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Harry Roat, Jr. From Scarsdale: The Greatest Villain?

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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In his 1981 non-fiction book on horror in movies, TV, books and radio, Danse Macabre, Stephen King wrote: "..in my view, (Alan) Arkin's performance as Harry Roat, Jr. from Scarsdale may be the greatest evocation of screen villainy ever, rivalling and perhaps surpassing Peter Lorre's in M."

Though Lorre played a child killer in M(with the murders discreetly off screen), I don't recall him being allow to play "villainy" in M so much as pathetic compulsive behavior.

Alan Arkin in Wait Until Dark IS a villain...a bad guy, bad both in terms of the employers he represents (drug gangsters, maybe the Mafia, it is implied) and bad in terms of his mindset(psychopathic, unreasoning, sadistic.) It is suggested that Roat is the kind of psychopathic monster that gangsters employ to "get the dirty work done" so they don't have to think about it.

But Arkin -- aided and abetted by a great script "hipped" up by other writers from the Frederick Knott play -- adds one crucial element to Roat: humor. When he's not being menacing, sick, or sadistic, Roat is one funny guy. And possessed of a great "dese, dem, doze" New York accent to make his lines come off for a sick laugh:

Like when Audrey Hepburn says "you promised you wouldn't hurt me" after she gives up the MacGuffin(heroin in a doll), and Arkin replies in that deadpan voice while pulling her towards a dark room to kill her: "Did I? I must have had my fingers crossed behind my back." A funny line...but an announcement that he IS going to kill her.

Or when his fellow crooks ask what is in a locked closet: "Just CLOZE..." Arkin says with the zing of late Al Pacino.

Or this little speech to Hepburn, after Roat has killed both of his criminal sidekicks after THEY set out to kill HIM:

"All the children have gone to bed...did you know that those two wanted to kill me? I knew. I knew it before THEY knew it. And now its topsy turvey...me topsey, them turvey." (Except he says it more like "Me topsey, dem toivey."

Though these New York/New Jersey stars were years(or decades) away in 1967, Alan Arkin seems to be channeling the vocals of both Al Pacino and Bruce Willis at times as Roat, and reminding us that East Coast tough guy accents are their own kind of entertainment.

I'm old enough to have seen Wait Until Dark on first release back in '68(a few months into the release of the late 1967 film), and I recall that while I had a crystal clear knowledge of what Audrey Hepburn looked and sounded like, this guy Arkin was hard to focus on. He was too new -- he really only had the "Russian accent comedy" from "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming"(1966) on his resume, but that was a pretty standard guy: the "sympathetic Communist" trying to avoid trouble on American shores.

Roat was a whole different deal. To go with the funny/scary voice, Arkin gave Roat such visual touches as: (1) Short hair slicked down with axle grease to create a "slimy Caesar haircut" effect; (2) Omnipresent sunglasses indoors(when Hepburn knocks the glasses off, his eyes are truly crazy with rage) (3) A black leather coat, tied at the waist..and (4) briefly, in his first appearance to his comrades in crime, a funky hat that give him the appearance of a Jack the Ripper as a beatnik.

Soon, the hat comes off, but the basic hair/sunglasses/leather jacket become Roat's uniform of terror.

Except: Roat takes a break from wearing his "terror attire" to don a series of "regular clothes," wigs and glasses to play two distinctly different men: "Harry Roat Jr from Scarsdale" -- a meek, nervous man out to avoid a cuckolding and "Harry Roat Senor," a raging old man out to protect his son from Hepburn's husband(rumored to be having an affair with Mrs. Roat.)

Its a great ruse, allowing Alan Arkin to play three men with three variations of the same name: (1) Harry Roat Jr. from Scarsdale; (2) Harry Roat Senior and (3) Just plain Roat -- "Roat" being the monstrous, black-clad killer of the tale (the credits at the end given Arkin billing as all THREE Roats -- with clips of each one.

I suppose we can figure that Roat in his off time from being a psychopath(or perhaps before he became one full time)...was an off-Broadway actor. The second act of Wait Until Dark(given its roots as a Broadway play from the author of Dial M for Murder) rather bogs down a bit in the "con job" being perpetrated by Roat with his two blackmailed criminal accomplices (handsome Richard Crenna, portly Jack Weston) but it is really setting the stage for the terrifying third act, when the con is over and Roat determines to come at Hepburn directly (that moment arrives when, after spending a few scenes in his "regular guy" disguises, Roat reappears in his leather jacket and sunglasses "killer's attire.")

