A new peak for screen excitement!

I’ve made many references to High Sierra (1941) in my posts. Much to my surprise, I have not written about the movie completely. Today will be the day that it is looked at, as it was the biggest break of Humphrey Bogart’s career on so many levels.

The Maltese Falcon (1941) is often thought of as the “big break” in Bogart’s career. That is true in the fact that it established him as the antihero in Hollywood for the 1940s. The Petrified Forest (1936) could also be considered his “big break” because it assured him a permanent spot in Hollywood. But for me, the biggest break of Bogart’s career came when he was cast as Roy Earle in High Sierra.

Roy Earle is basically Sam Spade. Spade happens to be fighting on the side of the law, although that side in white contains shadows. Earle is a gangster, but he isn’t all bad. He has his own personal code, something found in every great Bogart character. He isn’t the perfect man, and he admits it, but he makes sure everything he does is in step with his code.

Besides giving credit to Bogart for making these characters malleable, John Huston needs to be admired for the job he did in writing them. Especially in the case of Roy Earle. Huston, still a screenwriter at this time, worked on High Sierra. As mentioned previously, George Raft was originally going to get the role, much to the chagrin of Huston. When Raft didn’t want it, Huston got to work with Bogart. Huston tailored the part for Bogie. His expectations were met and exceeded by Bogie’s performance. This is one of the reasons why Huston lobbied to have Bogie return as Sam Spade when he was given the reigns of The Maltese Falcon.

The story of High Sierra involves the newly paroled Roy Earle leaving the Midwest for the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Earle seems to be the last gangster around. When he arrives in town, his old boss is on his death bed. He laments to Earle that if he still had the old gang, the upcoming robbing of a hotel would be easy. But everyone in the gang was either dead or in San Quentin. Earle is the last and it is his job to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Of course, the job is the least of Earle’s worries. His new partners have brought along a girl, played by Ida Lupino. Earle believes the job should be one done by men only and dames only get in the way. It is up to Lupino to show Earle that she is tough enough for the job. In the end, she seems to be the only tough one around. In order to counter the tough girl Lupino, there is a girl named Velma who strikes Earle’s eye. She happens to have a cleft foot, but Earle enjoys her company and loves her family, who also happen to be from the Midwest. Earle says he wants to get Velma the money for her foot operation.

The operation goes well and Thelma is hardly thankful to Roy. She shuns him and the helpless maiden is abandoned by Earle in favor of the low life played by Lupino. The two take a liking to a dog, who people say is cursed, named Pard, played by Bogie’s dog Zero.

In the end, the job doesn’t go over well. Lupino and Bogie have to go on the lam. Bogie’s boss dies and no one is able to give him the money he is promised. He is chased into the Sierra’s where he is fatally shot. It is a fitting tribute to the gangster from the studio that specialized in that picture.

More importantly than the tribute to America’s gangster, is the effect this movie had on Bogart’s career. He became a star after its release. When he made The Maltese Falcon he became a superstar. Here his relationship with Huston is solidified. On their next movie, the two would be regarded as one of the best teams in Hollywood.

This is a movie that should be watched by those who are fans of The Maltese Falcon, as Bogie is basically the same character in each

"If we go over a cliff, wake me up"

George Raft has gotten a bad rap on this blog. He has been repeatedly criticized by me for his poor judgment in which roles to take. His inability to foresee the possibilities of a role have led to him being relatively unknown today. It also paved the way for Humphrey Bogart to become a star. The truth is, Raft was a talented actor who was great in gangster pictures. He made his big break in 1932’s Scarface (1932), opposite fellow gangster picture actor, Paul Muni. Today though, Raft is probably best known for his role in Some Like It Hot (1959).

Bogie and Raft starred together in the movie They Drive By Night (1940). It would be the last movie in which Bogart was not featured in the starring role. After this, because of Raft’s inability to take chances and see the possibility of a role, Bogie would star in High Sierra (1941) and The Maltese Falcon (1941). It is interesting to see They Drive By Night because of what would happen to the two actors after the movie. This would be the final time Raft had any leverage over Bogart.

In the movie the two are brothers who happen to be truck drivers. Not much has changed in the truck driving industry since the movie was released. The product, in this case fruit, needs to be delivered on time no matter what. So the brothers have to drive all night and all day to make their deliveries. Being America, the brothers think of what life would be like if they had their own trucking business. After making their latest delivery, Raft decides it is time to start their own business. They still have to pay off their truck, but Raft uses the money he has gotten from the delivery to buy more fruit and use that to pay off the truck and start their own company.

