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"Charade" (1963) and "Wait Until Dark"(1967)

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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One of the nifty things about the movie business and movie history is how coincidences and connections can arrive between films..."just because."

And thus:

In 1963, Audrey Hepburn played a woman who is in possession of $250,000 in stolen loot -- somehow transformed in something else(but she doesn't know what.) And three crooks come after her and put the pressure on for her to give up something she didn't know she had and can't find now. ("Charade.")

In 1967, Audrey Hepburn played a woman who is in possession of thousands of dollars of drugs -- transformed into something else(in this movie, we know: a doll.) And three crooks come after her and put the pressure on for her to give up something she didn't know she had and can't find now. ("Wait Until Dark.")

"Charade" and "Wait Until Dark" were Audrey Hepburn's two thrillers of the 60's...and both were very big hits. You could figure that Alfred Hitchcock's movies were influences(Wait Until Dark was from a play by Frederick Knott, who also wrote Dial M for Murder, which became a 1953 Hitchcock film.) But both "Charade" and "Wait Until Dark" -- with matching Henry Mancini thriller scores -- were more "hip" and cool and in some ways, more funny than what Hitchcock had been doing in the fifties -- they reflected some new attitudes and new kinds of screenwriting. They were more violent than MOST Hitchcock movies, too -- except he had started the 60's with Psycho to up the ante on screen violence.

The big difference between "Charade" and "Wait Until Dark," is that in "Charade," Hepburn has help to deal with the thugs who are threatening her: Cary Grant, as cool and deadpan as ever(if finally visibly aged on screen.) "Charade" is a romantic thriller.

Meanwhile, in "Wait Until Dark," (a) Audrey's on her own against the crooks and (b) one of the crooks is cold stone psychopathic killer(if a funny one.) This is NOT a romantic thriller. There is no Cary Grant to protect her -- her rather hapless husband(Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) has been purposely misdirected way far away from Hepburn's apartment to give the crooks time to get their doll (and for one of them to decide to kill everybody.)

Using the Hitchcock analogy, you could say that Charade is a bit like "To Catch a Thief" or "North by Northwest"(with Cary Grant in all) and you could say that Wait Until Dark is a bit like "Psycho"(with the psycho villain doing some terrifying things during the "lights out" climax and the audience screaming at the top of their lungs.)

But whatever you say, both "Charade" and "Wait Until Dark" are great thrillers of the 60's and whatever they lose in "the Hitchcock touch" they make up for in casts, script and hipness.

To wit: in Charade, Hepburn is menaced by loping Texan James Coburn, hulking hook-handed George Kennedy, and sneezing Jewish guy Ned Glass. This even as potential allies Cary Grant(mystery man) and Walter Matthau(CIA man) seem to be not what they seem to be.

In Wait Until Dark, Hepburn is menaced by smooth Richard Crenna, rotund Jack Weston and absolutely off-the-charts creepy/funny Alan Arkin.

That's some great actors across both movies, some of whom were established stars(Grant, Arkin), some of whom were supporting actors (Matthau, Coburn...Crenna for awhile) who would become stars themselves, but ALL of whom are here serving the great Hepburn(even Cary Grant seems deferential to her; the "second banana.")

So when somebody asks you about "that thriller from the sixties where the three guys come after Audrey Hepburn to get a secret treasure she didn't know she had" -- make sure to pick the right one!

PS. Its Audrey's husband who starts all the trouble in both movies. In Charade, the husband is murdered in the first scene, and the baddies come after the cash he slipped to his wife in another form. In Wait Until Dark, the husband is alive but accepts a doll from a beautiful woman -- and she ends up murdered and the doll has valuable drugs and it ends up with Audrey.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Don't forget both have scenes where a villain threatens to set Hepburn on fire.

These two movies having (broadly) similar plots is a great example of how similar premises can come out differently. It's all down to execution. CHARADE is romantic and bubbly, even with its touches of gallows humor. Its Paris setting is glamorous even with all the murders cropping up, whereas WAIT UNTIL DARK is far more sinister. The NYC in that movie, while not exactly the same level of urban grime as MIDNIGHT COWBOY, seems far more dangerous and grotty-- pretty far from the fairy tale melancholy of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S.

You're on the money when you say these films feel a bit more "contemporary" than the Hitchcock movies of the same decade do (not that Hitchcock ever felt particularly "hip," not even in his silent films when he was a young guy). CHARADE oozes the early 60s with its colorful opening and soundtrack (though as Bruce Eder admits in his Criterion essay, the sexual morality of the movie is more 1950s than anything). WAIT UNTIL DARK reflects more of the later, more turbulent part of the decade in small ways: the drugs, the counterculture, hints of unpleasant violence which might have been made more explicit had the movie been released just two or three years later, etc. Not that either of these films are anything close to social commentary but it is cool seeing the period reflected in them.

In fact, both of these films are great transitional movies. CHARADE is pure Old Hollywood escapism just before the bottom fell out in the middle of the 1960s as well as one of Cary Grant's final stand-out roles. WAIT UNTIL DARK is a movie of both beginnings and endings (simultaneously Audrey Hepburn's last movie made during her superstar heyday and one of the early films of Alan Arkin, who's still in movies 50+ years on)-- I consider it neither Old Hollywood nor New Hollywood. It exists in its own weird twilight state, being released just as movies like THE GRADUATE were making waves.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Don't forget both have scenes where a villain threatens to set Hepburn on fiAre.

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That's right!

Audrey Hepburn was MIGHTILY menaced in her two thrillers of the sixties; if memory serves, these are her ONLY two thrillers of the sixties. Each was a hit(people would always love thrillers; as Hitchcock faded out, new thriller makers came in -- if only for just a movie or two, but there were so MANY of these people, that the supply continued, unabated.

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These two movies having (broadly) similar plots is a great example of how similar premises can come out differently.

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Kind of a hard call here. In both movies, Hepburn is in possession of something valuable(Hitchcock's famous MacGuffin.) In both movies, three crooks come to get that something. In both movies, Hepburn doesn't know what it is...or WHERE it is(the doll.)

So the premise...and Hepburn's position ...rather similar to each other.

But of course, everything ELSE is different. For instance, the three crooks in Charade, announce themselves immediately to Hepburn and start demanding the money. Whereas in WUD. the three crooks are out to trick and con Hepburn into voluntarily giving up the doll.

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It's all down to execution. CHARADE is romantic and bubbly, even with its touches of gallows humor.

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Charade was/is called "the Best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made," and since it came out in the Hays Code era in which he operated , its pretty close -- it has one of his favorite stars(Cary Grant) paired with "the star who got away"(Hepburn, who booked and then bolted Hitchcock's "No Bail for the Judge." s project he then dumped for Psycho ("Thanks, Audrey!!")

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I think Cary and Audrey make a fine , rather "seasoned and mature" couple in Charade. Director Stanley Donen would do a thriller again(because of the success of Charade) with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in "Arabesque"(1966) and it is clear that Peck and Loren make up in physical beauty what is lacking the kind of seasoned wit that Cary and Audrey brought to their movie. Cary was a few levels up in star power from Greg; Cary turned down Arabesque and recommended Greg for it.

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Its Paris setting is glamorous even with all the murders cropping up, whereas WAIT UNTIL DARK is far more sinister. The NYC in that movie, while not exactly the same level of urban grime as MIDNIGHT COWBOY, seems far more dangerous and grotty-- pretty far from the fairy tale melancholy of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S.

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We only a few glimpses of the street outside Susy's apartment -- REAL NYC footage that suggests a REAL, rather tough (with tough kids) kind of urban-danger locale. Then everything moves inside and/or to a fake backlot version of the outside of Susy's apartment -- but the first "real" footage has locked the danger of the setting into our mind. Gloria isn't necessarily being put in a great position when she is sent outside later in the film.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

You're on the money when you say these films feel a bit more "contemporary" than the Hitchcock movies of the same decade do (not that Hitchcock ever felt particularly "hip," not even in his silent films when he was a young guy).

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Ha. Well Hitchcock was born in 1899, so his ability to stay hip depended largely on hiring the wittiest SOMEWHAT hippest screenwriters he could find -- and they were STILL more of "his era": John Michael Hayes with his unbeaten four in a row(Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much); Ernest Lehman for NXNW fresh off the corrosive bite of "Sweet Smell of Success" and real-life beatnik type Joe Stefano(who adapted Robert Bloch's book Psycho.)

Around the time that hip writers were finding their way to Charade and Wait Until Dark...Hitchcock was running out of hip writers to attract. They didn't much want to work with him. The curse was broken when he managed to bag "Sleuth" playwright Anthony Shaffer for Frenzy, but even that one doesn't have the hip tones of Charade or Wait Until Dark.

No...those movies were their own worlds. Charade has plenty of romantic banter for Grant(underplaying) and Hepburn(stalking him.) Wait Until Dark has no time for romance, so Roat's creepy one liners (and some of Richard Crenna's zingers AT Roat) have to suffice. And DO.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

CHARADE oozes the early 60s with its colorful opening and soundtrack (though as Bruce Eder admits in his Criterion essay, the sexual morality of the movie is more 1950s than anything).

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True. Something tells me that Grant and Hepburn were more willing to appear interspersed with some grisly murders than to mess with the staid sexuality upon which both had made their names.

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WAIT UNTIL DARK reflects more of the later, more turbulent part of the decade in small ways: the drugs, the counterculture, hints of unpleasant violence which might have been made more explicit had the movie been released just two or three years later, etc.

What a difference four years makes. 1967 was seen as a real watershed for American film, with The Graduate(sex) and Bonnie and Clyde(violence AND sex) leading the pack. But also The Dirty Dozen(a violent anti-war war movie), Point Blank(Lee Marvin from The Dirty Dozen further polishing his "hip brute" credentials) and In the Heat of the Night(racial matters drawn into a murder mystery.)