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Roat would not be such a fantastic and despicable villain if Audrey Hepburn were not such a fantastic and loveable heroine. First of all she's Audrey Hepburn - in 1967 a beloved star, with a reed-thin body, a distinctively sweet British-based voice, and a delicate manner. But she's playing recently BLIND person -- and that makes her all the more vulnerable still.

I mean, what kind of evil, sadistic villain toys with and verbally tortures a BLIND woman?

Roat, that's who.

After Roat is introduced in Act One as deadpan, funny but quite murderous(he has murdered the beautiful con woman Lisa and stuffed her in a garment bag), and likely psychopathic(he turns on a dime from deadpan funny to knife wielding madman when his two crook henchmen push him too hard), we spend Act Two on an unstoppable journey to what we KNOW is coming in Act Three: the horrific, psychopath and totally evil Roat will soon be alone with "Suzy" in her apartment, his two henchmen(who offered some ironic protection TO Hepburn) now murdered, only the Evil One and the Good One locked together in the dark in a fight to the death.

Wait Until Dark builds to that big moment when the "dead" Arkin leaps across the room at Suzy with his knife to kill her, but getting there is all the power. The audience HATES Roat for what he is doing to Suzy(to Audrey Hepburn, actually); the audience cheers and applauds when Suzy turns the tables and stabs Roat in the stomach and he seems to die. (I'm talking standing ovation.) And when he leaps back to life and crawls across the floor to get Suzy(Mancini's music when he grabs her ankle is powerfully scary)...the audience goes nuts because they just HATE this killer, they want Suzy to survive.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Within a few years after Wait Until Dark, Alan Arkin had honed his more standard persona as a grumpy put-upon Jewish comedy complainer. This was true even when he played a Hispanic cop opposite James Caan in the cop comedy Freebie and the Bean, or returned to his Jewish roots as the upstanding dentist plunged into deadly spy games but nutty CIA man Peter Falk in "The In-Laws." Skilled in comedy and drama, Arkin took his career from young to middle-aged to the cranky old man parts he plays today(his Oscar wining turn as such in Little Miss Sunshine was 15 years ago!)

But THAT Alan Arkin is long after the Alan Arkin of Wait Until Dark. Arkin made his mark there,in that movie, and goes into thriller history. He seems to know it. Asked why he didn't get an Oscar nomination for Roat, Arkin said "You don't get an Oscar nomination for terrorizing Audrey Hepburn." (Why not? I ask.) And Arkin personally "witnessed" (heard) the audience scream at his dead man's jump at a screening he attended(he was in the lobby at the time.) Arkin seems to know that Harry Roat Jr. from Scarsdale is as good as Stephen King says he was.


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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Stephen King praised Arkin's Roat back in 1981, and some other villains would certainly follow Roat and be more famous. There's Hannibal Lecter...but Lecter was actually rather sympathetic to the "good girl" in HIS movie(Clarice.) There were Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers and Jason...but they barely had human personalities, and none had lines like Roat did.

The great psychopath Norman Bates in Psycho was both too sympathetically played by Tony Perkins and too little known in that movie AS the villain(until the twist ending) to really compete with Roat in the "love to hate him" category. A later, lesser Hitchcock psycho -- Cockney sex strangler Bob Rusk in Frenzy -- was closer to Roat's overt villainy, but not given enough to really register like Roat. (Much earlier Hitchcock psychos like Joseph Cotton in Shadow of a Doubt and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train had some of Roat's smiling evil, but are largely forgetten now, and not nearly as murderous in intent.) Perhaps Kathy Bates as the crazed Number One fan in "Misery" is up there, but ...she's just not funny. Roat is.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Which brings us to one final question: rather as with Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates..who in the world ELSE could have played Roat any more memorably than Alan Arkin?

The pickings were slim in 1967. Robert Duvall had played Roat on Broadway(opposite Lee Remick as Suzy) but Duvall was barely a movie star in '67(he was a supporting player.). Evidently the producers were looking at George C. Scott for awhile. You can see Scott playing menacing, but not hip and cool and wacky like Arkin gave us. And too middle-agedIits hard to see Scott in the leather jacket and sunglasses). Who else? Rod Steiger, maybe, but again, middle aged and likely inclined to over-play the menace from the get-go: Arkin famously stays cool until somebody touches him -- and THEN goes berserk.

No, the decision to cast Alan Arkin as Roat in Wait Until Dark was just one of those lucky breaks for everybody -- exactly the right man for the role(given how he chose to play it), and impossible to think of being done by somebody else.