He does all this without Bogie, who happens to be a married man and enjoys spending his limited time off with his wife. Raft makes the trek up to Bogie’s to get him, as the two begin their journey back on the road. Bogie isn’t ready, but goes anyway. That night, he gets too drowsy and drives the truck off the road. The truck explodes, the produce is gone and Bogie losses his arm. He is unable to continue in the trucking business and Raft is up a creek without a paddle.

This is when Ida Lupino enters the scene. She is married, but Raft courts her. I’ll leave the story at that, as the ending is worth seeing and shouldn’t be ruined by reading about it on the Internet. Instead, I’ll turn to Lupino. She was one of the most talented actresses to ever grace the Hollywood screen. She was tough, beautiful and cunning. She portrayed these qualities well on screen. She is amazing in this movie. Her follow-up would be opposite Bogie in High Sierra.

Although Lupino was a good actress, what makes her so remarkable is that she made the transition to the director’s chair. This position had been and still is traditionally dominated by males. To have a female in the chair was something different, especially one who had been a former actress. Actresses typically aren’t held in high esteem for their brains, while directors have been.

Now, Lupino didn’t direct anything as revolutionary as Citizen Kane (1941), but she was a competent director who specialized in film noir. One movie that stands out is The Hitch-Hiker (1953). She also did some Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes. The fact that she was the only female director at the time of Hollywood’s studio system is an accomplishment in itself. The fact that she was capable of giving good performances, like in They Drive By Night, is secondary.

I've always been fond of orchids

Brother Orchid (1940) starred Edward G. Robinson. Getting second billing was Humphrey Bogart. This is odd because Bogart is barely on the screen. Unfortunately for him, this was an occurrence that happened far too often before he made it as a star. In the over 50 movies Bogart appears in, the majority feature him in bit roles where his character can not be easily defined. The write-ups on previous Bogart movies are the exception to Bogie’s pre-stardom casting. Brother Orchid is more in line with what happened to Bogie most often.

The story is obviously a gangster one. It was made by Warner Brothers, the gangster studio, starred Edward G. Robinson, the gangster star, and featured Humphrey Bogart, the lieutenant of the gangster forces who wishes he could be number one.

In this movie Robinson makes a trip to Europe, for a vacation. He leaves the organization in the hands of Bogart and feels that once he gets back, everything will be alright. Bogie loves the power he has and starts to get a gang together that will break free of Robinson once he gets back in the country. Of course when Robinson arrives back in New York, Bogie passes everything off as being fine. He plots how he wants to bump Robinson off and carries out the plan. Just one thing doesn’t go as Bogie plans, he fails to kill Robinson. He believes he has and leaves Robinson alone in a forest.

When Robinson awakes, he realizes he no longer has his gang and he is wounded. He is able to hobble to a convent where he is embraced by the monks. They nurse him back to health and he becomes one of them. Although he fakes his work, paying kids to hoe the fields, he seems to be making a genuine effort at piety. He adopts the name Brother Orchid and even gets recognized by his fellow monks as an outstanding example of the work they are trying to accomplish. This all goes over well with Robinson, but he still has plans at getting his gang back.

He gets that opportunity one day when he joins a fellow monk on the monthly trip to the city in order to sell what they have harvested. Robinson drops the monk off and says he’ll be back with the trunk when the monk wants him. He is able to enter his old building and find some of his own gang. He finds Bogie and they tussle. He wins and everyone goes home happy.

The ending sequence between Bogie and Robinson is mainly carried off-screen through dialogue. We only see Bogie for about 3 minutes at the end and then the beginning sequence takes about 20 minutes, with Bogie on screen for about 10 of those. In a movie that lasts an hour and thirty minutes, to only see the second billed star for 13 of those is a rip-off for the audience. But it is what happened to Bogart for a lot of his early career.

"Nothing can hurt us now"

In one of his oddest roles, Humphrey Bogart played an Irish stableman in Dark Victory (1939). The movie stars Bette Davis as a socialite who loves horses, but has a brain tumor and George Brent, as the doctor who doesn’t tell her about the tumor as he has fallen in love with her.