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Not that either of these films are anything close to social commentary but it is cool seeing the period reflected in them.

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Well, it is certainly there. We kind of get the best of both worlds: classic Hitchcockian structure and suspense mixed with more modern dialogue and attitudes. Again, I can't see Hitchcock approving the "Roat villain" -- Hitchcock preferred handsome men who their victims don't see coming. I'm so glad that Hitchcock did NOT make Wait Until Dark.

And this: Cary Grant made only two more movies after Charade -- neither of them thrillers, so Charade ended up is true "finale" -- and retired at 62. Hepburn retired right after Wait Until Dark(and its box office, and its Oscar nom for her) -- coming back 9 years later(Robin and Marian) but not really the star she was.

Consequently, Charade and Wait Until Dark are like glorious thriller swan songs for two of the great stars of the 20th Century.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

In fact, both of these films are great transitional movies. CHARADE is pure Old Hollywood escapism just before the bottom fell out in the middle of the 1960s as well as one of Cary Grant's final stand-out roles. WAIT UNTIL DARK is a movie of both beginnings and endings (simultaneously Audrey Hepburn's last movie made during her superstar heyday and one of the early films of Alan Arkin, who's still in movies 50+ years on)

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Interesting to me: Grant quit in 1966. Hepburn quit in 1967. Its like they felt their time was over. And given the "meh" nature of Hepburn's "return" in the 70's and beyond -- maybe Grant made the right "permanent" choice.

As for Arkin, the fact he IS still in movies 50 years on reflects some really good career choices and great personal health -- which a lot of our modern movie stars have.

There is this: sometimes I go back and watch Roat and -- unfortunately -- I all too clearly see and hear the Arkin of the In-Laws and Freebie and the Bean -- he was there, hidden, all the time.

-- I consider it neither Old Hollywood nor New Hollywood. It exists in its own weird twilight state, being released just as movies like THE GRADUATE were making waves.

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Well, I think it was the last movie that Jack Warner oversaw as a studio head. He did Bonnie and Clyde the same year, and I think he banked more on Wait Until Dark for traditional box office. But both films were winners; one a "serious" classic -- but the other one of the greatest nights out at the movies for millions.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

"There is this: sometimes I go back and watch Roat and -- unfortunately -- I all too clearly see and hear the Arkin of the In-Laws and Freebie and the Bean -- he was there, hidden, all the time."

You know, it's weird, because my experience is a bit the opposite.

WAIT UNTIL DARK is the movie that made me an Arkin fan. Though I've been a fan of older movies since I was a teen, I had never heard of him before watching WAIT (to be fair, I kind of worked my way up to the 1960s and 1970s-- from ages 15-19, I was more interested in pre-WWII movies than anything else). I watched WAIT on TCM for the first time mainly for two reasons: I loved Mancini's title theme, which I had been listening to on a playlist for a few months then, and as a movie geek, who can resist a movie mostly known as "that one where blind Audrey Hepburn has to fend off homicidal narcotics smugglers"?

After seeing the movie, I recall being so blown away by Arkin that I immediately went onto his IMDB page to find out what else he'd been in. I was initially shocked he's more of a comedian (when I saw he appeared on SESAME STREET, my initial gut reaction was, hilariously enough, "They let this freak on SESAME STREET??") and I recognized I had seen him in one other movie: God's gift to cinema, THE SANTA CLAUSE 3. You can forgive me for forgetting that movie even exists, let alone Arkin's small role.

Arkin did have more of a particular persona later on, and you can see hints of that in WAIT, though I think more in Jr. and Sr. than in Roat. What keeps that performance as my favorite of his is how unrecognizable he is--so different from his signature parts, from the voice to the gleeful, sleazy violence.

Actually, I think his 60s and most of his 70s films are his most interesting work before he got locked into a certain type of role. He had all of these diverse, interesting parts that really showed off his range. Watching WAIT and THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER back to back is particularly astonishing.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

After seeing the movie, I recall being so blown away by Arkin that I immediately went onto his IMDB page to find out what else he'd been in. I was initially shocked he's more of a comedian

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Yes, Arkin came to movies FROM stage comedy(Second City, maybe?) and eventually found his niche doing "anxiety humor" and "exasperation humor."

But he worked hard on drama with The Heart is a Lonely Hunter(he plays a deaf-mute) and Papi(I believe that he played a Puerto Rican trying to raise a family in tough NYC.)

Arkin's "biggest" movie lead, I expect , was as Rossarian in Mike Nichols "Catch 22," the long awaited follow-up to Nichols's The Graduate, from a long popular 60's novel. Nichols -- with Arkin in the lead -- seemed to decide to go for "New York salon intellectual humor" with Catch-22 (guys like Richard Benjamin and Charles Grodin and Bob Balaban surrounded Arkin -- along with old "Psycho" stars Tony Perkins and Martin Balsam)...and the movie sort of busted out, an epic that felt like a mere sketch of the great book it was filming. (the anti-war comedy MASH, much smaller, beat it to theaters and stole the heat, too.)

Its possible that Catch 22 knocked Arkin's star career down a notch. Reading imdb, you can see Arkin sort of struggling for his 70's roles after that . I know for a personal fact that Arkin's "buddy cop comedy" with James Caan -- Freebie and the Bean(1974) -- was much hated by critics and much loved by audiences(I saw it with a full house that laughed hard, start to finish.) But I don't think "Freebie and the Bean" was seen as a major movie, and Arkin probably landed it with ease..

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

A later "buddy comedy" -- The In-Laws (1979) where Arkin got to play the put-upon and uptight father of the bride to Peter Falk's nutty father of the groom -- was its own cult classic. (I mean, its outlandish -- Falk is connected to the CIA and so Arkin ends up chased and shot at and generally put through hell, alternating his reaction from total hysteria to a kind of in-shock stone face.)

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Arkin still had decades to go after "The In-Laws," and he did them generally as a "character star," generally in support, but always working and most successful after he passed 60 -- the Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine, a key role in the Best Picture winner Argo -- and a late-blooming "buddy sctreaming series" with Michael Douglas called The Kominsky Method(Arkin is his typical grouchy self.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

(when I saw he appeared on SESAME STREET, my initial gut reaction was, hilariously enough, "They let this freak on SESAME STREET??")

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Ha...if you only knew Arkin as Roat...Sesame Street would be a shocker!

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and I recognized I had seen him in one other movie: God's gift to cinema, THE SANTA CLAUSE 3. You can forgive me for forgetting that movie even exists, let alone Arkin's small role.

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I, uh, missed that one. One way Arkin has profited in these later years is in taking "quick short parts" where he gets money and we get "Alan Arkin!" I saw him pop up in a "Spenser" detective movie with Mark Wahlberg -- a Netflix job -- recently and it was just nice to see him, if only for a short bit. (Indeed, I'm starting to worry now, as with Michael Caine -- when will age FINALLY stop these guys from even appearing briefly in movies? Together they were old-buy bank robbers a few years ago in Going in Style.)

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Arkin did have more of a particular persona later on, and you can see hints of that in WAIT, though I think more in Jr. and Sr. than in Roat.

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That's true! Especially in Roat Junior, we see/hear that "Arkin neurotic schtick" that would become a trademark.

I suppose I'm saying that I'm a bit surprised to find Arkin in the "evil" Roat, too. Maybe just a little bit, but he's there.

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What keeps that performance as my favorite of his is how unrecognizable he is--so different from his signature parts, from the voice to the gleeful, sleazy violence.

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Yes -- I'll again surmise that Hitchcock had he directed Wait Until Dark would not have allowed Arkin the great visual flourishes he gave Roat -- the flamboyance of his leather jacket, greasy hair, sunglasses and (sometimes) hat. Hell, Hitchcock might have cast Richard Crenna as Roat -- "as is!"

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Actually, I think his 60s and most of his 70s films are his most interesting work before he got locked into a certain type of role. He had all of these diverse, interesting parts that really showed off his range. Watching WAIT and THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER back to back is particularly astonishing.

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Yes, having launched with that Best Actor Oscar nomination, and having hit with Wait Until Dark, Arkin had a good, solid first decade of meaty roles before he was rather "pushed off into comedy." The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Catch-22 are perhaps the stand-outs.

During this period, we also have Arkin unsuccessfully trying to be "Inspector Clouseau" (no Blake Edwards flavor; Edwards refused the job; Sellers turned it down) and playing a far more crazy NYC cop in a nutcase(very funny) cameo in "Little Murders."

But old and funny and grouchy as Alan Arkin still is today ("The Kominsky Method") I do think that Roat lives on, in the memories of the two generations who first experienced Wait Until Dark and in the somewhat smaller group of "new recruits" to the performance.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I watched WAIT on TCM for the first time mainly for two reasons: I loved Mancini's title theme, which I had been listening to on a playlist for a few months then, and as a movie geek, who can resist a movie mostly known as "that one where blind Audrey Hepburn has to fend off homicidal narcotics smugglers"?

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A bit more Charade/Wait Until Dark comparing:

Mancini provided "thriller music" throughout the tense sequences of Charade, but the film also had a "title tune" that is played as a fast instrumental over the credits and tht becomes a "Moon River"-ish romantic ballad group-sung over a Grant/Hepburn romantic cuddle and smooch. In short, Mancini had to serve romance AND suspense with his Charade score.

Not so with Wait Until Dark. That insistent, plinking, whistling, gets-on-your-nerves-and-stays-there credit music keeps Wait Until Dark scary literally from the moment the Warner Brothers logo comes on the screen...all the way to the end.

As a "sop," when the movie is over and we are getting shots of the actors (not many of them, the shots are held quite long) ...we get a woman who sounds like the "Brazil 66" lead singer Lani Hall (but it isn't) singing a romantic bossa nova ballad(tre 1967) with lyrics: "...but oh, my darling...wait until dark..." as a SEXUAL COME-ON instead of the terrifying meaning it has for the film.

