Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Wait until dark

Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman. Through a series of coincidences a doll full of heroin has ended up in her apartment. Bad guy Alan Arkin wants it back. He blackmails two other crooks into helping him.

I remember seeing this film on tv when I was a kid. It's slightly disappointing rewatching it now. The three guys' plan of getting the doll involves a lot of dressing up and coming and going. All the theatrical shenanigans worked probably better in the play the film is based on. In the film it gets a bit silly. The last half hour though is very effective. To be on equal ground with the bad guys she smashes all the lightbulbs in the apartment. Except...

Hepburn is very good in her part, I think, playing more of a real person. Alan Arkin is also excellent, just as he was in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. Why didn't he have a career like that of Dustin Hoffman? He seemed to disappear in the 70s and 80s. I don't remember seeing him in anything that period, until he played Winona Ryder's dad in Edward Scissorhands and then was in Rocketeer.

Up next: How to steal a million

1 comment:

  1. Arkin is amazing in "Catch-22" from 1970. Flawed movie, but his performance is on point.

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