Bogart played in more movies with Davis than any other actress. Here, Bogie has an interest in Davis, but she continually rejects his advances. The only real love scene in the whole picture comes at the end of the movie with the two in the stables together. It seems like Bogie has finally won and Davis is ready for him, but she tells him that she is dying instead. This crushes Bogie and sets up the gallant death of Davis.

Bogart’s performance is not bad, considering he wasn’t Irish. His accent is a bit odd at first, but for the most part is faithful. He doesn’t try to make a mockery out of the accent. Like he did his whole career, he acted as naturally as possible. When words he felt needed to be stressed by the accent, he did so. At other times he felt it was inappropriate to use a heavy accent, so he dropped it.

The movie is also interesting because it features a young Ronald Reagan in it. Reagan, the small-town Irishman, plays a wealthy New York socialite. Had Warner Brothers been casting with the actor’s background in mind then Reagan and Bogart would have switched parts. Bogie had grown up in an upper-middle class family in New York, while Reagan came from a small Midwestern town and loved horses. Since Bogart had been at the studio for 4 years, he got the more prestigious role over the youngster who had only been in Hollywood for 18 months. As it is, Reagan does not give a very good performance. His screen time is limited, but nothing in that time really stands out except that it is Ronald Reagan drinking heavily and trying to woo Bette Davis.

This movie is similar to Marked Woman in that when Davis and Bogart are not on the screen together, the movie seems to lull. That is not to say that either story is bad, just that the other actors are not up to par with those two. Few were. Geraldine Fitzgerald is good as Davis’ faithful secretary and friend. George Brent gives a good performance as the love interest. There just isn’t that spark that you find between Davis and Bogart. Maybe it is because no other actors in the cast were as headstrong as those two. They were not afraid to speak their mind and although their dialogue does not convey this as it did in Marked Woman, there is still a feeling of dynamic chemistry between them. Maybe this is because Bogie longs desperately for Davis, but she does not return his affection.

Overall, the movie is good and tells an interesting story of a woman who disbelieves she is actually terminally sick. She lives life to what she believes to be the fullest and her friends all go along with it because it makes her happy. It isn’t until the end that she realizes she will in fact die. With this realization she is able to gallantly accept her fate. As she dies the picture makes sure the audience floods the theater with tears. It is a well crafted movie and good story. A must watch for fans of Davis and Bogart as well as those who want to see a young Ronald Reagan.

Crime and research

To make it in Hollywood an actor needs some luck. Humphrey Bogart was lucky that George Raft didn’t have the perception to choose roles that would help his career. Besides luck, there needs to be someone with vision around an actor, someone who can get the most out of them. For Bogart that person was John Huston. The two worked together for the first time on The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938).

The movie itself is standard gangster fare from Warner Brothers. It is interesting to compare the work of four main players in this movie with that of Key Largo (1948). A decade later, the careers of Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, John Huston and Claire Trevor would be different.

For Bogie, he would no longer be the second in command of the underworld. He had transformed himself into the hardboiled, sentimental hero. His character in Key Largo would be a continuation of Sam Spade and Rick Blaine.

Robinson played the amazing Dr. Clitterhouse in this movie. He believed that by acting like a criminal he could figure out how the criminal mind works. He researches the subject thoroughly and then goes out on a series of cat burglaries. He is wildly successful and needs to find someone who can handle the stolen jewelry he has. He meets Jo, who is played by Claire Trevor. Jo shows the doctor the underworld and the doctor finds it all fascinating. He becomes head of Jo’s gang, renamed the professor. He devises the plans and the gang is successful in every plot. Of course this doesn’t sit well with Jo’s second in command, Bogie. He gets jealous and tries to kill the doctor. He fails and is killed himself.

Robinson ruled the gangster picture since 1931 when he made Little Caesar. He would remain a star throughout the 40s, but not as big a one as he had been in the 30s when the gangster picture was alive and well. In Key Largo he becomes the last gangster, Johnny Rocco. He does well in the movie, but does not command this like he did Dr. Clitterhouse. Bogart had become too big of a star compared to Robinson.

John Huston helped write Dr. Clitterhouse. He and Bogart met in the Warner Brothers green room. The two got along great. Both were considered a man’s man. Huston helped develop the Bogart character as both a writer and director. In 1938 Huston was just a typical screenwriter for Warner Brothers. Ten years later he would be an Academy Award winning director. He won the award for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, made with Bogart as well. This came in the same year as Key Largo was released.