Stephen King might just have been right.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

I agree with you that it is hard to imagine anyone else playing this character. Robert Duvall was praised for his onstage portrayal, though I'm not sure how he went about characterizing him (I'm going to guess from critical reactions to Arkin that Duvall was not as humorous). I have never been able to picture Scott or Steiger in the part: too old, not hip enough, no humor, etc. One recent review describes Roat as like “an awful, defective growth of the 60s counterculture” and you really do need a younger actor to pull that off. With Arkin being around 32 or 33 at the time of filming, he was the ideal age.

For sure, those other actors are more physically imposing than Arkin, but once again, that's more a benefit. I can see Arkin's Roat as someone others would underestimate due to how he looks... only for them to regret it since he more than makes up for that with resourcefulness and a keen intellect.

I once read that Sean Connery was possibly offered the role. I have no clue if that's just a rumor stemming from Terence Young being the director, but I'm skeptical: it's hard to see a big, big star like Connery offering to take up what is essentially a supporting role to another big, big star. I'm not sure what he would have been like in the role-- though like Arkin he has the benefit of being in his 30s at the time, it's hard to imagine him in the film.

Just curious, have you ever seen the 1982 TV movie WAIT UNTIL DARK? The one with Stacy Keach as Roat? If you have, then what do you think of his interpretation?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I agree with you that it is hard to imagine anyone else playing this character.

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Yes...casting for any movie is an 'issue of the year in which it is made," and the list for Roat must have been short indeed. Thus, when Arkin DID get the role, he could put his various ideas into the role(including his greasy hair, leather jacket and indoor sunglasses -- BUT ALSO his vocal tone) -- and create something downright historic.

I saw Wait Until Dark "almost first run"(early 1968) and I remember struggling trying to "get a visual bead" on Arkin. I had seen him in The Russians are Coming the year before but, frankly, that was a pretty standard to-come Arkin performance(with a Russian accent, and if memory serves, an Oscar nom.)

Harry Roat Jr was entirely different in concept than the Russians character -- and made me laugh, and made me mad(very, when he tortured Audrey Hepburn mentally and a little bit physically) and made me scared.

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Robert Duvall was praised for his onstage portrayal, though I'm not sure how he went about characterizing him (I'm going to guess from critical reactions to Arkin that Duvall was not as humorous).

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Arkin came to the role with "comedy chops" that I can't say I ever saw Duvall exercise. I expect Duvall did Roat more "straight ahead menacing." But I will never know...its not on film!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I have never been able to picture Scott or Steiger in the part: too old, not hip enough, no humor, etc. One recent review describes Roat as like “an awful, defective growth of the 60s counterculture” and you really do need a younger actor to pull that off. With Arkin being around 32 or 33 at the time of filming, he was the ideal age.

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All agreed. I've READ that Scott was considered; I'll GUESS that Steiger was considered(in 1968 he played a theatrical, mad strangler in "No Way Too Treat a Lady" and overdid that in the Steiger manner.)

But Arkin's Roat DOES bespeak of (rotted-out) youth, hipness...a sense of humor between ruthless cruel killings.
I expect that Roat "floated through" the drug world of the late 60's being respected by the thugs around him for his weirdness and danger. Probably worked freelance for the Mafia....

Arkin contended that key to his performance was that Roat "was on every drug known to man, simultaneously," which is interesting. I mean it WAS his performance. I note -- all the way through -- that the jokes go away fast if the other bad guys TOUCH Roat or try to talk to him with any "intimacy." Roat gets angry, shuts off. Inhuman. A monster.



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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

For sure, those other actors are more physically imposing than Arkin, but once again, that's more a benefit. I can see Arkin's Roat as someone others would underestimate due to how he looks... only for them to regret it since he more than makes up for that with resourcefulness and a keen intellect.

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Early on in "Act One," while Arkin/Roat is -- in a very funny, hip manner -- leading Crenna and Weston through the "plan," there comes that moment when they move on him and he snaps his switchblade and springs out of the chair like a rattlesnake. They back him off with their own weapons, two-on-one -- he drops the knife and gets funny again -- but you SEE the monster ready to spring. Arkin in an interview said that this moment - in "daillies" -- gave the producers confidence in Arkin's ability to play Roat "bad."

And he DOES outthink his henchmen -- "They wanted to kill me. I knew it. I knew it before THEY knew it. I saw through them."

Hepburn bravely retorts: "I saw through you, too" -- which only stings Roat's ego: "Not all the way, Suzy. Even now...not all the way." He knows the monster Suzy has not yet met. But she will.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I once read that Sean Connery was possibly offered the role. I have no clue if that's just a rumor stemming from Terence Young being the director, but I'm skeptical: it's hard to see a big, big star like Connery offering to take up what is essentially a supporting role to another big, big star.

