Review of Wait Until Dark

One of those high-concept suspense thrillers that falls apart the second you start analyzing its plot, "Wait Until Dark" goes around the world and back again in order to set up its premise -- blind woman being stalked by criminal thugs -- and then sits back and lets the actors do all of the work. And, luckily for this movie's creators, the actors deliver. Audrey Hepburn makes this a much better movie than it has any right being, and Alan Arkin delivers a weird but effective performance as the off-kilter psycho who comes after her for some heroin he believes is stashed in her apartment. The film gives away its stage origins -- most of the action is confined to Hepburn's apartment, and director Terence Young doesn't do a lot to give his movie a cinematic quality. But Hepburn and Arkin make this worth watching, and some moments toward the end do succeed in generating some truly nail-biting suspense.

Grade: B-