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Starring Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin. My main concern about films that are adapted from stage plays, as was the case with Wait Until Dark, is how the screenwriters approach the transition in mediums and how it affects the on-screen action. Certain plays like Kaufmann and Hart's You Can't Take It With You were entertaining on stage, and as the bridged the gap between live action and celluloid, added new sets, developed the script for the silver screen and retained their humor and life. Unfortunately, Wait Until Dark just doesn't bother to do this. There is one tacked on scene at the beginning of the film at the airport so we can see, rather than be told about the mix-up, but the remaining 100 minutes of the movie are set almost entirely within one very small, basement apartment. Mix-up at the airport stories and urban legends are heard so frequently that there is almost a formula for them: an innocent bystander mistakenly picks up an object that is not theirs at the airport and are chased and harassed by the people who rightly own the suitcase or bag that contains a) drugs, b) computer chip c) eight human heads. What differentiates Wait Until Dark from Frantic is the way it approaches the bad guys' attempts to retrieve their mispla.html>spla.html>spla.html>spla.html>splaced possessions. While Frantic has Harrison Ford running around Paris, looking for clues as to where he can find his wife, whom the smugglers have kidnapped, Wait Until Dark has Alan Arkin and company posing as police inspectors asking the blind and strangely color coordinated Audrey Hepburn multitudes of questions in her tiny New York City living quarters. If you're looking for a reason to see this film, Arkin's haircut, a combination of a Moe with Michael T. Weiss from The Pretender should be reason enough. For psychological thrills though, I recommend you look elsewhere. There is a certain amount of suspense as we wonder how Hepburn is going to escape or defeat her tormentors, but the edge that this would normally have held is curiously let go as director Terence Young shows the viewer everything from step one forward. Ironically, had we been left in the dark, as Hepburn's character was, this would have been a much more interesting film. But since we know who the bad guys are, and who Hepburn can and cannot trust, the only surprise in Wait Until Dark comes as Hepburn somehow manages to break all the lightbulbs in her apartment and building lobby with a cane. This was by no means a bad film. Wait Until Dark was enjoyable to some degree, but suffered greatly from a lack of both actions and sets. This is one film ripe for a knowledgeable remake. If you put Christopher McQuarrie, scripter of The Usual Suspects, on the re-write, leave more information in the air, and add some additional sets, and you'll have a solid movie. If you're looking for a "Mix-Up at the Airport" movie, Frantic is the only one to choose. See Frantic.
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