifying while revealing almost no plot. Each is a masterpiece that alerted astute viewers that something special was coming.

Of course, saying that requires hindsight. Most times, masterpiece trailers are misleading advertizing. E.g., David Fincher's had a couple of truly stunning trailers for 7/10 kinds of movies, e.g., Social Network's incredibly influential trailer promised something much *deeper* than the film actually managed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB95KLmpLR4
and the Led Zep-cover teaser trailer for Fincher's remake of Gal w/ Dragon Tattoo promised much more intensity and excitement than the film could ever deliver:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLvMg62RPA

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[–] jay440 (107) a year ago

[deleted]

[–] jay440 (107) a year ago

I've read accounts of the scene with Karloff breaking into Mae Clarke's boudoir and stalking behind her briefly unseen caused audiences to audibly freak out.
-------------------------
Here's Karloff doing his scary stalking best in Howard Hawks' The Criminal Code (1931), released before Frankenstein:
https://youtu.be/ekuRkpu4g5c?t=3887

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

And one of the trade papers announced -- even as Psycho had not started filming yet -- "Tony Perkins goes Transvestite in Psycho." But that was a trade paper, not widely read(I take it someone read Bloch's novel.)
--
It's hard to imagine the twist being retained in a post-internet era. Nowadays, it would be easier to know about the original book then make prediction posts online. I enjoy the internet obviously, but it did take some of the fun out of things like that.
--
I figure a lot of people knew soon enough about the shower murder and the twist ending -- and went to see Psycho anyway for the experience.
--
Oh yeah-- the notoriety would have been enough to draw people to the theater. My grandmother was 15 then and she said the movie was just that shocking.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

For that matter, we really don't know who stabbed Anne Heche in Van Sant's Psycho, or William H. Macy and...it seems nobody has ever cared to find out!
--
Well, that's the difference between a classic that still fascinates people and a failed experiment that doesn't. I mean, most casual filmgoers probably don't care who played what in any given scene, but for cinephiles, it's engrossing.

I was once on a classic horror board where people spent hundreds of posts debating whether or not a promotional still from FRANKENSTEIN featured Boris Karloff or a stand-in. We could barely see the actor's face and he was on the ground, but man, was that debate entertaining-- at least, if you're a super Universal horror fan. (Don't get me started on the debate about whether or not the Monster makeup was meant to be grey or green.)

Same with wondering about Arkin having a stuntman or who stabbed Balsam in the overhead shot. I think it's fascinating to us because we WANT to know how it all works. And with newer movies, there's a transparency to the filmmaking process and most onset antics that strike fans as amusing, while I think pre-1980s, there really wasn't so much. When researching WUD, I had to really dig to find some stuff. Like IMDB doesn't even cover half the trivia (my favorite might be that the director played Frank Sinatra records between takes to relax the cast after the more intense scenes-- I only found that in newspapers). Nerds gotta keep this stuff alive.

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

For that matter, we really don't know who stabbed Anne Heche in Van Sant's Psycho, or William H. Macy and...it seems nobody has ever cared to find out!
--
Well, that's the difference between a classic that still fascinates people and a failed experiment that doesn't. I mean, most casual filmgoers probably don't care who played what in any given scene, but for cinephiles, it's engrossing.

---

Yes. I recall one of my disappointments with Van Sant's Psycho was realizing...some time after I saw it...that INDEED I had not given a thought as to who played Mother in the murderscenes. Quite frankly, I barely accepted star VINCE VAUGHN as being the killer...unlike Perkins at the fruit cellar reveal, Vaughn looked pretty much "not committed" to the part.

This: though it was not a production still on release, a screen shot of "Mother's face in shadow as she raises the knife" got a lot of publication over the years -- I saw it in a 1968 Esquire magazine article, and it can now be found on the IMDb photo page for Psycho.

BUT: intriguing, yes? That very famous view of a very terrifying horror icon -- "Mrs. Bates" -- has faced us for decades now and millions did not know who the PERSON was.

Truffaut wrote a few paragraphs for a magazine article about the mystery: "Who played Mrs. Bates in the shower?"

And Youtube has footage of Hitchcock on the Mike Douglas Show and Soul Brother James Brown actually ASKS him: "Mr. Hitchcock, who was the killer in the shower in Homicidal?" Fellow guest Steve Lawrence corrects: "I think you mean Psycho" and Hitchcock answers Brown: "I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you."