Ay...Jack Warner...

PS. Bringing the grim "Frenzy" in yet one more time, Hitchcock hired Henry Mancini to score that thriller. Mancini produced a score. Hitchcock fired Mancini and didn't use the score. The Ron Goodwin score of replacement is most pedestrian. Another 'late breaking Hitchcock mistake." Mancini's surviving "Frenzy overture" is on YouTube...and much better than Goodwin's.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

The Charade score is definitely super "classic Mancini"-- or at least, mainstream Mancini. Same with ARABESQUE, which is pretty much "CHARADE but not as good." I do agree the music in WAIT is very effective. I remember those discordant pianos making me queasy from that first scene where Old Louis slices open the doll and its cotton innards rise towards the frame (once again, an old-school suggestion of gore in place of any actual red, red kroovy).

And yes, that last song is just hilariously out of place. It's jarring because literally two minutes ago, we have Susy trying not to get stabbed to death, cowering behind a fridge with her hands and shirt front stained with the blood of her would-be murderer-- and then we get a love song!! Then again, I find a lot of films in the 60s had weird title songs: CHARADE, THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, etc. I guess they were intended for marketing? Mancini's love theme in the movie was more in tune with his public persona than the eerie Theme for Three.

One person has defended the use of the song at the credits though. John Caps is a critic who wrote a book on Mancini's work and he claims that the song is acceptable because "the audience is so eager for relief after forty minutes of unreleased tension, and maybe because the song in question here has already been referenced throughout the film." A sensible argument, though I still chuckle a bit at the tonal whiplash-- particularly because the music that plays during the jump is so oppressive, bleak, and frightening.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The Charade score is definitely super "classic Mancini"-- or at least, mainstream Mancini. Same with ARABESQUE, which is pretty much "CHARADE but not as good."

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I might note, as an "ear candy thing," that I actually find Mancini's credit theme for Arabesque to be more entertaining than the Charade instrumental. "Arabesque" has this muscular, thundering tempo with a Middle Eastern exoticism(reflecting the Middle Eastern politics in the London-based film.)

Made a mere three years after Charade, Arabesque has a massively "mod" approach that reflects director Donen trying to go beyond hip and into psychedelic or something(the bad guys actually feed Greg Peck some LSD and put him on a "trip." Outcome: Arabesque looks far more dated than Charade all these years later.

Arabesque demonstrated that movie stars do differ -- Greg Peck didn't have Grant's relaxed timing; Loren, while gorgeous and exotic, couldn't "draw us in" like Vulnerable Audrey.

But another problem with Arabesque versus Charade is: the script. Time to NAME the hip writer of Charade. His name was Peter Stone, and Cary Grant so liked his work on Charade that he invited Stone to touch up the NEXT Grant movie ("Father Goose", not a thriller) and Stone won the Oscar for it, saying memorably from the stage "I would like to thank Cary Grant...who keeps winning these things for other people."

Ah, but Stone was good, too. There's a throwaway bit when Hepburn is in a CIA elevator and two men talk:

Man One: So I bluffed him with a pair of eights.
Man Two: So what's wrong with that?
Man One: If I can bluff him that easily, what are the Russians doing to him?

Wonderful. Not spoken by any major actor in the film -- Hepburn watches. Man One was played by Peter Stone. Man Two was VOICED by director Donen. Or Vice Versa.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Peter Stone moved on to write a few more good thrillers -- In 1965, Mirage, with Greg Peck better served by the story and Walter Matthau as his sidekick private eye; and then in 1974, Matthau moved up to the lead role...The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Hitchcock never used Stone, but its doubtful he could have hipped up Marnie, Torn Curtain, or Topaz.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I do agree the music in WAIT is very effective. I remember those discordant pianos making me queasy from that first scene where Old Louis slices open the doll and its cotton innards rise towards the frame (once again, an old-school suggestion of gore in place of any actual red, red kroovy).

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THAT happens as the WB logo appears on screen with the red satin behind it as the music kicks in and the knife starts ripping -- I remember thinking(even as a fairly young person), "oh, man this is gonna be exciting."

This could be the creepiest Mancini thriller music outside of his very scary "Experiment in Terror" credit music...which perhaps had a bit too much melody and jazz versus the atonal Wait Until Dark.

(Note in passing: you can hear a lot of the cues for future Mancini thrillers in his TV work for Peter Gunn...that had a famous TV theme song...but the rest of the music was "Mancini thriller time.")

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And yes, that last song is just hilariously out of place. It's jarring because literally two minutes ago, we have Susy trying not to get stabbed to death, cowering behind a fridge with her hands and shirt front stained with the blood of her would-be murderer-- and then we get a love song!!

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Its pretty "whack." Listening to it today, it seems pretty clear: this movie was NOT grungy old Psycho, so this movie needed its "designated pop romantic tune." But here's the thing: I remember so many Mancini tunes(both sung and instrumental) on the car radio in the 60's -- Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, Charade, Dear Heart -- but I don't remember Wait Until Dark getting radio play.

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Then again, I find a lot of films in the 60s had weird title songs: CHARADE, THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, etc. I guess they were intended for marketing?

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Yes, I guess so. Either male/female group singers sang them, or folks like Andy Williams and Sinatra put them on albums.

Recall that one reason Hitchcock broke with Herrmann on Torn Curtain was that Universal wanted a "pop song" for the movie, and would have preferred Mancini (and they had JULIE ANDREWS after all.) Hitch dutifully fired Herrmann but he didn't offer much in return. Andrews sang nothing -- the "pop song"(which can be heard on the Torn Curtain LP) was sung by the Johnny Mann Singers and was way too saccharine (its from an upbeat melody that accompanies Newman and Andrews at the end of the movie.)

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Mancini's love theme in the movie was more in tune with his public persona than the eerie Theme for Three.

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Theme for Three? That's the Wait Until Dark scary music?

I do suppose that the final song made sure that Mancini got to "be Mancini."

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

One person has defended the use of the song at the credits though. John Caps is a critic who wrote a book on Mancini's work and he claims that the song is acceptable because "the audience is so eager for relief after forty minutes of unreleased tension, and maybe because the song in question here has already been referenced throughout the film."

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The tune DOES turn up sometimes in the film proper, doesn't it? I can hear it now. Hmm.

I must admit when I watch Wait Until Dark on DVD at home and the insane climax is over and the song(plus something I always love -- shots of the actors from the film itself) comes on...its oddly nostalgic and comforting.

Honestly, I don't even remember the song from my full-house viewing in 1968 -- I think everybody was talking and laughing in the wake of the big scare climax.

--- A sensible argument, though I still chuckle a bit at the tonal whiplash-- particularly because the music that plays during the jump is so oppressive, bleak, and frightenin

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That jump is famous visually but -- musically ,it chills to the bone.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Yeah, the Theme for Three is the official name for the main motif of the film.

Yeah, the pop song's melody is basically an unofficial leitmotif for Susy. It plays when she and Sam make up before he leaves for the evening, and it plays when Susy and Gloria make up after the young girl's outburst. It's a pleasant melody--- but it's got nothing on the Theme for Three.

Interestingly, the "Wait Until Dark" title song did get a few covers. One I actually like better than the Sue Raney version which plays over the credits is by Scott Walker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyKbqnqO8hA

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Oh and don't remind me of how Mancini was robbed of FRENZY. I wish we had his score on CD or streaming, much like how Bernard Hermann's unused TORN CURTAIN score got a release (that score was also better than what was in the finished movie). I don't even remember a single cue from the Goodwin music. Unlike Hermann, he added no real personality to the movie.

It's a shame that Mancini didn't score more thrillers in general. He did great work on a 1971 horror movie called THE NIGHT VISITOR, which has this bleak medieval sound. It builds on the discordant style of WAIT UNTIL DARK, only it eschews the warmer sections entirely.

Ha-- you know, it feels like I'm saying that a lot in this board. Mancini, Hepburn, and Arkin could have used more thrillers in their careers. Hepburn only had the godawful BLOODLINE after this one, also directed by Terence Young who rips off his own work in WAIT UNTIL DARK for the climactic scenes. Heck, he even rips off CHARADE with the twist and turn romance subplot.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

(Indeed, I'm starting to worry now, as with Michael Caine -- when will age FINALLY stop these guys from even appearing briefly in movies? Together they were old-buy bank robbers a few years ago in Going in Style.)
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Yeah, that's the way of things. It's sad but inevitable. Sometimes I get a kick out of seeing older actors in new stuff-- like how shocked I was to see Robert Redford in the MCU.
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I'll again surmise that Hitchcock had he directed Wait Until Dark would not have allowed Arkin the great visual flourishes he gave Roat -- the flamboyance of his leather jacket, greasy hair, sunglasses and (sometimes) hat. Hell, Hitchcock might have cast Richard Crenna as Roat -- "as is!"
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I thank God Hitchcock was not the director for those reasons. Roat might have still worn the sunglasses though (if you look at images of Duvall in the part, he also has shades, though he pairs them with an unbuttoned red shirt and dark pants-- less beatnik, more... well, I don't even know. The unbuttoned shirt throws me off-- romance novel cover Roat?). However, that gross greasy hair and even the weird yellow turtleneck under the jacket definitely leave a bizarre impression even Hitchcock might have found too out there. Though maybe he would have tried making Roat more Bob Rusk-like: normal-looking and seemingly jovial, but with a rotten, violent center. But he wouldn't have had the hipster, mob vibe and that just seems inseparable from the guy.

Actually, maybe they just seem inseparable becaue Arkin left such an impression. Just from a casual search on Google images or YouTube, I find a lot of productions of the play have their Roats dress like Arkin, even though the play's script doesn't call for any of the visual trademarks he associates with the character-- not even the glasses.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

(Indeed, I'm starting to worry now, as with Michael Caine -- when will age FINALLY stop these guys from even appearing briefly in movies? Together they were old-guy bank robbers a few years ago in Going in Style.)
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Yeah, that's the way of things. It's sad but inevitable.

