Ebert's assessment of the plot as "idiot" drives me crazy too. To be fair, though, I think he has made separate assessments of the overall film, and individual elements, and has recommended it as worth seeing; nonetheless, this bugs me, because I think that Ebert just doesn't know how the lock to the basement apartment door works. Ebert seems to think the lock is a deadbolt, the sort of lock that would only be locked if Susy followed everyone to the door, and locked it behind them. For a great deal of the time, Susy THINKS the door is locked, but in fact, it isn't.
The way this kind of lock works, you set it once, then it locks every time the door closes. In the beginning of the film, Sam and Susy have it set to stay open, so Gloria can get in, I guess, although when Susy takes the trash out, she walks in without needing a key, and she'd need a key to get in every time if the lock were not open. Susy does in fact lock it at some point, because Gloria needs to use a key to get in later-- she calls it "mother's key"-- this sort of lock with a spring latch was infamous for getting you locked out of your apartment, so you always gave a neighbor a copy of the key, and Carlino has to knock on the door when he comes by himself. Carlino is quite annoyed when he can't get in, and bangs and threatens Susy over not letting him in immediately. It's after this that he rigs or breaks the lock, or whatever he does. He may remove the spring, or even the bolt itself, but at that point Susy CANNOT lock it. Those locks were flimsier than deadbolts, and you could break or rig one not to catch fairly easily. Anyway, it is after this that Susy thinks the door is locked, but it isn't.
Now, I suppose Ebert could be referring to the OUTSIDE door, the one that Susy and Sam share with Gloria and her mother (and maybe with the upstairs neighbor, Shatner; we don't get a floor plan of the building), but he is pretty specific in the original Sun-Times review that "The bad guys come in and out of the apartment," so I'm going to assume he doesn't mean the outside door, which probably does have a deadbolt.
reply
share