Love Roman Holiday though I may, Audrey Hepburn won her Oscar for the wrong movie. Arguments can be made for Breakfast and Tiffany’s or, I suppose, My Fair Lady, and I wouldn’t deny that she’s luminous in all of them. However, for my money, the actress gave her best performance in Wait Until Dark, the 1967 thriller in which Hepburn plays a blind woman terrorized by a trio of criminals determined to take something from her that she doesn’t even know she has.

Imitated countless times over the years by other movies and TV shows, some of which haven’t been half bad of their own accords, the original Wait Until Dark remains a model of suspense filmmaking that could just about out-Hitchcock even Alfred Hitchcock himself.

Well, perhaps that’s overstating things a bit. At his best, Hitchcock was an unparalleled master of the craft, and even this picture tries very hard to live in his shadow. Regardless, of the many thrillers made in the Hitchcock mold (especially of those made while Hitchcock was still alive and working), Wait Until Dark certainly holds up among the best of them. Almost six decades later, this is still one hell of a movie.

Title:	Wait Until Dark
Year of Release:	1967
Director:	Terence Young
Watched On:	Blu-ray
Also Available On:	TCM Various VOD rental and purchase platforms

Best known for the lasting imprint he left on the James Bond franchise with three of its early entries, director Terence Young had already made three other movies (two theatrical, one for television) in the two years following the blockbuster success of Thunderball. During that impressively prolific period, he moved swiftly into Wait Until Dark, based upon a Broadway play of the same title that had premiered in 1966 with Lee Remick in the lead role. The play was still in the midst of its first run on stage as the film adaptation went into production, effectively leaving Remick unavailable to do both at the same time.

A certified mega-star at the time, no one (save perhaps Remick) could have disagreed too much when Audrey Hepburn took over for the movie. She plays Susy Hendrix, a woman blinded in an accident a few years earlier. Still learning (and determined) to become self-sufficient, Susy won’t refuse help from others, but also doesn’t want to rely on it. She’s pretty good at navigating through her home and neighborhood, and won’t accept pity from anyone.

When her neglectful husband, Sam (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.), is called away on business for the day, under false pretenses it turns out, Susy becomes the target of three savvy criminals who want access to her basement apartment. The men need to search the place for a porcelain doll stuffed with heroin that Sam had unwittingly brought home after a recent business trip. The plot mechanics of how the doll got there are a bit convoluted and frankly unimportant. It’s a MacGuffin. The men need it and will go to extraordinary lengths to get it.

The first to show up at her door is a guy named Mike (Richard Crenna), pretending to be an old Army buddy of her husband’s, disappointed that he missed his friend for a surprise drop-by. Just as he makes his apologies as if ready to leave, his two accomplices barge in, setting up an elaborate con whereby Mike can gain Susy’s trust as a good samaritan who’ll stand up to protect the blind lady from these unexpected ruffians. Flustered, Susy falls for the act at first, allowing Mike opportunity to snoop around for the doll he never finds.

Increasingly frustrated by their failure to locate the prize, the intruders weave an intricate story designed to make Susy believe her husband has committed a terrible crime, and her only hope of saving him from the police or worse is to find and give Mike the missing doll. The ploy works for a while, but Susy proves more perceptive than the men expected, and knows her home far better than they do, which works to her advantage when night falls.

Audrey Hepburn, the actress, was of course not really blind, but does an admirable job of convincing otherwise without relying on gimmicks or exaggerated pantomime. She doesn’t wear dark glasses or flail around with a cane, yet when she looks toward the camera, never would you doubt she’s staring right through it. At the height of her stardom, Hepburn was also a marvelously talented performer capable of conveying both vulnerability and strength simultaneously. As I said above, I think this is one of her best roles.

Of the villains, by far the most dangerous is played by Alan Arkin as an oily character called Roat, who’ll stop at nothing to get the drugs and has no hesitation about betraying his partners. Audiences today may think of Arkin mainly for the curmudgeonly grandfather types he’d specialize in later in his career, but seeing him so young here (and with hair!), he’s a genuinely threatening presence, and he gets the best jump-scare (a literal jump-scare at that) in the movie.

Staying true to the story’s stage roots, Terence Young confines most of the action to a single location, but never lets that feel like a limitation. He directs with confidence and stylish craftsmanship, and skillfully ratchets up the suspense in a manner still remarkably nerve-wracking more than half a century later.

If compelled to pick it apart, I might question the need for the bad guys to concoct quite so complicated a story for Susy’s benefit. As much as she professes her love for him, Susy’s husband is also also kind of a jerk and I don’t know what she sees in him (no pun intended). Even so, these are minor quibbles. Wait Until Dark is still a tremendous piece of entertainment that’s brilliance hasn’t dimmed a bit with age.

The Blu-ray

Wait Until Dark was released on Blu-ray in 2017 as part of the Warner Archive Collection. It hasn’t been upgraded to 4K as of this writing. This particular disc comes from a time when Warner Bros. did not necessarily remaster all the films under its Warner Archive banner. Many were sourced from older existing home video masters. I don’t have any technical details, but based on appearance, I’d assume this one probably wasn’t scanned from the camera negative. Regardless, despite a few dodgy areas, it holds up pretty well for the most part.

As was Warner’s policy for many years, the disc is presented in a full-screen 16:9 aspect ratio rather than the theatrical 1.85:1. The studio’s home video division would eventually change course and retain the small letterboxing on later transfers of 1.85:1 movies. This obviously comes from before that. The image also has sporadic instances of what looks like light edge enhancement sharpening, but it’s not too problematic overall.

The picture is a little grainy, but appropriately so. Daylight scenes look a little washed out. However, I almost wonder if that was an intentional decision, as most of the movie takes place indoors, in a basement apartment. In general, colors and contrast look pretty nice during scenes inside the apartment. The blackout sections during the climax are still very effective. While I believe a new remaster from a 4K scan of the camera negative could probably make Wait Until Dark look even better, my impression of the available Blu-ray is more favorable than not.

For a mono sound mix from 1967, the Blu-ray’s DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 soundtrack is surprisingly robust. The score by Henry Mancini has very pleasing depth and musical fidelity, and (critically) hasn’t been overly rolled-off or noise-reduced. A good majority of the dialogue was ADR “looped” during production, quite obviously so. That can be distracting, especially when the actors’ lips don’t always sync with what they’re saying, but I don’t think there’s much to be done about that. This may not be a powerhouse of a soundtrack, but it’s rich and textured, and supports the movie well.

Bonus features are minimal. Of the two vintage trailers, the “Warning” version is more fun and sells the movie better. Likely created for the DVD edition in 2003, Alan Arkin and producer Mel Ferrer (Audrey Hepburn’s ex-husband) were interviewed for a nine-minute retrospective featurette. Per Ferrer: “All the actors are good, but Audrey was just that little bit better.” He’s not wrong there.

Related

• Terence Young (director)
  • Dr. No (1962)
  • From Russia with Love (1963)
  • Thunderball (1965)
• Alan Arkin
  • Slums of Beverly Hills (1998)