BTW, when "Mrs. Bates" first opens the shower curtain on the big screen -- and in freeze frame on VHS/DVD -- you can surely see the mean, mad EYES of the killer. Chilling. And let's remember again: it was Margo Epper of the Epper stunt family.

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Meanwhile, back at the little person(midget? dwarf?) who came out at Martin Balsam on the stairs.

From even that height, the killer looks "full sized" to me, but I guess it was Mitzi from The Wizard of Oz after all. (Mitzi's last name was once listed at IMDb but...no more?)

This information was given to Stephen Rebello for his book by none other than...Anthony Perkins. Perkins was famously in NYC to rehearse Greenwillow when the shower scene was filmed(December 1959) but was evidently back to watch the stairccase murder being filmed(January 1960.) I wonder how Perkins felt actually WATCHING Mrs. Bates kill someone?

We're not supposed to 'ruin movie magic" but i sometimes think how it must have been when the full sized Mrs. Bates knelt down to finish off Arbogast(one of the nightmare images of all time -- her BUTTOCKS way up in the air, its obscene.) I figure Hitchcock called "CUT," and Balsam and ...Margo Epper? ...chuckled, patted each other on the back and helped each other get up.

CONT

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) a year ago

Its a great "edit action drama" moment -- I believe when Suzy cut the lights...the theater did, too. (Well, they turned them down SOMETIME.)
--
An online friend of mine saw WUD at a revival screening (on 35mm no less) in 2017. The management aimed to recreate the original '67 screening experience and they started slowly dimming lights when Susy first starts breaking the bulbs in the house. They cut the last one when the knife hit the safety light in the scene above.
--
Indeed, when you think about it, Wait Until Dark could probably have been shown in its entirety that night. I did watch it, but I don't remember. Seems to me they only would have had to cut down the car tenderizing scene ...
--
It's funny: there's a 1960s Australian ad for WAIT UNTIL DARK that proclaims, "NOT SUITABLE FOR TELEVISION." Surely, an exaggeration meant to make the audience think they were up for more bloodletting.

(https://www.ebay.com/itm/131896012868?hash=item1eb59d7044:g:GSkAAOSwyLlXn4Lo&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8AE5SeupyC6TWU2T6vhDy4YGZWVQILoWt0SGkYmiWfgkOmo6kg0ewuecRegHJ1PHsb61b5vQ4LH%2FE1Qm7HeK8%2BlYjWFp6eaB%2BpOrn5Yd5EYo9MLDZ6XrO4iYKsSXCdhFnrmRvM0p1xVkOSQIiY9L6tM4i8VP2AikVLVYgQslf%2FuMSdxA9CbmLgPskP9WZ1O1HLGYSZ3Le14ls3gbgu7WWs9sbOoLB1id9Vm8aZ%2B7FLMdZ1WSz%2Bv%2F%2BRP6SoYOpwoURU29vhCkk%2BvVMEAsX51qovPyLfao%2BvszFAWPw%2BsWur0k92i3FCyaduQefnW04W6%2BFg%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABFBM_sPcobJi)

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

It's funny: there's a 1960s Australian ad for WAIT UNTIL DARK that proclaims, "NOT SUITABLE FOR TELEVISION." Surely, an exaggeration meant to make the audience think they were up for more bloodletting.

---

Yes...sometimes making a movie sound WORSE than it is...is good promotion.

I give you Hitchocck walking into the bathroom of Cabin One in his Psycho trailer and saying "All cleaned up now. You should have seen the BLOOD."

BTW, I spoke somewhere here about how I was not allowed to rent a 16 mm print of Psycho to show high schoolers in the early 70s but I COULD rent Wait Until Dark. Perhaps this warning in the 16 mm rental catalog is why: "Psycho is not to be shown to pregnant women, the elderly, or people with heart conditions." Those were the days.

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

(This thread starts to narrow and I have no idea how to widen it. Alas.)

--

Btw, there's an interesting piece on Arkin from a 1973 book titled "The modern actor" which is digitized on Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/modernactor0000bill/page/114/mode/2up?q=arkin). The writer compares Arkin to a bigger star like Robert Redford and says he would prefer Arkin anytime because Arkin does not "change his costume more than his performance." The author praises Arkin's ability to portray such diverse characters and attributes that in part to his nondescript, non-movie star appearance.