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I've read that about Connery and it is only now with your remarks that I realize the "Terrance Young connection" may have put Connery on someone's radar for awhile. In '67, Connery was still struggling to make a name for himself outside Bond -- but I'm not sure that Roat and his pure evil would be a risk Connery wanted to take , plus -- he was such a BIG guy; he'd be intimidating to his henchmen from the get-go.

No , Arkin made more sense...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Just curious, have you ever seen the 1982 TV movie WAIT UNTIL DARK? The one with Stacy Keach as Roat? If you have, then what do you think of his interpretation?

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I did see that -- on HBO way back IN 1982. I recall finding the lines not matching up with the movie -- they were less hip, frankly -- so maybe they were from Frederick Knott's original play(Knott had written the more "stodgy" Dial M for Murder in the 50s'; I guess "Wait Until Dark" needed a "hipping-up" by new writers of Knott's work.)

Stacy Keach made a fine Roat...he has that deep voice, and that slightly misshapen lip....but the big surprise came at the end - -when Roat elected to put on female make-up and earrings(as I recall) as he made his final threats to "Suzy"(Katherine Ross.) Was that Keach's invention? Or did Duvall do that in the stage play version? I almost felt that Keach went for the "femme" psycho bit to do SOMETHING to combat the memory of Arkin. A touch of "Mrs. Bates." Keach was fine. I liked Arkin better -- he's "the man."

Note in passing: I do believe that Quentin Tarantino played Roat on Broadway with Marisa Tomei as Suzy. QT as Roat might have been interesting, too.

I think the HBO 1982 version can be seen on YouTube..

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

I actually have seen the Keach version! I liked Keach’s turn too: he’s rather reserved and jovial at the start, but by the time it gets to the climactic scene, he goes bonkers in the most delightful way. I noticed the “femme” approach he went for too—it’s so strange. I do agree it was meant to differentiate him from Arkin and perhaps recall villains like Norman Bates, though some modern audiences might find that more “problematic” now. One thing I don’t care as much for is that he shouts and snarls a lot, whereas Arkin never raised his voice even when making threats (in fact, he only ever shouts when he loses control of the situation, such as when Susy throws the hypo in his face or douses him with diesel, or when someone else touches him without permission).

That TV film is on the whole decent, though obviously not as cinematic as the big screen version. I liked Ross well enough, though she lacks that fragility and vulnerability that makes Hepburn so sympathetic. I was far more scared for Hepburn’s Susy, perhaps because she’s already so tormented even before the criminals show up to give her the evening from hell. The film script actually plays up her marital conflict with Sam. While this does make Sam less sympathetic, it also makes it easier to believe she would be easy prey for Roat’s charade—she already thinks he resents her and that makes your heart ache for her even more.

(Also, I’m glad I’m not the only one who notices the major differences between the dialogue in the movie versus the play! Knott was in his fifties when writing WUD, so it makes sense he wasn’t as in-tune to the slang of the time. The husband-wife team that penned the screenplay hipped it up a lot and made it all seem more natural. Even small changes, such as Mike asking “What’s your favorite toy?” instead of “What do you use to protect yourself?” do a great deal in making the bad guys seem cooler and streetwise.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I actually have seen the Keach version! I liked Keach’s turn too: he’s rather reserved and jovial at the start, but by the time it gets to the climactic scene, he goes bonkers in the most delightful way. I noticed the “femme” approach he went for too—it’s so strange. I do agree it was meant to differentiate him from Arkin and perhaps recall villains like Norman Bates, though some modern audiences might find that more “problematic” now.

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Yep...might be problematic now. I sure remember it from THEN..it was clearly designed to take things "far away from the Arkin version" and again, I don't know if Duvall on Broadway did it that way.

I can't say I remember much else about that 1982 show, but I've always liked Stacy Keach in general -- he has that great deep voice and a certain charisma. HIS Roat isn't such a creep...until the end.

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One thing I don’t care as much for is that he shouts and snarls a lot, whereas Arkin never raised his voice even when making threats (in fact, he only ever shouts when he loses control of the situation, such as when Susy throws the hypo in his face or douses him with diesel, or when someone else touches him without permission).

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Well, Arkin made "actor's choices" and they paid off -- every time Roat DOES flare up, its scary. Its a great "action moment" when, after Hepburn hits him in the face with the hypo liquid, Roat yells "Don't touch that!" (the lights) and throws his knife into the wall next to Hepburn's head just as the lights go out. Exciting moment. (And a good place to remind us that for its initial theater runs, Wait Until Dark had the theaters cut their already dark lights "super dark" (exit signs on only) for the climax.)