Claire Trevor had been a great supporting actress. She had been nominated for an Academy Award in Dead End (1937) a year earlier. She does well in her role as Jo. Her other roles between Dr. Clitterhouse and Key Largo were all solid. Stagecoach (1939) being the one that stands out. She would win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress under the direction of Huston in Key Largo.

The growth in the careers of Humphrey Bogart and John Huston was tremendous from 1938 to 1948 when they were reunited with two other artists from The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse. In those ten years, Edward G. Robinson had seen his star drop, but not fade completely. Claire Trevor remained a solid performer, but would not be recognized for her greatness until Key Largo.

Cradle of Crime

During the late Depression, the American public was introduced to a group of unruly, yet lovable kids in the MGM movie Dead End (1937). Oddly enough, the group would be known as the Dead End Kids for the remainder of their career. The main reason for the movie’s relevance today is because of the kids, but it can stand on its own merits as it was nominated for four Academy Awards including best picture. It also tells a story that is still poignant today. The cast and crew are outstanding as well.

The basics of the story are that a sister and brother do not get along. The sister, played by Sylvia Sidney, cares for the brother, but the brother doesn’t appreciate her and goes and joins a gang of fellow kids. These kids roam the docks of New York’s Lower East Side. They have a good time picking on any new kid who arrives in the neighborhood. If the new kid can accept the ribbing, then they are in to the group. If they can’t then they continue to be made fun of. The Dead End Kids find someone else to get after when local kid turned gangster, Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart), shows up. He walks through his old haunts to see if anything has changed. He finds his mother’s door closed to him and his former girlfriend has turned into a prostitute. The only joy he gets from his homecoming is the ability to razz a former schoolmate who has remained in the slums with goals to become an architect. There is a love story between Dave, the wannabe architect, and Trina, the sister. In the end, Martin is killed and Trina’s brother turns over to side of good. It is a happy ending all around.

As mentioned above, the cast and crew is top notch. This should be no surprise as the producer was Samuel Goldwyn who did everything first class. The director was William Wyler who would be known for his great epics, Ben-Hur (1959), being the greatest example. It was written for the screen by Lillian Hillman, who was romantically involved with Dashiell Hammett, who would have ties to another Bogie movie called The Maltese Falcon(1941). .

The cast includes Sylvia Sidney, who was a Hollywood veteran and a capable lead actress to play a strong woman. Bogie plays the gangster well, as he was typecast in this part at this time. Joel McCrea plays the part of Dave and does it well. He is both passive around Martin, but can become aggressive when needed. Claire Trevor was recruited to play Francey, the former girlfriend turned prostitute. She did not appear on the screen for more than 10 minutes, but her performance earned her a nomination for best supporting actress. She didn’t win here, but would later on in another Bogie movie Key Largo (1948).

The role of Baby Face Martin was one coveted by most in Hollywood. Sidney Kingsley, who wrote the play for the stage, had wanted to use Bogie for the role, but Warner Brothers was hesitant to loan him out to MGM. They knew that he was being paid too low and didn’t want another studio to cash in on him. So MGM looked to George Raft for the part of Martin. As would be the case many times in the careers of Raft and Bogie, Raft could not make up his mind about the part and refused it. Warner Brothers found someone on the MGM lot who they wanted and the two studios swapped actors. The results of the swap were in MGM and Bogie’s favor. Bogie appeared in his second most prestigious role up to this point, the other being that of Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936). MGM came away with a box office hit that earned the studio four Academy Award nominations. When Warner Brothers got their gangster back on the lot, they put him to work on more gangster pictures. They also managed to get the Dead End Kids away from MGM. The team of Bogie and the Dead End Kids would be present in Warner Brother movies for the next few years.

"I'll get even if I have to crawl back from the grave to do it!"

Before 1937, Bette Davis was a huge star. So big that she felt that she could buck the studio system by opting out of her contract and leaving to England. She did, but she underestimated the power of the Hollywood Studios at the time. While in England, she was taken to court by her studio, Warner Brothers. She eventually lost her trial, which caused a huge commotion both across the pond and in America. She returned home to Warner Brothers, but instead of disciplining their star, the studio decided to give Davis a desirable role in Marked Woman (1937).