---

I liked reading this paragraph because it ignites a time honored "debate about movie stars." In the 70's...Robert Redford exploded on the scene as a "superstar"(after 10 years getting there and Butch Cassidy putting him there). Meanwhile, Arkin's got his 60's hits and Oscar noms on the resume but...works in a different mode: "character star." Its a looks thing: Redford was a very traditional "handsome leading man" -- forbears were Tyrone Power, Cary Grant and Rock Hudson...not to mention Paul Newman and Warren Beatty as contemporaries. Arkin was "different." I guess his roots are in Paul Muni and we put him over there with Gene Hackman and Walter Matthau as a "non-pretty" star.

But: Redford worked very hard to put his pretty face in "meaningful" films: Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, The Candidate, Jeremiah Johnson(where his pretty face is buried in a beard) and eventually All the President's Men. And Arkin sometimes had to "go for the paycheck"(Freebie and the Bean above all.)

BTW, Redford DID play an unregenerate bastard/heel/sexual user in "Little Fauss and Big Halsey"(1970) and he drew interviewers attention to that film, saying "I don't always play good guys".

I've never quite bought the thing about "some actors disappearing in their role." I think sometimes they disappear into their accents or make-up, but its still clearly Alan Arkin in there. (Plus: his swarthy looks "fit" all sorts of different ethnic characters in a way where WASPy Redford could not compete.)

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

For some reason, this "Redford vs Arkin" consideration has me thinking about movie stars in general...and my lifelong attractive/ambivalence to them.

I confess: particularly when I was younger I really LOVED the value and personas of "movie stars." I didn't write fan letters to them and I don't "gush" about them(a lot of them seem to be pretty nutty or mean people in real life, they are forced to be.) But I value them for what they achieve and how they fit in our fantasy/inspirational life.

Here are two examples from my younger years:

I thought it was a BIG DEAL when Jack Nicholson agreed to play the Joker in Batman. I was a grown man but (and I value this een today) with the excitement of a teenager at a favorite star agreeing to be in a grown-up version of a favored property from youth. Recall that when Jack wavered, they started saying Robin Williams would get it. It was a switch turned on and off -- Jack Nicholson is in this -- I've GOT to see it! Robin Williams is in this - oh, I guess I'll see it.

For Nicholson had EARNED his superstardom -- first with the "opening run" from Easy Rider to Cuckoo's Nest(his seventies launch) then with canny survival moves in movies like The Shining, Terms of Endearment, Prizzi's Honor and The Witches of Eastwick. Two Oscar wins before Batman -- he was the best bet there was AND he had a movie star's talent -- the face, the VOICE(now stereophonic in middle age), the eyebrows, the line delivery, everyting(even with some weight gain.) Other possibilities like David Bowie and Tim Currey and James Woods and Ray Liotta may have been "better" casting, but they wouldn't have been superstar casting.

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3612) a year ago

Second example:

Earlier in my life, I thought it was a BIG DEAL when BOTH Paul Newman and Steve McQueen(or Steve McQueen and Paul Newman) were announced early in 1974 to lead the cast of The Towering Infern. I spent all of 1974 in eager anticipation of the eventual year-end release of that film. I could not BELIEVE that somebody had finally landed Paul and Steve for a movie(yes, McQueen supported Newman in the fifties in a movie, but of course, now he had earned his own superstardom.)

Previous disaster movies had starred "lesser" stars: Gene Hackman and Ennest Borgnine in Poseidon Adventure(Hackmand wasn't really a star yet); Charlton Heston and George Kennedy in BOTH Airport 1875 AND Earthquake(Heston tarnished his brand with Skyjacked and these scripts were not good.)

But Newman and McQueen were "top of the line prestige superstars" and I daresay the Towering Inferno script rose to meet their stardom: Newman got stuck with some soap opera stuff, but McQueen was "all business" as a Fire Battion Chief and when both stars traded technical dialogue..."the adults were in the room."

Not to mention: The Towering Inferno had room for Great 50's Star William Holden(more recently Pike Bishop in the youth-worshiped Wild Bunch) and Faye Dunaway(coming off of Chinatown) and Fred Astaire -- a superstar of his own genre, and two TV Roberts -- Vaughn and Wagner. And MORE.

My regard for both Towering Inferno and Burton's Batman came from the fact that TRUE major movie stars agreed to be in the films and we ended up with THAT record of their stardom.

Both Newman and McQueen looked great in Inferno, BTW, and I was amused: they were pretty much the same height. Had tall guy Eastwood been cast, he would have towered over his co-star.
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