Wait Until Dark

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Wait Until Dark is a mystery/thriller play by Frederick Knott. The heroine is recently blind Susy Hendrix, a Greenwich Village housewife who becomes the target of three thugs searching for the heroin hidden in a doll, which her husband transported from Canada as a favor to a woman who since has been murdered. The trio tries to convince Susy her spouse has been implicated in the crime and the only way to protect him is to surrender the doll. More murder and mayhem ensue when she refuses. It was originally produced on Broadway in 1966, and made into a film the next year starring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin.

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Wait Until Dark provides examples of:

• Affably Evil: Talman and Carlino.
• Ax Crazy: Roat.
• The Con
• Con Man: Roat, Talman, and Carlino
• Disability Superpower lampshaded, really. Roat wears two elaborate disguises to pretend he is two different people, for no apparent reason, other than that's what he does when he pulls the con on other people, or maybe just for the benefit of the girl who also lives in the building. Since Susy can't see the disguises, there's really no point in wearing them, and in fact, she recognizes that he is the same person, because she isn't distracted by them.
• Faux Affably Evil: Roat.
• Foreshadowing: There are many: the icebox, which plays an unusually important role for an icebox, and is mentioned in several different contexts, early in the movie, and Susy's lines "I don't want Gloria today, I don't need her"; "What if I get [killed] as a poor, defenseless blind lady whose husband is off in Asbury Park?" "Do I have to be the world's champion blind lady? [her husband says "Yes!"] then I will"; and "I wish I could do...important things," followed by a list of things she wishes she could do, that are not very important compared to saving her own life, and ridding the world of an evil criminal at the same time.
• Genre Blind: Ironically, not Susy.
• The Ghost: Lisa.
• Heel Face Turn: Richard Crenna's character seems to be doing this Before Roat kills him, turning it into a Heel Face Door Slam.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
• I Lied: "Did I?? I must have had my fingers crossed."
• Jump Scare: One of the most insanely scary ones in the history of cinema.
• Let's Get Dangerous: Susy turning out the lights to turn the tables on Roat.
• The Mark: Susy.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: the climax of the film involves Susy breaking all the lamps in the apartment so that the thugs can't find her. Her plan is thwarted when Roat finds the refrigerator.
• Protect This House
• Punch Clock Villain: Talman and Carlino.
• Scare Chord: Oh boy!
  • The film's music score, incidentally, was written by Henry Mancini.
• A Simple Plan: The con men try to scam Susy into revealing where the doll went, by posing as cops and trying to hint that Suzy's husband was having an affair with a murdered woman. For a blind woman, Susy quickly senses things are amiss - she can tell one "cop" is wiping away evidence - and it drives the sociopathic Roat into an even simpler plan...
• Sinister Shades: Donned by Roat for much of the film.
• The Spook: Roat (which is not his real name).
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: when Roat figures the other two con men are no longer needed, and convinced (rightly) that his "partners" are turning on him...