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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

That TV film is on the whole decent, though obviously not as cinematic as the big screen version.

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No, it couldn't be -- a reminder that "one time with a big budget and big stars" is the best way to see certain things -- at the movies.

The HBO video production allows you to see and hear the stage audience reacting to everything -- including, as I recall , screaming pretty good at the jump. But that's not like being in a movie theater "live" feeling the walls shake from all the screaming.

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I liked Ross well enough, though she lacks that fragility and vulnerability that makes Hepburn so sympathetic.

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I do remember that issue with Ross...she had a rather strapping build.

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I was far more scared for Hepburn’s Susy, perhaps because she’s already so tormented even before the criminals show up to give her the evening from hell. The film script actually plays up her marital conflict with Sam. While this does make Sam less sympathetic, it also makes it easier to believe she would be easy prey for Roat’s charade—she already thinks he resents her and that makes your heart ache for her even more.

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I'm responding in a positive way(I don't think I really SAW this before) to your "call" about how Suzy's difficult relationship with Sam indeed adds fuel to the sadistic fire of Roat's "play" -- but I don't remember how the HBO version played up the marital discord even more. It IS tough on Suzy though -- in the movie version at least -- we can be sure that she understood clearly that Sam did NOT cheat on her (though he DID take that doll from gorgeous Lisa.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

"(Also, I’m glad I’m not the only one who notices the major differences between the dialogue in the movie versus the play! Knott was in his fifties when writing WUD, so it makes sense he wasn’t as in-tune to the slang of the time. The husband-wife team that penned the screenplay hipped it up a lot and made it all seem more natural. Even small changes, such as Mike asking “What’s your favorite toy?” instead of “What do you use to protect yourself?” do a great deal in making the bad guys seem cooler and streetwise.)

That's a great line comparison(and I don't have the play to work with):

"What's your favorite toy?" VS
"What do you use to protect yourself?"

You can clearly see the "hipster upgrade."

I don't think that Hitchcock much changed the rather stodgy dialogue in Dial M for Murder back in 1953 -- though Wait Until Dark also has Knott's name on it as the playwright -- it is just CLEARLY more hip in what is said. That new screenwriting couple were worth the hiring.

Speaking of Hitchcock: word is that he was offered by Jack Warner to "come over from Universal" to work at Warners and direct Wait Until Dark. Hitchcock said "no" -- Audrey Hepburn had double-crossed him by dropping out of a Hitchcock movie(never made) called "No Bail for the Judge." On balance, I think it is good that Hitchcock did NOT direct Wait Until Dark. I can't see him approving the hipness of the script or of Alan Arkin's Roat....Hitch was too old and set in his ways to "dig it." Of course, if Hitchcock HAD directed Wait Until Dark, he would have had a big hit instead of several failures, in the late 60's. But I just don't think it would have been as hip. It would have had more interesting camera moves, though.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

Re: Tarantino, I know the critics savaged him as well, but given they seemed to be riding a backlash against him as a pop culture icon and filmmaker, I have to wonder if he really was that terrible. I imagine he wasn't that great given he's not much of an actor in other things I've seen him in, but I always wonder what his version of the disguises would have been like. That production of WAIT UNTIL DARK set the story in the then-contemporary 1990s and his normal attire looks more grunge than beatnik obviously.

I have to say, I think setting the story beyond the 1960s kind of robs it of part of its retro charm. That and it's hard to put that story into a later context without it seeming stodgy. I guess that's why when Jeffrey Hatcher re-adapted the play in 2013, he set it back in the 1940s... though once again, I miss the 60s setting, which has such particular charms, namely a sense of the seedier side of the counterculture invading an "ordinary" American home.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Re: Tarantino, I know the critics savaged him as well, but given they seemed to be riding a backlash against him as a pop culture icon and filmmaker, I have to wonder if he really was that terrible.

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QT was succeeding so well as a writer-director that his desire to act seemed to be his one Achille's Heel to critics out to get him. He's been OK in his self-directed movie roles, sometimes a little better than that. He was pretty "sick" as a killer in From Dusk Til Dawn(he wrote it; Robert Rodriguez directed it)...might have transferred to Roat.

