Wait Until Dark

US (1967): Horror/Thriller/Drama

This film is an innovative, highly entertaining and suspenseful thriller about a blind housewife, Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn). Independent and resourceful, Susy is learning to cope with her blindness, which resulted from a recent accident. She is aided by her difficult, slightly unreliable young neighbor Gloria (Julie Herrod) with whom she has an exasperated but lovingly maternal relationship. Susy's life is changed as she is terrorized by a group of criminals who believe she has hidden a baby doll used by them to smuggle heroin into the country. Unknown to Susy, her photographer husband Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) took the doll as a favor for a woman he met on an international plane flight and unwittingly brought the doll to the couple's New York apartment when the woman became afraid of the customs officials. Alone in her apartment and cut-off from the outside world, Susy must fight for her life against a gang of ruthless criminals, led by the violent, psychotic Roat (Alan Arkin). The tension builds as Roat, aided by his gang, impersonates police officers and friends of her husband in order to win Susy's confidence, gaining access to her apartment to look for the doll. The climax of the film, a violent physical confrontation between Susie and Roat in her dark kitchen, is one of the most memorable and frightening scenes in screen history. (The film ranks #55 on the 2001 AFI list of "100 Years 100 Thrills.") All performances are outstanding, particularly those of Hepburn who plays a vulnerable, but self-reliant woman, and Arkin, in perhaps the best role of his early career, as the ruthless, manipulative Roat. Directed by Terence Young, the cast also features Richard Crenna and Jack Weston. (Warner Bros.) (Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide)

When the film was released, the theatres darkened all their lights "to the legal limit" during the last twelve minutes of the film, each light going out as Audrey Hepburn smashed each light bulb. The one remaining light in the theatres would be switched off as the last light source in the film went out. Despite getting an Oscar^® nomination for this movie, Hepburn would not make another film until Robin and Marian (1976). (IMDb)

 View the theatrical trailer for this film on YouTube.com.

1 nomination