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I think "the hard part" is that so many of these actors continue into their 70s and 80s and almost feel "immortal" and then -- you see a frailty and then, you notice they aren't being cast much anymore. Then, then either disappear into old age for a decade away or pass away.

An example of this from a few years ago was: Rip Torn. LOVED that he kept working. Rather shocked when he finally left.

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Sometimes I get a kick out of seeing older actors in new stuff-- like how shocked I was to see Robert Redford in the MCU.

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And in a helluva surprising role -- that he handled with his calm and cool detachment from his younger years.
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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I'll again surmise that Hitchcock had he directed Wait Until Dark would not have allowed Arkin the great visual flourishes he gave Roat -- the flamboyance of his leather jacket, greasy hair, sunglasses and (sometimes) hat. Hell, Hitchcock might have cast Richard Crenna as Roat -- "as is!"
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I thank God Hitchcock was not the director for those reasons.

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Yes. I should add -- for myself -- that obviously Hitchcock was a very great artist who made decades of very great entertainment, and in certain ways he was "above" Wait Until Dark. Had Hitchcock directed it, it would have also had all sorts of elegant camera moves and surprising angles(working in the Dial M/Rope stage play mode.)

But there is a time for everyone and I can't seen Hitchcock really knowing how to do Wait Until Dark right. Wait Until Dark -- AND Charade -- are content to favor their stars and their scripts and to keep the filmmaking tricks minimal.

That said, Hitchcock even in his later years kept making sure that HIS movies had fancy camera moves and montages and all that stuff that HE was famous for. They just weren't as FUN as WUD.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Roat might have still worn the sunglasses though (if you look at images of Duvall in the part, he also has shades, though he pairs them with an unbuttoned red shirt and dark pants-- less beatnik, more... well, I don't even know. The unbuttoned shirt throws me off-- romance novel cover Roat?).

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Hmm...I gotta work on the whole "Robert Duvall Roat" concept, I think.

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However, that gross greasy hair and even the weird yellow turtleneck under the jacket definitely leave a bizarre impression even Hitchcock might have found too out there. Though maybe he would have tried making Roat more Bob Rusk-like: normal-looking and seemingly jovial, but with a rotten, violent center. But he wouldn't have had the hipster, mob vibe and that just seems inseparable from the guy.

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All agreed. The "starting point" with Hitchcock's psycho villains is that he liked to cast handsome men -- Joseph Cotton, Robert Walker, Anthony Perkins...even Barry Foster from some angles as Rusk -- because he felt that they SHOULD be handsome men(Hitch's line was: "They have to be handsome. Otherwise victims wouldn't get near them.")

So..Hitch just could not have SEEN Roat with all that hipster/drugs/mob stuff -- frankly, Roat is not portrayed as an handsome or particularly "warm" man at all. Probably someone "Rusk-like" would have been Hitchcock's choice. On the fly, that's why I went with Richard Crenna. Good looks, an edge.

But we got Arkin, so history is secure.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Actually, maybe they just seem inseparable becaue Arkin left such an impression.

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He most certainly did! In retrospect, I wonder how much of the Roat wardrobe was Arkin's idea...and how much from the costume people. We'll never know.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Just from a casual search on Google images or YouTube, I find a lot of productions of the play have their Roats dress like Arkin, even though the play's script doesn't call for any of the visual trademarks he associates with the character-- not even the glasses

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Ha. Well, local productions are often a means by which local unknown actors can "honor their screen favorites," and I can see playing Roat per Arkin's attire would be very satisfying to do.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

I don't know how much of the main Roat attire was his. In a documentary from 2003, Mel Ferrer said something like, "[Arkin] changed his makeup for each role," so maybe he did have some input?

The 1966 screenplay does have a few descriptions of Roat's attire too, some of which lines up with what was in the finished film and some of which doesn't.

For example, Roat has sunglasses(described as giving him "halos for eyes" when the light catches them), but they're specifically rose-tinted. He's wearing a black coat, but it's not necessarily a leather jacket. During the climax, he still seems to be in his Roat Jr attire but with the addition of the rose-glasses.

Btw, the screenplay can be found here:

https://cinephiliabeyond.org/wait-dark-terence-youngs-terrifyingly-effective-suspense-thriller-brilliant-audrey-hepburn-alan-arkin/

The movie is mostly faithful to the script, though the blocking and shot set-ups during the blackout scene are radically different. It actually has me wondering if Arkin improvised a lot on set (he's famous for doing that): the bit with the cane over Susy's neck or him dragging her to the bedroom are not in the screenplay.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

During the climax, he still seems to be in his Roat Jr attire but with the addition of the rose-glasses.

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Good thing they changed THAT.

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Btw, the screenplay can be found here:

https://cinephiliabeyond.org/wait-dark-terence-youngs-terrifyingly-effective-suspense-thriller-brilliant-audrey-hepburn-alan-arkin/

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THANK YOU! I love reading screenplays of favorite films, and here I get to experience Wait Until Dark on the page decades after I saw it. "Life stays good."

Its impressive how much the script and movie match, dialogue-wise. Indeed, it looks like Arkin improvised and toyed with his lines a bit, but everybody else is pretty much letter-perfect on the script. And its a good script.

I have to look up this husband and wife screenwriter team -- Robert and Jane-Howard Carrington(did I remember that right, I'll check.) They must have come from SOMEWHERE, and they turned in this hip gem -- I just don't see it tracking with Frederick Knott's old-school style.

Its so tough for screenwriters to have a long career in Hollywood. At least with screen credits. A lot get paid to write scripts that are never made or to touch up other people's scripts.

Peter Stone got a few scripts to write after Charade, plus at least one Broadway play("1776.") -- which ends rather like Charade with a character having to make a life-changing decision(Hepburn: trust Grant or Matthau; 1776 Declaration of Independence signer: sign or not.)

I'm not sure about the Carringtons writing career after WUD. Off to imdb I go . The screenwriters of Psycho and Frenzy didn't really write that many more noteable screenplays(Frenzy scenarist Anthony Shaffer had Sleuth as his Broadway best.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The movie is mostly faithful to the script, though the blocking and shot set-ups during the blackout scene are radically different. It actually has me wondering if Arkin improvised a lot on set (he's famous for doing that): the bit with the cane over Susy's neck or him dragging her to the bedroom are not in the screenplay.

--

I expect that Arkin had to convince Hepburn to "trust him" not to be TOO rough on her in those bits but -- they certainly help keep Roat more "hate-able." Its infuriating seeing a man manhandling a woman.

---

The screenplay is part of a great article (with great photos) that I also thank you for.

Noteable:

There is one staged photograph of Hepburn trapped at the refrigerator as Arkin looms over her with his bloody knife and that reminded me of something from 1968 when I saw the movie.

That photo had been in Time or Newsweek with a review, and I'd seen it and therefore something was SPOILED for me: I knew Arkin was NOT dead when he seemed to be -- I knew he would menace Hepburn at the refrigerator. I still yelled and jumped when he jumped out -- because I was bracing for SOMETHING -- but that damn photo of Arkin and Hepburn at the refrigerator was quite a spoiler from Warner Brothers.

And this: in a section on Henry Mancini in the article, they show him with Hitchcock...but they say nothing of this being on Frenzy and of Mancini getting fired.

They DO say(interestingly) that Mancini wanted to "do something different' with his Wait Until Dark score, which helps explain its nerve-wracking weirdness and the lack of romance ala Charade.

Great article, great screenplay, great photos...great read!

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

I expect that Arkin had to convince Hepburn to "trust him" not to be TOO rough on her in those bits but -- they certainly help keep Roat more "hate-able." Its infuriating seeing a man manhandling a woman.
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Oh definitely! It especially helps that the two characters never shared physical contact before then. Just watching him grab her arm and pull her closer to him gets the skin crawling. It's worse since you know he won't hesitate to cut her throat.

Hepburn was certainly a good sport. I actually recall reading some interview with Audrey where she said something like, "I've worked with so many of the great actors, but the only one who never felt like he was acting was Alan Arkin. He scared the daylights out of me!" That's quite a compliment from a woman who worked with Gregory Peck, Albert Finney, and Peter O'Toole! And her acting in those scenes is extraordinary-- maybe because Arkin did make her feel so on edge.

Maybe that explains why he had so little fun on that set, especially if he was freaking her out just a touch lol. And he says he just loved working with her, that she was very sweet and professional.
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They DO say(interestingly) that Mancini wanted to "do something different' with his Wait Until Dark score, which helps explain its nerve-wracking weirdness and the lack of romance ala Charade.
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In that John Caps book on Mancini, he pretty much shows that throughout his whole career, Mancini wanted to work on diverse projects. He craved to do thrillers and drama but everyone just lumped him in with easy listening and pop jazz. A shame since he was such an immense talent. Caps puts the WAIT score among the top achievements of Mancini's movie career and I would agree.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I have to look up this husband and wife screenwriter team -- Robert and Jane-Howard Carrington(did I remember that right, I'll check.) They must have come from SOMEWHERE, and they turned in this hip gem -- I just don't see it tracking with Frederick Knott's old-school style.

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I looked them up at imdb: Robert Carrington and Jane Howard-Carrington is the correct spelling. She later married the son of Oscar Mammerstein and became Jane Howard-Hammerstein.

More credits for him than for her...but she had one many years after Wait Until Dark -- in 1991.

After Wait Until Dark...Robert wrote a couple of B-ish movies from Alastair MacClean novels and something about a deadly snake called "Venom." I remain intrigued about just how these folks put food on the table with so few scripts sold...but it must be the movies written but NOT made, or the "script doctoring" that gets it done.

BEFORE Wait Until Dark, it looks like the Carrington team wrote only one film -- but it was an A film for Warner Brothers and it starred Warren Beatty, so I suppose that gave them "bona fides" to adapt Wait Until Dark.