Here's what I wonder: did QT memorize his LINES well? That's such a test for the stage actor. Or did he have to call out "line!" and get a script girl to toss him the line. I once saw a play with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas -- back in the early 80's -- and the poor guys were yelling "line!" all the time.
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I imagine he wasn't that great given he's not much of an actor in other things I've seen him in, but I always wonder what his version of the disguises would have been like. That production of WAIT UNTIL DARK set the story in the then-contemporary 1990s and his normal attire looks more grunge than beatnik obviously.

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More grunge than beatnik. The times change..

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I have to say, I think setting the story beyond the 1960s kind of robs it of part of its retro charm. That and it's hard to put that story into a later context without it seeming stodgy. I guess that's why when Jeffrey Hatcher re-adapted the play in 2013, he set it back in the 1940s...

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The 40's? Hmmm

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

though once again, I miss the 60s setting, which has such particular charms, namely a sense of the seedier side of the counterculture invading an "ordinary" American home.

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Yes, as a movie its very much a "late 60's thing" which captured that year well and preserves it for us today. "Wait Until Dark" was a BIG hit, but it came out in the year of bigger hits like Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. Still, I don't remember screaming at those two famous movies.

There is this, too: compared to, say , Hitchcock's Psycho -- which had a cheapjack, black-and-white grittiness that helped keep that movie creepy -- Wait Until Dark always will have the "gloss and polish" of a major Hollywood production. It is in Technicolor; everybody is well-lit and well-dressed and well-coiffed and it feels like a "Hollywood product" in a way that Psycho does not. In some ways, this plays AGAINST the "buried horror" of Wait Until Dark, but everybody screamed anyway, so it didn't matter how good it looked.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

Stacy Keach made a fine Roat...he has that deep voice, and that slightly misshapen lip....but the big surprise came at the end - -when Roat elected to put on female make-up and earrings(as I recall) as he made his final threats to "Suzy"(Katherine Ross.) Was that Keach's invention? Or did Duvall do that in the stage play version? I almost felt that Keach went for the "femme" psycho bit to do SOMETHING to combat the memory of Arkin. A touch of "Mrs. Bates." Keach was fine. I liked Arkin better -- he's "the man."
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I just found an interview with Keach the other day where he actually explained why he added that strange touch to the character! It was apparently his own invention and a way of trying to make his take on the character distinct from Arkin's. You can find the interview here: http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews37_17/mobile/page21.cfm

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I just found an interview with Keach the other day where he actually explained why he added that strange touch to the character! It was apparently his own invention and a way of trying to make his take on the character distinct from Arkin's.

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Aha. Well...Keach was up against a very formidable performance from Arkin -- Arkin's version was unforgettable from theater viewings in the late sixties and then on TV in the 70's. Came 1982 or whatever it was -- Keach had to COMPETE.

Sidebar: I can't say that I've seen all his movies, but in his "Mike Hammer" TV series alone, Stacy Keach just OOZED a kind of manly macho. A harelip (UPDATE from his interview: no, cleft palate), marred his face a bit and he didn't have Beatty/Redford prettiness. But that VOICE. And that PRESENCE. He maybe coujldn't be a bigger star(his face), but he was good enough -- Bogartian at his best, and you believed that Mike Hammer could punch out all comers.

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You can find the interview here: http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews37_17/mobile/page21.cfm

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I'll take a look. Thanks!

PS. I was watching the long lost, politically incorrect "Freebie and the Bean" the other day, James Caan and Alan Arkin are particularly brutal and violent "comedy cops" and its funny: sometimes I could see and hear ROAT in Arkin's threatening nature.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

PS. I was watching the long lost, politically incorrect "Freebie and the Bean" the other day, James Caan and Alan Arkin are particularly brutal and violent "comedy cops" and its funny: sometimes I could see and hear ROAT in Arkin's threatening nature.
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Lmao, can't say I thought of Roat when watching Arkin in that one, but I only saw it once and a few years ago. It's definitely a funny movie, a movie where the chemistry between the actors makes it memorable.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Lmao, can't say I thought of Roat when watching Arkin in that one, but I only saw it once and a few years ago.

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Well it didn't happen much. Arkin was such a cool cat as Roat; in this one, he is YELLING a lot of the time. But then, Roat yelled at Hepburn a bit in Wait Until Dark, too: "DON"T TOUCH THAT!" I dunno, I think it is that I usually think of Wait Until Dark and Roat quite separately from Freebie and the Bean. And yet -- same actor, 7 years later. "Versatile."

---It's definitely a funny movie, a movie where the chemistry between the actors makes it memorable.

