MovieChat Forums > ElizabethJoestar > Replies
ElizabethJoestar's Replies
Lmao, I never thought about that-- but it's true. It's probably a better "Remake" of PSYCHO than the 1990s remake.
FAMILY PLOT does look cheap, but it has heart at least. Funny you should mention Spielberg because now that I think about it, FAMILY PLOT could have worked as a Spielberg project too! It has that sense of playfulness and whimsy. He could have probably nabbed some stars for it by the late 70s.
But it's as close to comedy as Hitchcock's career came after THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY-- though even compared to that movie, it's a thousand times lighter.
That doesn't seem very good. We need that first scene to establish Mike and Carlino as a TEAM versus Roat.
--
100%. And in the movie, Crenna and Weston share good chemistry and an interesting dynamic from the very first scene on the NYC streets. They move almost in tandem with one another and their bond, while undoubtedly professional, seems to have a friendly element as well. (Like when Carlino nods and puts his hand on Mike's shoulder when he makes the line about "teaching the Constitution at police school." Actually, Mike tries dong the same gesture with Roat and just gets his head bitten off! Another sign that Roat goes beyond normal criminality-- he can't even be friendly with his co-workers. He stands apart.)
Cutting Mike from the first scene robs us of seeing those two men and their friendly dynamic. It seems like a choice made just to shake things up-- not bad in and of itself, but I like that we know all three men are going against Susy from the start.
Yes, I did read about KALEIDOSCOPE! I kind of want to see it only for the WAIT UNTIL DARK connection and the sheer 60s-ness of that title, but who knows if the script there was as good?
With the low number of scripts the Carringtons churned out, they must have had other means of employment. That's how it often works with writers and artists in general. Gotta have a day job.
I love making connections between movies though. So many of them are intertwined, influencing one another. And sometimes finding small references to other movies into a film can be fun: like, I've always wondered if that shot of Arkin silhouetted in the apartment doorway, where you catch the outline of his hat and the glitter of his glases, is a sly reference to Igor Novello's iconic entrance to the apartment building in Hitchcock's THE LODGER.
They must have come from SOMEWHERE, and they turned in this hip gem -- I just don't see it tracking with Frederick Knott's old-school style.
--
Yeah, they only did a few scripts. I read an interview with the wife and she said they happened to know Mel Ferrer through someone else, and that's how they landed the job. It was quite by chance and them being at the right place at the right time that they got the gig.
I've read the play a few times and sampled stage versions on YouTube, and Knott definitely kept a sort of Englishness, even when he's trying to write American. There's actually one bit in the play that seems so weirdly English to me: after Roat locks Susy in the apartment with him, he says, "So, the dog it was that died!" I had no clue what he was referencing and a quick search showed it was a line from an 18th-century poem. Perhaps Roat is an avid reader?
Btw the husband actually co-wrote a later blind woman in peril thriller in the late 80s: BLIND WITNESS. From the reviews on Amazon, it does not appear to have left much of an impression on those that saw it.
Oh, and now that you mention that press photo by the fridge-- I don't know if you've ever seen this, but while on eBay, I once came across some clippings from a 1960s Japanese movie magazine that had all these behind the scenes photos from the WAIT UNTIL DARK production that I had never seen before, especially the on-location portions of the story. My favorite image is this, with Hepburn and Arkin dressed in-character on a stoop, but decidedly out-of-character in demeanor:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/fbc44ea6c0000b42a708e23bef7002f3/ba6c85403c050da9-7d/s540x810/2052e1be3f71c9ef6fc24764f0af7bdb7cbbf876.png
I love how she boldly smiles at the camera while Arkin is staring down, almost in a shy schoolboy manner. From what interviews I can gather from that period, he did not enjoy star publicity or anything like that. He's also holding a camera-- maybe that was a hobby of his at the time?
I expect that Arkin had to convince Hepburn to "trust him" not to be TOO rough on her in those bits but -- they certainly help keep Roat more "hate-able." Its infuriating seeing a man manhandling a woman.
--
Oh definitely! It especially helps that the two characters never shared physical contact before then. Just watching him grab her arm and pull her closer to him gets the skin crawling. It's worse since you know he won't hesitate to cut her throat.