It was a caper movie called "Kaleidoscope" that was set in London and quite mod -- and not much of a hit. Hitchcock buffs will note that Hitchcock was working on a script alternatively called "Frenzy" and "Kaleidoscope" around this same time(1966) and I say..it NEVER would have been released as "Kaleidoscope" because...the Beatty movie. The "Frenzy" Hitchcock was having written in 1966/1967 had nothing to do with the 1972 movie to which he gave that name. The 1966/1967 "Frenzy" was about a New York City psycho; the 1972 Frenzy was about a London psycho, and from a different source(novel.)

Ah...the movie connections....

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

They must have come from SOMEWHERE, and they turned in this hip gem -- I just don't see it tracking with Frederick Knott's old-school style.
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Yeah, they only did a few scripts. I read an interview with the wife and she said they happened to know Mel Ferrer through someone else, and that's how they landed the job. It was quite by chance and them being at the right place at the right time that they got the gig.

I've read the play a few times and sampled stage versions on YouTube, and Knott definitely kept a sort of Englishness, even when he's trying to write American. There's actually one bit in the play that seems so weirdly English to me: after Roat locks Susy in the apartment with him, he says, "So, the dog it was that died!" I had no clue what he was referencing and a quick search showed it was a line from an 18th-century poem. Perhaps Roat is an avid reader?

Btw the husband actually co-wrote a later blind woman in peril thriller in the late 80s: BLIND WITNESS. From the reviews on Amazon, it does not appear to have left much of an impression on those that saw it.

Oh, and now that you mention that press photo by the fridge-- I don't know if you've ever seen this, but while on eBay, I once came across some clippings from a 1960s Japanese movie magazine that had all these behind the scenes photos from the WAIT UNTIL DARK production that I had never seen before, especially the on-location portions of the story. My favorite image is this, with Hepburn and Arkin dressed in-character on a stoop, but decidedly out-of-character in demeanor:

https://64.media.tumblr.com/fbc44ea6c0000b42a708e23bef7002f3/ba6c85403c050da9-7d/s540x810/2052e1be3f71c9ef6fc24764f0af7bdb7cbbf876.png

I love how she boldly smiles at the camera while Arkin is staring down, almost in a shy schoolboy manner. From what interviews I can gather from that period, he did not enjoy star publicity or anything like that. He's also holding a camera-- maybe that was a hobby of his at the time?

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Yes, I did read about KALEIDOSCOPE! I kind of want to see it only for the WAIT UNTIL DARK connection and the sheer 60s-ness of that title, but who knows if the script there was as good?

With the low number of scripts the Carringtons churned out, they must have had other means of employment. That's how it often works with writers and artists in general. Gotta have a day job.

I love making connections between movies though. So many of them are intertwined, influencing one another. And sometimes finding small references to other movies into a film can be fun: like, I've always wondered if that shot of Arkin silhouetted in the apartment doorway, where you catch the outline of his hat and the glitter of his glases, is a sly reference to Igor Novello's iconic entrance to the apartment building in Hitchcock's THE LODGER.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Yes, I did read about KALEIDOSCOPE! I kind of want to see it only for the WAIT UNTIL DARK connection and the sheer 60s-ness of that title, but who knows if the script there was as good?

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I tried watching the Beatty Kaleidoscope on Turner Classic Movies once...didn't make it through. It was OK, as I recall..I just got bored. Aside from "Splendor in the Grass" and some other well-made non-hits, Warren Beatty actually struggled with poor projects for quite some time before hitting paydirt with "Bonnie and Clyde."

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With the low number of scripts the Carringtons churned out, they must have had other means of employment. That's how it often works with writers and artists in general. Gotta have a day job.

--

Must be. Or good investments or family wealth.

Honestly, I think a "hidden dark side" to Hollywood is all those writers whose careers seem to consist of one or two hit movies, and that's it. They are more famous than me -- this couple left behind "Wait Until Dark" the movie -- but they must have felt sort of "out in the cold" after the hits ended.

I love making connections between movies though. So many of them are intertwined, influencing one another.

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There are various aspects to enjoying the movie life, and one of them is organizing films and making connections. Its just fun, and it helps one organize the mind inother pursuits, too.

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And sometimes finding small references to other movies into a film can be fun: like, I've always wondered if that shot of Arkin silhouetted in the apartment doorway, where you catch the outline of his hat and the glitter of his glases, is a sly reference to Igor Novello's iconic entrance to the apartment building in Hitchcock's THE LODGER.

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Never though of that!

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Oh yeah, I'm not trying to diss Hitchcock. Dude's one of my favorite directors and I learn so much from his movies all the time. Indeed, WUD is not as groundbreaking as Hitch's best-- yet once again, I don't really like what Hitch was doing in the mid-60s. I find MARNIE and TORN CURTAIN, both in their own ways trying to keep pace with the trends of the time yet seeming anachronistic and stodgy. Even TOPAZ, which I mostly like, suffers from a weak ending (and by weak ending I mean all three of them!). FRENZY is much better than all of those, but it's just not very fun either-- PSYCHO might have been terrifying and disturbing, but it's undeniably entertaining too.

Honestly, aside from the husband's jerk behavior in the last scene, I am perfectly fine with how WAIT UNTIL DARK turned out. I don't really care that the camerawork isn't that sophisticated or fancy. i don't care that the story doesn't have Hitchcock's "metanarratives" or whatever. Sometimes, you just want an entertaining good versus evil story with well-written characters and a tense atmosphere.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Oh yeah, I'm not trying to diss Hitchcock. Dude's one of my favorite directors and I learn so much from his movies all the time.

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Hitchcock was an interesting deal. He was at once a highly successful entertainer whose movies often reveal an "art film maker." Shirley MacLaine, the non-blond introduced to movies in The Trouble With Harry, said of that movie "it was a box office bomb -- an arty bomb, but a bomb nonetheless." And the thing is, even if the movie is MAINLY a twee little black comedy in gorgeous fall foliage, it IS an art film. Something about the fade outs and pauses and sudden camera angles.

Hitchcock was also very "formalistic and heavy" in his filmmaking. This helped keep his films "important," but both his screenwriters and his actors(charmers like Cary Grant and James Stewart) had to keep things "human" in the face of Hitchcock's emphasis on cinematic style.

But by the 60's, after Psycho(which certainly had a certain hipness in ITS script, for 1960) Hitchcock was struggling to stay entertaining and "one shot" thrillers like "The Manchurian Candidate"(which DOES have cinematic technique) and "Wait Until Dark" were thriller hits even as Hitchcock couldn't really deliver anymore (beyond still-good technique) in Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz.

Frenzy is such a weird "success." I was a young Hitchcock fan aware that he was considered in decline, and when Frenzy came out there was this Newsweek review that said: "Hitchcock has tricked us again..he seemed to be in irreversible decline authored by advancing age -- but Frenzy is one of his very best." Not all reviews went that far, but most had titles like "The Return of Alfred the Great" or "Return of the Master" and I for, one, ended up exhilarated more by the reviews than the actual movie -- which is so brutal towards women, so downbeat in its outcomes. Oh, well, it was 1972. Brutal, downbeat, sexually violent movies were "in." Hitch was just following a trend.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Even TOPAZ, which I mostly like, suffers from a weak ending (and by weak ending I mean all three of them!).

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Hitchcock had some of the greatest most PERFECT movie endings of all time(and several directors and stars have said the ending is the most perfect part of the movie.) These in particular: Notorious, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much 56, Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho(above all), The Birds...even the rather droll and quiet capper to Frenzy. ("Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie.")

But for some reason, Hitchcock just couldn't get it right with the Topaz ending and...the whole movie suffers. You're right, all three are bad in three different ways. To the good, the "cinematic shot" right BEFORE the bad alternate endings has some of that Hitchcock power(in the NATO room, the camera move to the chandelier and back.)

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FRENZY is much better than all of those, but it's just not very fun either-- PSYCHO might have been terrifying and disturbing, but it's undeniably entertaining too.

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The proof is in the screaming. Psycho was brutal but mainly it was FUN. It's FUN when Mother comes tearing out of her room at the detective; my audience screamed and screamed and screamed again...but applauded and laughed when the killing was over -- they'd been so delightfully scared. And the screeching music was part of it. I call this the "BOO!" factor.

Frenzy has no "BOO" factor. All it has is a psychopath(admittedly interesting and chilling) and one really brutal sex murder with no music or reason to "jump." Still, the film has great structure, great style , three great set-pieces(one entirely non-violent -- the staircase shot as Babs goes to her doom), and that unique Covent Garden setting(all those workers moving back and forth like ants.)

"Wait Until Dark" DOES have the "BOO!" factor and thus Wait Until Dark is a pop classic that Psycho is(well, that's a REAL classic) and Frenzy will never be.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Honestly, aside from the husband's jerk behavior in the last scene,

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Such a flaw...and Efrem Zimbalist Jr was on record as saying that he hated playing that scene. I sure wish they had re-written it...

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I am perfectly fine with how WAIT UNTIL DARK turned out. I don't really care that the camerawork isn't that sophisticated or fancy.

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Agreed. I think what I am thinking here is that if Hitchcock had accepted Wait Until Dark, he would have subjected it to HIS process: coming up with all sorts of camera moves and angles and close-ups, frankly, to call attention to HIMSELF as the star of the movie. And that worked great for his movies, but I don't see it helping Wait Until Dark, or worth changing Roat over.

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i don't care that the story doesn't have Hitchcock's "metanarratives" or whatever. Sometimes, you just want an entertaining good versus evil story with well-written characters and a tense atmosphere.