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I definitely recommend it, but with this caveat: when I saw it at Xmas 1974, first run, I was with a bunch of guys, and we'd had a few drinks, and we laughed long and hard all through the movie(with a full house laughing just as hard ) and..."you had to be there.,"

But if you can envision that(and hear the laughs while you watch).. Freebie and the Bean plays like a very rough, very unique comedy action movie of a different color.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

Well it didn't happen much. Arkin was such a cool cat as Roat; in this one, he is YELLING a lot of the time. But then, Roat yelled at Hepburn a bit in Wait Until Dark, too: "DON"T TOUCH THAT!" I dunno, I think it is that I usually think of Wait Until Dark and Roat quite separately from Freebie and the Bean. And yet -- same actor, 7 years later. "Versatile."
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One of the things that makes Arkin's WUD performance interesting is that he rarely yells, unlike many of his comedy roles, where the humor comes from him regularly losing his cool (THE IN-LAWS does that the best since his character there is already uptight). For the most part, he's very calm and confident, only resorting to shouting when he seems to have lost control of the situation (ex. being temporarily blinded with the hypo and trying to get Susy to stop from cutting off the emergency light or stopping Susy from splashing gasoline on him while he has a lit match in hand). That lack of shouting actually makes him very intimidating as a villain and it also makes those moments where he does lose his cool jarring in a dramatic way... there's the sense that behind the coolness and plotting, he's a bit cowardly and small.

But anyway, I liked FREEBIE AND THE BEAN a lot. It definitely came from another era, but that old school "don't give a damn" attitude is part of the appeal. My favorite part might actually be the car chases. Reminded me a bit of the insane chases in BLUES BROTHERS years later.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

I loved your write-up of Arkin's performance! Roat is easily one of my top favorite movie villains. As far as "pure evil" baddies go, he's probably number one.

Good on pointing out the humorous nature of his interpretation. I think that more than anything alienated critics back in 1967 who seemed to just universally trash Arkin-- however, when I first watched the movie in 2017, that blend of menace and humor worked perfectly. I find that time has been very kind to Arkin in that regard; in fact, I've come across viewers and modern critics who think he gives a better performance than Hepburn does here (I'll say I think they're the perfect complements as pure good and pure evil, as you mention).

I think one of the other major things that makes Roat so loathsome is the intimate the nature of his attacks on poor Susy. His con targets her greatest emotional and psychological weaknesses: her implied concern about her husband growing tired of her, her fear that she's unattractive (Roat Jr. going "my wife is-- very beautiful" after Susy has talked about "looking dreadful" to Gloria a few scenes before just seems like rubbing salt in a wound), her fear that she's helpless. There's also the sleaziness of the character as well (ex. sniffing Susy's lingerie, stroking her face when interrogating her, hooking her cane over her neck and pulling her to him in what almost looks like a parody of flirtatious behavior, etc.)-- part of what gives the movie and Roat himself a slight perverseness even now is that we have this gross, violent person in the same room with someone as sweet and vulnerable as Audrey Hepburn. Arkin really did have the benefit of the most sympathetic possible victim.

CONTD.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I loved your write-up of Arkin's performance!

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Thank you!

---Roat is easily one of my top favorite movie villains. As far as "pure evil" baddies go, he's probably number one.

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Well...Stephen King thought so in 1981...and I certainly carried the memory of the "scream-a-thon" that was Wait Until Dark in a theater in '68.

The thing is that Roat is funny enough to keep us "enjoying him" even as he slowly reveals SUCH evil and cruelty that as the other henchmen die, it becomes clear that "the nicest person in the world"(blind Audrey Hepburn) will be trapped, along with "the most evil person in the world" -- Roat...and we brace ourselves for the "battle in the dark that follows."

This is crucial to the theater experience: Suzy manages to stick a big knife in Roat's stomach just as he is moving her to the back bedroom to kill her("I must have had my fingers behind my back.") When Roat collapses with that knife in the belly, my audience jumped to their feet in a STANDING OVATION with cheers and applause -- they were so HAPPY to see Roat dead by "nice" Suzy. Then -- some running around by Suzy and THEN-- Roat's big jump at Suzy and...well, wall to wall screaming as Roat...grabbing Suzy's ankle, dying but dragging himself by the knife that killed him across the floor...he's utterly terrifying right up to his last moment on screen in the dark...