Hepburn was certainly a good sport. I actually recall reading some interview with Audrey where she said something like, "I've worked with so many of the great actors, but the only one who never felt like he was acting was Alan Arkin. He scared the daylights out of me!" That's quite a compliment from a woman who worked with Gregory Peck, Albert Finney, and Peter O'Toole! And her acting in those scenes is extraordinary-- maybe because Arkin did make her feel so on edge.
Maybe that explains why he had so little fun on that set, especially if he was freaking her out just a touch lol. And he says he just loved working with her, that she was very sweet and professional.
--
They DO say(interestingly) that Mancini wanted to "do something different' with his Wait Until Dark score, which helps explain its nerve-wracking weirdness and the lack of romance ala Charade.
--
In that John Caps book on Mancini, he pretty much shows that throughout his whole career, Mancini wanted to work on diverse projects. He craved to do thrillers and drama but everyone just lumped him in with easy listening and pop jazz. A shame since he was such an immense talent. Caps puts the WAIT score among the top achievements of Mancini's movie career and I would agree.
Yeah, FRENZY always came off as Hitchcock trying to stay with the current trends. You also get the sense that he was kind of excited that the blend of sexuality and violence of his earlier movies could now be more explicit.
I'll admit that FRENZY improved for me on a second viewing, but only just slightly and really only in regards to my appreciation of its cinematic technique. My big issue is that I dislike the main character Blaney. He is such an unpleasant lunk. When I watched the movie with a friend who had never seen it, during the restaurant scene where Blaney lashes out at his poor ex-wife, he turned to me and said, "Please tell me this is like PSYCHO where the protagonist is killed in the first half and then we switch to someone else. I hate this guy." Unlike Roger Thornhill or even the more disturbed Scottie, I didn't care if Blaney got arrested and had a hard time investing myself in his fate. I mostly just pitied the female victims and you never really get to invest in them either.
Another heresy: I actually enjoy FAMILY PLOT. It has flaws, but it's at least fun, blends contemporary characters with a more classic comic-thriller storyline, and I enjoy how it almost feels like Hitchcock making fun of his much-loved tropes. That and the John Williams score is actually very good compared to the unmemorable wasteland of Hitchcock's post-Hermann projects.
Such a flaw...and Efrem Zimbalist Jr was on record as saying that he hated playing that scene. I sure wish they had re-written it...
--
Interestingly, the 2013 Hatcher rewrite does redo that scene! Instead, they have Susy insist on going to him without help, which is such a better option: it makes Sam less of an ass and allows Susy to emphasize, "See? I know I'm not powerless!" I'm not fond of many of the changes in the Hatcher rewrite (like making Mike's participation in the plot a twist-- Hatcher omits him from the first scene with Roat laying out the blackmail), but that one was an inspired choice.
(Another inspired choice in the rewrite is an interesting change in Roat's backstory: Hatcher makes Roat a draft-dodger since the play is now set during WWII. Roat maimed his own foot to get out of serving-- only for it to turn out the army didn't want him anyway since he failed the mental part of the examination! Instead of recognizing Roat through squeaky shoes, Susy recognizes the pace of his maimed foot.)
I actually think the short hair is super cute. It looks very youthful and chic to me.
This is wholly based on my enjoyment, not necessarily what's the "objective best":
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
The Castle of Cagliostro
Princess Mononoke
Porco Rosso (his most underrated for sure!)
Castle in the Sky
Kiki's Delivery Service
Howl's Moving Castle
My Neighbor Totoro
The Wind Rises
Spirited Away
Ponyo (need to rewatch this-- have not seen it since its original run in theaters)
I don't know how much of the main Roat attire was his. In a documentary from 2003, Mel Ferrer said something like, "[Arkin] changed his makeup for each role," so maybe he did have some input?
The 1966 screenplay does have a few descriptions of Roat's attire too, some of which lines up with what was in the finished film and some of which doesn't.
For example, Roat has sunglasses(described as giving him "halos for eyes" when the light catches them), but they're specifically rose-tinted. He's wearing a black coat, but it's not necessarily a leather jacket. During the climax, he still seems to be in his Roat Jr attire but with the addition of the rose-glasses.
Btw, the screenplay can be found here:
https://cinephiliabeyond.org/wait-dark-terence-youngs-terrifyingly-effective-suspense-thriller-brilliant-audrey-hepburn-alan-arkin/
The movie is mostly faithful to the script, though the blocking and shot set-ups during the blackout scene are radically different. It actually has me wondering if Arkin improvised a lot on set (he's famous for doing that): the bit with the cane over Susy's neck or him dragging her to the bedroom are not in the screenplay.
