Count me in, too. Roat is so FUNNY in the beginning, with his weird vocal intonations and over-articulate manner as he chats up Crenna and Weston. (Notice how he says about whats in the closet: "Nothing but CLOZE (clothes)", I swear he sounds just like Al Pacino nowaways doing his smooth talk.) Roat seems equal parts Brooklyn, beatnik, and off-Broadway method actor.
But Roat is also creepy from the first shot of him in the doorway, and he just gets creepier as the movie goes along. (I love his hair-trigger reaction to Weston with the knife early on, and how he snarls at Crenna, "Don't touch me!")
With rather sickening certainty, we slowly realize that it will boil down to just Roat and Susy sooner or later: ultimate evil vs. ultimate (but resourceful) innocence.
On the "Making of" DVD documentary, Alan Arkin offers an interesting insight as to one hidden aspect of Roat that Arkin invented for the character:
"Roat is on every drug known known to man, and all those drugs are working against each other. He's negatively neutral."
Oh, THAT explains it. He's also a sadistic psycho. Arkin pointed out that he kept Roat cool "like a snake waiting to strike," so cool that the filmmakers were worried that Roat would never get scary - until the filming day that Roat pulled the knife of Jack Weston suddenly. Then, says Arkin, "they got what I was trying to do."
Absolutely. And the AFI was crazy.
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thankful6
20 years ago
Roat WAS a creepy scary guy and IMO the creepiness holds up over time. I saw this as a young teen in 1967 when this film was first released. During the last scene, Audrey Hepburn goes around smashing all of the lightbulbs in her apartment to give herself the advantage, because she knows a very bad man is coming to get her, and she is trapped and defenseless, her phone cord severed, etc. At the point where Ms. Hepburn's character hits the last lightbulb with her cane, ALL lights in the theater were extinguished. The theater and the screen were pitch-black.....until the refrigerator door opened, and....you know the rest.---creeps me out to this day! Any other dinosaurs out there remember this?
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heckles
18 years ago
Yes, I remember that. I also like how Roat wears dark glasses, for the time he's calling the shots (until Susy throws film developer in his face). It's as if he's mocking her infirmity. After she throws it, he pulls off his glasses and has this horrid look on his face like, "Okay bitch, no more games!" You know the climax is near.
Of course, the 'lights out' trick was back when -one- theatre would play -one- film. You won't see this kind of attention paid to a multiplex film.
"Quit whining. I evaded your vital organs." --Motoko Aoyama
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Prismark10
11 years ago
Thanks for the insight on Arkin. These things get lost on the screen until you see the Making of DVD.
It was a good performance by Arkin, an actor who mainly does drama and light comedy.
Its that man again!!
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