The story itself is not too great. It is about a nightclub that is taken over by gangsters. They change the place a bit by trying to squeeze their patrons for as much money as they can, not that normal owners don’t try the same tactics. One of their more interesting and effective ploys to get money from customers, is by using waitresses/escorts/prostitutes, pick your choice, to tend to a very rich and very drunk male. Bette Davis and a group of girls, including Mayo Methot, play the escorts.

Since this was made during the days of the production code, there has to be some moralistic change by the main character, Mary Dwight Strauber, played by Davis. These moralistic changes come in the form of a younger sister who has grown up idolizing Mary and believes that she has been in New York this whole working toward a degree and a respectable job. She is sorely mistaken when she sees that her sister lives with a bunch of prostitutes and is one herself. This strikes a chord in Mary and she vows to make sure her little sister doesn’t end up like her. So she stands up to the mob boss and gets beaten for it. There is another character, D.A. David Graham, who says he can help Davis and her friends get away from the abusive gangsters. After fighting Graham, who is played by Humphrey Bogart, she decides to see his way of thinking and turns over a new leaf. The audience leaves happy as Davis has beaten the gangsters and the studio is happy as well to have their big star and her box office draw back.

Besides being the return of Davis to Hollywood, this movie also marked the end of Mayo Methot’s marriage and the beginning of her next one. She and Bogart had been running around together and Methot had recently gotten a divorce. Bogart’s current wife, Mary Phillips, didn’t trust Bogie as the rumors from Hollywood were heard all the way in New York. She tried to break-up the romance, but was unable to. The two were on the set together and their love turned into marriage, which would ultimately turn into what would be known as the Battling Bogarts.

Both Bogie and Methot drank a lot. Methot had a tendency to be a jealous person as well. So any time Bogie was making a movie, and Methot was not, which was frequently because Bogie was an ascending star at the time and Methot was a falling one, she would get jealous of any female lead Bogie was playing opposite. The two would fight constantly. Furniture being thrown back and forth in their house. Utensils thrown around when they were at a restaurant. It was an interesting relationship to say the least. Bogie even gave Methot the nickname of “Slugo.”

One of the most harrowing examples of the Bogart battles occurred one night when the two were having an argument in their home. Somehow Methot got a knife and cut Bogie with it. She chased him into the bathroom where Bogie had to call one of his friends. The friend promptly arrived and managed to get the knife away from Methot. Had there not been a phone in the bathroom we might not of had Bogie around to play Rick Blaine and Phillip Marlowe.

"I got just the thing to straighten you out."

For the following weeks or months, depending on how frequently I post, the movies of Humphrey Bogart will be looked at. Bogie was named the greatest male star of all time by AFI during their century celebration of the art form. His movies have become timeless and the persona he created has outlived the man by 50 years.

His first staring role occurred in 1937 in a drama called Black Legion. The movie was based on true events that occurred the year before in the Midwest. A group of white supremacists, called the Black Legion, banded together to eliminate minorities who they believed were stealing their jobs and promotions. They were basically a northern branch of the KKK. A country wide craze developed around the organization when it was learned that one of the gang had been caught and was willing to turn in fellow members of the organization. As with most crazes of the time that occurred outside of the law, Warner Brothers was around to make a movie about the man who blew the whistle on the Black Legion.

The studio known mostly for its gritty gangster pictures handed the lead role over to Humphrey Bogart. Bogie had achieved success on his second try in Hollywood thanks to his role as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936). Despite his critical acclaim in that picture, he did not rise above bit parts. He did stay in Hollywood though, which was a change from his first trip right after talkies were introduced and Hollywood producers looked to Broadway actors for the new sound pictures.

For fans of Bogie, the character of Frank Taylor is much different from ones he would play in later years. It is even different than the gangsters he played in B-movies. Taylor is a blue-collar worker in a factory. This is typical Bogie. He has been at the plant for a long time and is expected to be the next person promoted to foreman. He doesn’t get the job as it goes to someone else who is more qualified, but also a minority. This doesn’t set well with Bogie, who has to go home and tell his loving wife that he was passed over for the job. He is about to get over the rejection when a coworker asks him if he is tired of seeing under qualified people get promoted because they have a different skin color or a different faith from the majority. Bogie says sure and the coworker tells him to stop by for a meeting.