There is also this as a sensitive matter: back then at least, he didn't really have much sex appeal. (He GOT sex appeal as a virile older man, but not so much then.) Rod Steiger said he lost his brief leading man's career because "the ladies don't want me. And if they don't, you can't be a leading man." I expect this was a problem for Arkin as well. He would go on to play married men and fathers a lot.
-
Ooh, we're on opposite sides of the fence again, because I actually find young Alan Arkin quite handsome. He's definitely not conventionally handsome (and it must be said, I have weird tastes in men: I consider Buster Keaton my masculine ideal and swoon after Peter Cushing), but his dark eyes and smile make my heart flutter. Hell, I even find him attractive as Roat, greasy hair, homicidal tendencies, and all-- I find him hotter than Crenna, who's supposed to be the handsome one. Actually, when talking with other fans of this movie who are around my age (I'm 27), quite a few confessed to finding Roat hot, even ones who don't normally go for Arkin. Maybe it's the leather jacket, idk.
I do agree he has it going on as an old guy too though. He does have more of a traditional virility now that he didn't have in his youth. But still, I do wish I had a time machine lol...
Oh yeah, I'm not trying to diss Hitchcock. Dude's one of my favorite directors and I learn so much from his movies all the time. Indeed, WUD is not as groundbreaking as Hitch's best-- yet once again, I don't really like what Hitch was doing in the mid-60s. I find MARNIE and TORN CURTAIN, both in their own ways trying to keep pace with the trends of the time yet seeming anachronistic and stodgy. Even TOPAZ, which I mostly like, suffers from a weak ending (and by weak ending I mean all three of them!). FRENZY is much better than all of those, but it's just not very fun either-- PSYCHO might have been terrifying and disturbing, but it's undeniably entertaining too.
Honestly, aside from the husband's jerk behavior in the last scene, I am perfectly fine with how WAIT UNTIL DARK turned out. I don't really care that the camerawork isn't that sophisticated or fancy. i don't care that the story doesn't have Hitchcock's "metanarratives" or whatever. Sometimes, you just want an entertaining good versus evil story with well-written characters and a tense atmosphere.
They cite passages of dialogue from CHARADE down to the letter.
Hepburn's character also drops the titles of her older movies into conversation, like FUNNY FACE and WAIT UNTIL DARK.
And the whole plot evokes the heist element of HOW TO STEAL A MILLION.
Yeah, the Theme for Three is the official name for the main motif of the film.
Yeah, the pop song's melody is basically an unofficial leitmotif for Susy. It plays when she and Sam make up before he leaves for the evening, and it plays when Susy and Gloria make up after the young girl's outburst. It's a pleasant melody--- but it's got nothing on the Theme for Three.
Interestingly, the "Wait Until Dark" title song did get a few covers. One I actually like better than the Sue Raney version which plays over the credits is by Scott Walker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyKbqnqO8hA
I gotta go with the original. The only improvement in the remake is Harrison Ford as Linus, who seems a more believable romantic partner despite his stodginess. Ormond just can't compare to Hepburn and the pacing in the remake is spotty (way too much time spent on her time in Paris).
I know this post was made a while ago and my inquiry isn't likely to be answered, but I'm curious about the claim that Susy and Roat share sexual tension. I always felt Roat had predatory intentions regarding Susy, but I don't see any hints of her reciprocating his advances.
I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just genuinely curious why you think that is.
PS I also find Roat weirdly attractive despite his psychopathy and atrocious hair. it probably helps that I already find young Alan Arkin cute in general.
It is a little awkward, but honestly, I didn't think it was that big a deal.
Both Kushana and Kurotawa are interesting characters who go far beyond one dimension. Kushana's motives include wanting to stop what she perceives as a genuine threat to human interests and wanting to revenge her lost limbs. Kurotawa wants to take Kushana's position, but he also likes and respects her, creating an interesting dynamic.
Everyone in this movie is motivated by the desire to survive, really. That's incredibly human, hardly one-dimensional.
Del Toro would be great-- maybe even Edgar Wright? I don't know-- the series is just so suited to the limitless world of animation.... though they did make a live-action adaptation of part of DIAMOND IS UNBREAKABLE a few years ago. Still haven't seen it yet though....