--

Totally agreed. That first night I saw Wait Until Dark, I felt the excitement you feel when you are "in" a "really good thriller." And the camera angles didn't matter at all -- though there are some good ones.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Such a flaw...and Efrem Zimbalist Jr was on record as saying that he hated playing that scene. I sure wish they had re-written it...
--
Interestingly, the 2013 Hatcher rewrite does redo that scene! Instead, they have Susy insist on going to him without help, which is such a better option: it makes Sam less of an ass and allows Susy to emphasize, "See? I know I'm not powerless!" I'm not fond of many of the changes in the Hatcher rewrite (like making Mike's participation in the plot a twist-- Hatcher omits him from the first scene with Roat laying out the blackmail), but that one was an inspired choice.

(Another inspired choice in the rewrite is an interesting change in Roat's backstory: Hatcher makes Roat a draft-dodger since the play is now set during WWII. Roat maimed his own foot to get out of serving-- only for it to turn out the army didn't want him anyway since he failed the mental part of the examination! Instead of recognizing Roat through squeaky shoes, Susy recognizes the pace of his maimed foot.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Interestingly, the 2013 Hatcher rewrite does redo that scene! Instead, they have Susy insist on going to him without help, which is such a better option: it makes Sam less of an ass and allows Susy to emphasize, "See? I know I'm not powerless!"

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Nice to know that this got fixed SOMEWHERE.

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I'm not fond of many of the changes in the Hatcher rewrite (like making Mike's participation in the plot a twist-- Hatcher omits him from the first scene with Roat laying out the blackmail),

---

That doesn't seem very good. We need that first scene to establish Mike and Carlino as a TEAM versus Roat.

---

(Another inspired choice in the rewrite is an interesting change in Roat's backstory: Hatcher makes Roat a draft-dodger since the play is now set during WWII. Roat maimed his own foot to get out of serving-- only for it to turn out the army didn't want him anyway since he failed the mental part of the examination! Instead of recognizing Roat through squeaky shoes, Susy recognizes the pace of his maimed foot.)

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Hmm...well, you got for a WWII setting, you have to bring it into the story.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

That doesn't seem very good. We need that first scene to establish Mike and Carlino as a TEAM versus Roat.
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100%. And in the movie, Crenna and Weston share good chemistry and an interesting dynamic from the very first scene on the NYC streets. They move almost in tandem with one another and their bond, while undoubtedly professional, seems to have a friendly element as well.

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Yes. Wait Until Dark eventually comes down to Evil Roat and Good Suzy, but Crenna and Weston give us "something to hold on to" for much of the film...a buddy team that probably works because they are so different: one slim and handsome, the other overweight and somewhat funny in the face(Weston could played bad guys and comic relief interchangeably, or even in the same role, like here.)

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(Like when Carlino nods and puts his hand on Mike's shoulder when he makes the line about "teaching the Constitution at police school." Actually, Mike tries dong the same gesture with Roat and just gets his head bitten off! Another sign that Roat goes beyond normal criminality-- he can't even be friendly with his co-workers. He stands apart.)

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I remembered Roat snapping at Mike's hand on him; I forgot that Mike more easily could do that with his partner. Nice detail. Roat doesn't play well with others.

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Cutting Mike from the first scene robs us of seeing those two men and their friendly dynamic.

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I just can't picture it.

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It seems like a choice made just to shake things up-- not bad in and of itself, but I like that we know all three men are going against Susy from the start.

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Yes...the movie especially suggests that Susy's bedrock innocence and bravery is enough for Mike and Carlino to quit this con, to defy Roat's blackmail...and to kill him off. They rather switch sides TO Susy and thus...these two criminals prove to have some honor within them after all. Which gets them killed by Roat...

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Yeah, FRENZY always came off as Hitchcock trying to stay with the current trends. You also get the sense that he was kind of excited that the blend of sexuality and violence of his earlier movies could now be more explicit.

I'll admit that FRENZY improved for me on a second viewing, but only just slightly and really only in regards to my appreciation of its cinematic technique. My big issue is that I dislike the main character Blaney. He is such an unpleasant lunk. When I watched the movie with a friend who had never seen it, during the restaurant scene where Blaney lashes out at his poor ex-wife, he turned to me and said, "Please tell me this is like PSYCHO where the protagonist is killed in the first half and then we switch to someone else. I hate this guy." Unlike Roger Thornhill or even the more disturbed Scottie, I didn't care if Blaney got arrested and had a hard time investing myself in his fate. I mostly just pitied the female victims and you never really get to invest in them either.

Another heresy: I actually enjoy FAMILY PLOT. It has flaws, but it's at least fun, blends contemporary characters with a more classic comic-thriller storyline, and I enjoy how it almost feels like Hitchcock making fun of his much-loved tropes. That and the John Williams score is actually very good compared to the unmemorable wasteland of Hitchcock's post-Hermann projects.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Yeah, FRENZY always came off as Hitchcock trying to stay with the current trends. You also get the sense that he was kind of excited that the blend of sexuality and violence of his earlier movies could now be more explicit.

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Frenzy matters in Hitchcock history because this film-maker who started in silent and worked largely during the Hays Code could FINALLY make a movie with an R-rating, and he thus left us this one example of what you get when you do that(a very disturbing movie.) He had the R available from Topaz on, but only really USED it this time. And then -- as if knowing that death and the end was coming to his own life -- he made the rather "nice" and non-violent PG Family Plot as his swan song(not as good a film as Frenzy, but a much nicer "good-bye.")

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I'll admit that FRENZY improved for me on a second viewing, but only just slightly and really only in regards to my appreciation of its cinematic technique.

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I'll be torn on that movie for the rest of my life as a "movie buff" and Hitchocck fan. All those rave reviews in 1972 may well have been "making up" for the fact that Vertigo and Psycho had gotten disinterested or bad reviews on release. Sometimes I think Frenzy DOES belong on the list of Hitchcock greats and..sometimes I don't.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

My big issue is that I dislike the main character Blaney. He is such an unpleasant lunk.

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The funny thing is...he wasn't that unpleasant and tempermental in the book. Hitchcock and Anthony Shaffer rather converted him into this bum for the movie. And sometimes he really goes bad; in the restaurant with his ex-wife, with the friends who tried to help him but had to stop.

So you've got a movie where the "hero" is very unlikeable and the villain is likeable...but not when he is raping and killing. "No one to root for."

Keep in mind. Frenzy has a cast of British unknowns because major British actors turned down the leads. Think about it: the leads are (1) a rapist-strangler(Michael Caine turned it down; lookalike/soundalike Barry Foster was cast): (2) a tempermental loser(Richard Burton and Richard Harris both turned it down) and (3) a woman subjected to an extended rape-murder(Glenda Jackson turned it down.)

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When I watched the movie with a friend who had never seen it, during the restaurant scene where Blaney lashes out at his poor ex-wife, he turned to me and said, "Please tell me this is like PSYCHO where the protagonist is killed in the first half and then we switch to someone else. I hate this guy."

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Ha! Yeah. Very weird character.

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Unlike Roger Thornhill or even the more disturbed Scottie, I didn't care if Blaney got arrested and had a hard time investing myself in his fate.

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Frenzy "defaults to the villain." Rusk DOES things -- the big three set pieces don't have Blaney in them; Blaney literally has NOTHING to do but wander around whining with Babs at his side(for awhile.)

Star casting is somewhat of an issue here -- Roger and Scottie were played by major stars, THEY got the set-pieces. I suppose Jon Finch as Blaney is meant to be as "lesser" as John Gavin in Psycho or Farley Granger in Strangers on a Train. The villain is the star.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Another heresy: I actually enjoy FAMILY PLOT. It has flaws, but it's at least fun, blends contemporary characters with a more classic comic-thriller storyline, and I enjoy how it almost feels like Hitchcock making fun of his much-loved tropes. .

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I think that Frenzy -- start to finish -- always looks like a professional and polished film, but the subject matter is not for all tastes. Family Plot is awash in some bad Universal City backlot and soundstage stuff --it never feels as professional as Frenzy BUT -- the upbeat players, intriguing structure(two stories converge as one; two couples) and sense of fun make up for it. Its pretty clear to me that Hitchcock did not want Frenzy, however well reviewed, as his last film. He wanted to go out "nice."(Yes he tried to launch another film after Family Plot, but HE knew what his health was.)

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That and the John Williams score is actually very good compared to the unmemorable wasteland of Hitchcock's post-Hermann projects

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John Williams' score is almost too good for the movie...and here's Hitchcock using the composer of Jaws and Star Wars in the year between them! In fact, the movie rather sounds like a Spielberg movie.

Best would have been Herrmann scoring Torn Curtain through Family Plot...but its too bad we didn't get ONE Mancini(Frenzy) and ONE Williams(Family Plot) at the end, either.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

FAMILY PLOT does look cheap, but it has heart at least. Funny you should mention Spielberg because now that I think about it, FAMILY PLOT could have worked as a Spielberg project too! It has that sense of playfulness and whimsy. He could have probably nabbed some stars for it by the late 70s.

But it's as close to comedy as Hitchcock's career came after THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY-- though even compared to that movie, it's a thousand times lighter.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

FAMILY PLOT does look cheap, but it has heart at least.

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Well, the "cheap" wasn't really Hitchcock's fault. Universal kept him on a budget and mainly on the backlot, save some location work in San Francisco and LA (the two cities are "merged" into one fictional place!)

And the heart is definitely there. Again, I feel that Hitchcock must have felt that Frenzy was just too bleak and sexually savage a movie to end on...he WILLED himself into making a nice comedy(with just enough danger to qualify as a thriller.) And this: Family Plot was Hitchcock's first rather "family fun" thriller since North by Northwest -- and written by the same man! Ernest Lehman, who in between had written and produced big hits like West Side Story and The Sound of Music and Virginia Woolf. Hitch got him on the "downside" after some flops(Hello, Dolly, Portnoy's Complaint).

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But it's as close to comedy as Hitchcock's career came after THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY-- though even compared to that movie, it's a thousand times lighter.