Bogie goes and becomes a part of the Black Legion. The Legion goes on raids, including one that burns down the new foreman’s barn. The new foreman leaves town and Bogie gets promoted. Everything seems to be going well in Bogie land, but his brain has become warped and he believes everything is a slight against him by some minority. Unlike future Bogie characters, who are either completely evil (the gangsters) or likable tough guys who are sentimental, it is hard to classify Taylor. He is evil at times, but you also see him at home with a loving wife and young boy. There is a screenwriting trick called “pet the dog,” which is used to get the audience on the side of the character. Bogart movies are the best at this. The most literal use of this technique comes from a John Wayne movie, The Searchers (1956), in which Wayne delivers a racist diatribe about Comanche’s and then walks out of the house and pets the family dog. In this case, the writers who developed the character and Bogie for his performance need to be credited for the ambiguity of Frank Taylor. Although he does not seem comfortable portraying a racist at times.

As in Hollywood at that time, and for once real life, the bad guy ends up being punished. At the trial for the murder of his best friend, Bogie breaks down and calls out the people who were parts of the Black Legion. Bogie’s breakdown occurs because of his love for his wife. He had been told by his defense lawyer, who had been hired by the Legion, that he was having an affair with a woman Bogie’s best friend liked. The two got in a tussle and a gun went off killing the friend. But in typical Hollywood style, the bad guy breaks down for no real good reason in order to appease the Hayes Office.

All in all, the movie is good. The ending is contrived and Bogie looks awkward at times. The best thing about the movie is that it shows the potential Bogie had for being a lead actor. It has recently been released on DVD and is a must for all Bogie fans to see. It is also a good watch for those not familiar with the Black Legion and their reign of terror over Depression Era Ohio and Michigan

The world's champion blind lady

In a previous post, I mentioned that Frederick Knott should be considered the Master of Literary Suspense. He only wrote three plays in his career. One was Dial M for Murder (1954), which became the most suspense filled Hitchcock picture. The other one to be made into a movie was Wait Until Dark (1967).

Like the Hitchcock picture, this one directed by Terence Young stayed close to the original play. Like all good movies made from good plays, the producers made sure all the action was contained in the same setting as that of the play. The only real deviation from the play comes at the beginning when we see the doll being packed with heroin and the girl handing over the doll to Sam before meeting Roat. This is important to see because we have some back story to go on. We know that the doll exists when Roat asks Mike and Carlino to find it for him.

The star of this picture, besides Alan Arkin as the evil Roat, is the normally elegant Audrey Hepburn. She is not elegant here as Susy, the self-proclaimed “world’s champion blind lady.” She looks much older in this movie than she does in some of her early roles. As she should since it had been almost 15 years since she played Princess Ann in Roman Holiday (1953). It had only been six years since she played Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), who is the definition of elegance. Although she might have aged some here, she is still a brilliant actress. She doesn’t need a little black dress or some witty lines from Billy Wilder to be great. She does it with skillful looks of fright and terror in her voice. She earned her fifth Academy Award nomination for best actress for her performance here.

Alan Arkin as Roat is also a standout here. In a script and play that only included five real characters, there had to be strong performances. Hepburn delivered as Susy. Arkin does the same as Roat. Roat is a suave bad guy. But unlike a lot of the suave ones, he does not mind getting his hands dirty and killing someone. This contrasts sharply with Knott’s Tony Wendice from Dial M, who was just as suave, but did not do the dirty work. Of course the situations were probably different in each case. Wendice wanted his wife killed, Roat just wanted a doll and had no care about who got in his way in the quest to get it.

The climax between Roat and Susy is what makes Wait Until Dark last today. Susy has finally caught on to what all these men walking around her house want. She has prepared to fight Roat, but still has the huge disadvantage of not being able to see. This of course enhances the suspense of the confrontation. We as the audience can see everything, but Susy can not. We scream to her that Roat is coming after her, but she can not hear us or see him. Ironically, the moment that gets most audiences to jump occurs when we believe Roat has died. He has been stabbed and left for dead in the dark. We are as blind as Susy to what is about to happen. He makes a final leap out of the darkness and onto Susy. This scene never fails to make at least a few people jump, even when they know it is coming.

Wait Until Dark is a little talked about movie today. This is odd as it includes one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history, Audrey Hepburn. It tells a story that is relevant today. It still possesses the ability to spook people. Like most classic movies, maybe in a couple of years people will look at this movie as something special. It is not a typical Audrey Hepburn movie, but it is still filled with the quality performance you expect from her.