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Yes, "Harry" rather lingers on the reality of death as a subject. And North by Northwest, though "light" has a lot of killings and real danger. Still, after the bleakness and violence of: The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz and Frenzy...Family Plot was like a sweet breath of fresh air. Had to be "on purpose" from Hitch.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Funny you should mention Spielberg because now that I think about it, FAMILY PLOT could have worked as a Spielberg project too! It has that sense of playfulness and whimsy.

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Yes...the John Williams score almost invokes "Hitchcock copies Spielberg!"

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He could have probably nabbed some stars for it by the late 70s.

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Yes. Unlike as with Frenzy, Hitchcock got some known actors for Family Plot -- Barbara Harris and William Devane stand out -- but, as with Frenzy , Hitchcock DID try to get bigger stars for the four main roles:

Bruce Dern's role: Jack Nicholson /Al Pacino.

Karen Black's role: Faye Dunaway.

William Devane's role: Burt Reynolds/Roy Scheider.

Robert Redford was offered a role...he could have played the hero(Dern) or the villain(Devane.)

Barbara Harris seemed to be Hitchcock's first pick for Madame Blanche, though the studio pushed for Liza Minnelli and I think Hitchcock considered both Beverly Sills(opera singer) and Goldie Hawn.

Its too bad that Family Plot lost that all-star cast but...the foursome we got were good.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I like to note that one reason Family Plot satisfies is that it is a remake of Psycho.

Honest. Just not as bloody. Its the PLOT:

Psycho: Investigators following one story(the disappearance of Marion Crane) head into a second more dangerous story(a psycho mother with a knife). The closer they get to solving the mystery, the closer they get to death.

Family Plot: Investigators following one story(find missing heir Eddie Shoebridge) head into a second more dangerous second story(a professional kidnapper willing to murder if cornered.) The closer they get to solving the mystery, the closer they get to death.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Lmao, I never thought about that-- but it's true. It's probably a better "Remake" of PSYCHO than the 1990s remake.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Yes, Arkin came to movies FROM stage comedy(Second City, maybe?) and eventually found his niche doing "anxiety humor" and "exasperation humor."
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Yes, it was Second City, though he also had a background in music.

I do think CATCH-22 was kind of what punctured him from becoming a major leading man. It's sad because I actually really like that movie, which I did not expect having read and loved the book first. I confess an additional heresy: I actually enjoy it much more than the more celebrated THE GRADUATE.

However, Arkin often cites the movie as a negative on his career and harbors no good feeling about it. Apparently the filming was hell. He still got some interesting parts in the 70s beyond the comedy stuff (I liked him in THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION and the TV film THE DEFECTION OF SIMAS KUDRIKA; I even liked his more admittedly uneven work in THE MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN, even though I consider that an Oscar-baity misfire otherwise). Now the 80s-- that was his dark period. I still haven't worked up the courage to try CHU CHU AND THE PHILLY FLASH.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Yes, Arkin came to movies FROM stage comedy(Second City, maybe?) and eventually found his niche doing "anxiety humor" and "exasperation humor."
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Yes, it was Second City, though he also had a background in music.

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Thanks for the confirm, and yes, I seem to recall the music background. I have read about Arkin over the years, but I can't always remember til reminded!

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I do think CATCH-22 was kind of what punctured him from becoming a major leading man. It's sad because I actually really like that movie, which I did not expect having read and loved the book first. I confess an additional heresy: I actually enjoy it much more than the more celebrated THE GRADUATE.

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Heresy is a good thing; movies can always be "rehabilitated." I noted in 1970 that the whole thing felt like "New Yorkers in Mexico pretending they are in Italy" with a "Nichols and May" flavor. The movie also makes me think of an NYC artists/movie people hangout -- "Elaine's." Never been there, but Catch-22 feels like a night out at Elaine's.

But for all of that "flavor" -- Catch 22 is very impressive(great cast) and has some great scenes; it was truly epic and I suppose its fatal flaw was just not doing the book right for its many fans.

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However, Arkin often cites the movie as a negative on his career and harbors no good feeling about it. Apparently the filming was hell.

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Yes, there were a lot of articles during the filming about how isolated and freaked out everybody was down in Mexico with no real towns or entertainment. And a cameraman died in a fall from a plane.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

After Catch-22, you can't really find Arkin in any lead as important as Yossarian -- its like he had his chance and lost it. There is also this as a sensitive matter: back then at least, he didn't really have much sex appeal. (He GOT sex appeal as a virile older man, but not so much then.) Rod Steiger said he lost his brief leading man's career because "the ladies don't want me. And if they don't, you can't be a leading man." I expect this was a problem for Arkin as well. He would go on to play married men and fathers a lot.

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(I liked him in THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION

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Now THAT was a lead -- as Freud aiding co-star Nicol Williamson as Sherlock Holmes.

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and the TV film THE DEFECTION OF SIMAS KUDRIKA; I even liked his more admittedly uneven work in THE MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN, even though I consider that an Oscar-baity misfire otherwise)

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I have not seen these works. There is time.

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. Now the 80s-- that was his dark period. I still haven't worked up the courage to try CHU CHU AND THE PHILLY FLASH.

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I suppose for any actor or actress in a multi-decade career, a slump is inevitable as they wait and wait and wait for that one role that puts them up and over the top again.

One role of recent vintage had Alan Arkin in it, but lost him(I'm still not sure if he quit or had scheduling problem): Leo DiCaprio's hapless yelling father in "The Wolf of Wall Street." Rob Reiner ended up in the role -- and hilariously so(the writing.) But I picture Arkin in that role and rue the missed opportunity.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

There is also this as a sensitive matter: back then at least, he didn't really have much sex appeal. (He GOT sex appeal as a virile older man, but not so much then.) Rod Steiger said he lost his brief leading man's career because "the ladies don't want me. And if they don't, you can't be a leading man." I expect this was a problem for Arkin as well. He would go on to play married men and fathers a lot.
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Ooh, we're on opposite sides of the fence again, because I actually find young Alan Arkin quite handsome. He's definitely not conventionally handsome (and it must be said, I have weird tastes in men: I consider Buster Keaton my masculine ideal and swoon after Peter Cushing), but his dark eyes and smile make my heart flutter. Hell, I even find him attractive as Roat, greasy hair, homicidal tendencies, and all-- I find him hotter than Crenna, who's supposed to be the handsome one. Actually, when talking with other fans of this movie who are around my age (I'm 27), quite a few confessed to finding Roat hot, even ones who don't normally go for Arkin. Maybe it's the leather jacket, idk.

I do agree he has it going on as an old guy too though. He does have more of a traditional virility now that he didn't have in his youth. But still, I do wish I had a time machine lol...

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

There is also this as a sensitive matter: back then at least, he didn't really have much sex appeal. (He GOT sex appeal as a virile older man, but not so much then.) Rod Steiger said he lost his brief leading man's career because "the ladies don't want me. And if they don't, you can't be a leading man." I expect this was a problem for Arkin as well. He would go on to play married men and fathers a lot.

--
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Ooh, we're on opposite sides of the fence again, because I actually find young Alan Arkin quite handsome.

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Oh? Hmm...OK..I can switch back on this one, too. I think he has a certain "warm pleasantness" to his face as the Russian in The Russians Are Coming. But the main thing is...if you and some other ladies found him handsome...I'm not arguing!

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He's definitely not conventionally handsome (and it must be said, I have weird tastes in men: I consider Buster Keaton my masculine ideal and swoon after Peter Cushing),

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Hey, those are some cool choices...and I think I've read that both Keaton and Cushing certainly had the female fans.

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but his dark eyes and smile make my heart flutter. Hell, I even find him attractive as Roat, greasy hair, homicidal tendencies, and all-- I find him hotter than Crenna, who's supposed to be the handsome one.

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Hmm..interesting. I suppose -- even with Crenna playing a "bad guy" -- that Roat is a "bad BOY," and we know about them. Roat also has this value: inscrutability. You want to know more...even if it probably scares you.

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Actually, when talking with other fans of this movie who are around my age (I'm 27), quite a few confessed to finding Roat hot, even ones who don't normally go for Arkin. Maybe it's the leather jacket, idk.

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Maybe...in any event...I give in! Alan Arkin DID have sex appeal.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I do agree he has it going on as an old guy too though. He does have more of a traditional virility now that he didn't have in his youth.

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In that movie with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman a few years back -- Going in Style -- I do believe that Arkin was shown as the most fit of the three men, the only one to get a new woman -- and he got that "go to gal" for late age sexual fun: Ann-Margret. Perhaps Arkin is younger than Caine and Freeman.

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But still, I do wish I had a time machine lol...

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This is sadly ever thus for all movie stars we watch....we can't go back...except to their movies. Which ARE kind of time machines, no?

[–] Adam60z (3766) 4 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Even though they both starred Audrey they're very different films. Charade is one of my all time faves, and it set in Paris with Cary Grant in '63. Also had a great soundtrack, great titles, etc. Wait Until Dark was much darker, set in New York '67, and Alan Arkin was a killer. It had a low budget feel to it. Well done, but can't compare to Charade.

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Well, they have similarities and differences...but I would agree that the differences are bigger. I suppose the thing is that Audrey Hepburn didn't MAKE any other thrillers in the 60's, so...there they are.

Interesting comparisons, and....if Charade's the one you like best, there ya go. I certainly love it. The romance is something great in Charade, and I do rather like the scattering of male-stars-to-be in support: Walter Matthau, James Coburn, and George Kennedy would all "get big." And you can tell WHY, watching them in this movie. "Support" wasn't good enough for them.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Oh and don't remind me of how Mancini was robbed of FRENZY. I wish we had his score on CD or streaming,

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Well, the credit music survived..I wonder if the other recordings can be found...or the music sheets for orchestrating.

It was such a weird act on Hitchcock's part. First of all Frenzy had no known movie stars of any magnitude in it. One theater owner said that he promoted Frenzy as "Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy, Music By Henry Mancini" before learning that the Mancini score was junked.

But WHY? Some irony: Universal wanted Hitchcock to dump Herrmann and GET Mancini, and GET a "hip 60's score with a hot pop tune." Hitchcock dumped Herrmann but didn't hire Mancini...until Frenzy...and then he dumps Mancini. Perhaps some late breaking resentment?

I will say this: Mancini's music tended to take over the movies he scored. Howard Hawks' Hatari(with Baby Elephant Walk) rather sounds like Stanley Donen's Charade or Blake Edwards The Great Race -- perhaps Hitchcock wasn't keen on letting a composer AGAIN overmatch Hitchcock's images. And yet, four years later, Hitchcock managed to get the great John Williams to do the not-so-great Family Plot and hey -- it sounded just like a Spielberg or a Lucasfilm!

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

much like how Bernard Hermann's unused TORN CURTAIN score got a release (that score was also better than what was in the finished movie).

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Yep. I suppose Hitchcock hoped that the Herrmann score wouldn't see the light of day, but it did -- Herrmann's cues play OVER their scenes on one of the Torn Curtain DVDs.

Here is something interesting(I think): Hitchcock ultimately wanted the brutal "killing of the enemy spy Gromek" to play with no music...realistic and grunting and brutal. And he got that. No music.

But Herrmann WROTE quite a horrifying long cue for that murder.

And Herrmann's replacement -- John Addision -- wrote a DIFFERENT horrifying long cue for that murder.

Its hard to take sides here, but Hitchcock wanted no music and he wanted realism. He did that for the main murder (of a woman) in Frenzy, too. Those two awful murders versus Psycho's"scary but fun" murders with their screaming violins.

Meanwhile, Herrmann's cue for Gromek's murder ended up in Scorsese's Cape Fear(under the houseboat hurricane finale) and in 2019 in QT's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood(for Leo's flame thrower scenes.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I don't even remember a single cue from the Goodwin music. Unlike Hermann, he added no real personality to the movie.

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No...Frenzy, arguably Hitchcock's best movie after Herrmann left(with Marnie)...arguably has the worst of the final four scores. I call it "industrial strength," too heavy with horns and the feeling of a British cop show.

Hitchcock DID get Goodwin to give that opening credit sequence something different that he wanted: no chiller music at all...rather Hitch wanted "glorious ceremonial music" for the opening camera sweep over London. He got it this from Goodwin...but rather a tacky version.

Mancini's overture had that ceremonial sweep -- but also had a sinister undertone that said "thriller" nice and creepy like(you can envison Rusk's bad deeds). Hitch didn't like that, but he sure didn't replace it with anything better. I WILL say that Mancini's Frenzy overture maybe goes a little too heavy in the middle on some "Phantom of the Opera" organ work curlicues but...a new take would have fixed that, not a firing.

Some have noted -- and I will agree -- that Ron Goodwin DID give Rusk a rather creepy waltz to accompany his late-night body disposal mission. Its one scene where the music has some "Hitchcock flavor." But that's it.

Oh, what Mancini would have done!

Oh, what HERRMANN would have done!

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Mancini, Hepburn, and Arkin could have used more thrillers in their careers.

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Yes, but I suppose the problem for Hepburn and Arkin was: once you've been in something as monumental as Wait Until Dark...its hard to ever find something as good. Could Arkin for instance ever have found a villain to play as great as Roat again? And he really wouldn't have been a great hero for a thriller.

Mancini evidently wanted to do more thrillers. It must have hurt terribly when Hitchcock rejected the Frenzy score, maybe made him scared to seek more of them.

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Hepburn only had the godawful BLOODLINE after this one, also directed by Terence Young who rips off his own work in WAIT UNTIL DARK for the climactic scenes. Heck, he even rips off CHARADE with the twist and turn romance subplot.

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I've not seen this, nor did I know of the Wait Until Dark/Charade lifts but...you see? Its very hard to make something in comparison to the great film(s) you've done before.) Interesting that Hepburn and Young worked together again, though.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Yes, but I suppose the problem for Hepburn and Arkin was: once you've been in something as monumental as Wait Until Dark...its hard to ever find something as good. Could Arkin for instance ever have found a villain to play as great as Roat again? And he really wouldn't have been a great hero for a thriller.
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Arkin probably would have never bested Roat as far as villain roles go, but I think he could have played an interesting everyman thriller character-- probably not the 70s conspiracy kind though. Those tended to use more conventionally attractive movie stars.

As for Hepburn, well, she got at least two good thrillers in her lifetime-- the third BLOODLINE was a bust though.

You're lucky you never seen BLOODLINE. It is without a doubt in my mind the worst movie she ever made. The script itself is sleazy, confusing, and dumb. And not only were Hepburn and Young dragged into it, but poor Omar Sharif and James Mason as well! Hepburn wanted to make a comeback into movies just as her second marriage was falling apart, but it never really worked out. BLOODLINE flopped.

It rips off a lot from CHARADE and WAIT UNTIL DARK. Like CHARADE, Hepburn's character is being targeted by homicidal criminals after her money and she has a romance with a man she isn't sure she can trust (here played by Ben Gazzarra, her lover at the time). Like WAIT UNTIL DARK, there's a scene where she wrecks her house after the phoneline has been cut-- in WUD, it's just the lightbulbs to put everyone in the dark with her (an act which has symbolic/psychological significance-- unlike the sighted men, Susy knows how to survive both physically and emotionally in darkness), while in BLOODLINE, she wrecks the furniture so when the assassin comes for her, he cannot make her death look like an accident (no greater emotional significance since her character here is just shoved from one setpiece to another).

I do not recommend BLOODLINE. Not even for the standard MST3K treatment.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Yes, but I suppose the problem for Hepburn and Arkin was: once you've been in something as monumental as Wait Until Dark...its hard to ever find something as good. Could Arkin for instance ever have found a villain to play as great as Roat again? And he really wouldn't have been a great hero for a thriller.
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Arkin probably would have never bested Roat as far as villain roles go, but I think he could have played an interesting everyman thriller character-- probably not the 70s conspiracy kind though. Those tended to use more conventionally attractive movie stars.

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I suppose there's no reason to "rule out" Arkin as the hero in a thriller, even as Roat is an impossible villain role to follow.

On the matter of Arkin's sex appeal, I have started a book on director Mike Nichols and I have read that even after the failure of Catch-22(Arkin starring for Nichols), Nichols wanted Arkin first for the Jack Nicholson role in Carnal Knowledge which -- while hardly a romantic role -- is nothing BUT sex appeal. Arkin said "no thanks."

Meanwhile: there's a now-controversial(not shown much) 1974 cop comedy called "Freebie and the Bean" in which James Caan and Arkin play bickering cop partners trailing(and protecting) a mob boss in San Francisco. Arkin is very funny in this movie(it was a sleeper hit) and indeed, as the cop "hero" he fights, beats up, and shoots it out with various gangster bad guys, and we BELIEVE him as tough. You could say that "Freebie and the Bean" is "Arkin as a hero in a thriller." The film's treatment of racial and gay issues has kept it fairly out of play these days.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

You're lucky you never seen BLOODLINE. It is without a doubt in my mind the worst movie she ever made.

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Wow. One issue for our greatest movie stars is: were they able to avoid ANY bad movies? I think the answer is: no. Its just bad luck.

When Audrey Hepburn "temporarily retired" in 1968, she had had two great movies in 1967 -- the romance Two for the Road and the blockbuster thriller Wait Until Dark. She was Oscar nominated for WUD...though she though she was better in Two for the Road. In any event, that is "going out on top."

When Hepburn rather surprisingly came back in 1976, there was ballyhoo. She's be an older Maid Marian(now a nun!) opposite an older Robin Hood(Sean Connery) in Robin and Marian. That's a quality movie -- it even as Robert Shaw as the Sheriff of Nottingham one year after Jaws -- but it was rather downbeat and dreary, it seemed to "reduce" Connery, Hepburn and Shaw even as it stayed respectable. (However, adding Sean Connery to her list of male co-stars was a coup.)

As I recall, that was the "good one."

I never saw Bloodline, and I never saw Peter Bogdanovich's ill-fated flop "They All Laughed"(well reviewed in some places, but it never got much of a release.)

Hepburn made a "prestige" appearance in Steven Spielberg's "Always" (1989 ) as an angel of sorts guiding Richard Dreyfuss in the afterlife. It felt like a big deal HAVING Hepburn in a Spielberg film, but it was a rather minor Spielberg film and Hepburn wasn't able to do much in it.

Bottom line: maybe Hepburn should have quit while she was ahead. In 1968. Like Cary Grant did in 1966.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The (Bloodline) script itself is sleazy, confusing, and dumb. And not only were Hepburn and Young dragged into it, but poor Omar Sharif and James Mason as well!

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Things were tough in those days. Certain actors of a certain age still needed to put food on the table and took what movies were available. Modernly, aging or fading actors can always find a show to star in on cable or streaming...or "movies" to make that either win or lose in those venues. Back back then, choices were limited -- movies or TV. Sometimes BAD movies or TV.

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Hepburn wanted to make a comeback into movies just as her second marriage was falling apart,

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Hepburn had success as a loving mother(its one reason she quit for some years), but bad issues with failed marriages(and a sad affair with handsome William Holden.) As I recall, she had a loving younger "boyfriend" at the end. I hope THAT worked out.

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but it never really worked out. BLOODLINE flopped.

It rips off a lot from CHARADE and WAIT UNTIL DARK.

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Reading your analysis...it sure does. I suppose that Hepburn was demoralized to know that was happening but just had to "play along."

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I do not recommend BLOODLINE. Not even for the standard MST3K treatment.

---Yes, I'm afraid I don't have time for bad movies anymore....thanks for warning me!