So...who better than that, "evil villain wise?" Not Norman Bates...we LIKED him some of the time. Annie Wilkes(Kathy Bates) in Misery had Roat's sadism, but none of his hipness. The strangler Rusk in Hitchcock's Frenzy is a fairly short part played by an unknown actor. I can put in votes for "the two Sam Cadys" (laid-back Southern sadist Robert Mitchum in 1962 or Bible-thumping hillbilly madman Robert DeNiro in 1991) in the two Cape Fears but....nope...still not beating Roat in the smiling evil department.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Good on pointing out the humorous nature of his interpretation. I think that more than anything alienated critics back in 1967 who seemed to just universally trash Arkin

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I saw Wait Until Dark -- and loved the theater screaming experience -- as a young pre-teen. I daresay I simply wasn't "sophisticated" enough to find Arkin "too funny" in the part. He was ultimately SCARY in the part, to me.

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-- however, when I first watched the movie in 2017, that blend of menace and humor worked perfectly. I find that time has been very kind to Arkin in that regard; in fact, I've come across viewers and modern critics who think he gives a better performance than Hepburn does here (I'll say I think they're the perfect complements as pure good and pure evil, as you mention).

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Well, Hepburn got the Oscar nom, but she had a lot of stuff to do that wasn't very fun. Getting hysterical, for one thing. Justifiable, but hard to watch. She's such a GOOD person, too -- that's hard to act. This movie also pointed up Hepburn's extremely thin, almost frail physique -- physically she doesn't stand a chance against Roat. Or does she?

Meanwhile, Arkin got to do lots of fun things. I perhaps neglected to mention that Roat plays "variations on Roat" in the little "play" that he and the henchmen put on to trick Hepburn into giving up the doll she doesn't know she has. Technically there is "Roat Senior"(Arkin playing a mean old man); "Roat Jr."(Arkin playing the mean old man's meek son), and just plain "Roat"(what the henchmen call him -- the SCARIEST version of his name.) But Roat Senior and Roat Junior just can't hold a candle to "Roat" with his creepy look, his funny voice, his inscrutable manner.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I think one of the other major things that makes Roat so loathsome is the intimate the nature of his attacks on poor Susy. His con targets her greatest emotional and psychological weaknesses: her implied concern about her husband growing tired of her, her fear that she's unattractive (Roat Jr. going "my wife is-- very beautiful" after Susy has talked about "looking dreadful" to Gloria a few scenes before just seems like rubbing salt in a wound), her fear that she's helpless.

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Absolutely...all of that. Long before Roat is physically terrifying Suzy with gasoline and matches -- and a scarf he brushes against her face -- he is PSYCHOLOGICALLY terrifying Suzy with that very cruel charade based on an unfaithful husband and Suzy's own insecurities. (That we have met the husband once and found him a real stick in the mud only makes it WORSE -- she shouldn't be SO loving towards that lunk.)

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There's also the sleaziness of the character as well (ex. sniffing Susy's lingerie, stroking her face when interrogating her, hooking her cane over her neck and pulling her to him in what almost looks like a parody of flirtatious behavior, etc.)--

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That bit with the cane -- and the blind, taken-by-surprise Hepburn's over-reaction to it -- is one reason the audience cheered and applauded when she finally stabbed Roat in the belly.---

Given the dead body of the gorgeous model("Lisa") who appears in the clothing bag in Hepburn's apartment early on, some have speculated that Roat maybe raped Lisa before killing her and might have done the same to Suzy. I'd like to think not -- the guy seems too crazy to be sexual -- but, who knows? Its more of "the evil that you have to guess about" with Roat.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

part of what gives the movie and Roat himself a slight perverseness even now is that we have this gross, violent person in the same room with someone as sweet and vulnerable as Audrey Hepburn. Arkin really did have the benefit of the most sympathetic possible victim.

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Absolutely...the whole structure of Wait Until Dark is a narrowing of options -- and the removal of PEOPLE (husband, little girl upstairs....Weston...Crenna) until we know in our guts that it is going to be down to two: the most evil man in the world and the nicest lady in the world. And she's blind.

Our identification with Hepburn is maxed out here...as is our hatred towards Arkin.

I wonder if anybody hit Alan Arkin with a purse in real life when this movie came out?

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

I did hear one story, though I don’t know if it’s true: according to a story at an Audrey Hpeburn retrospective in the early 1990s (at the Film Society of Lincoln Center), Arkin went to visit his mother after this film premiered. Normally, she would shower him with praise for his work, but that time, she was cold and rather annoyed with him. When he asked what was wrong, she said, “Alan, how could you do all that to that wonderful girl?!” Once again, I have no idea if that is true, but it is funny.

Actually, Arkin’s own distaste for his experience playing this role makes it all the more disturbing for me. On my Criterion bluray for THE IN-LAWS, there is an interview in which Arkin talks about his big roles in the 60s and 70s, and he says working with Audrey was the only pleasant thing about WUD. He said something like, “I hated feeling like I was inhabiting this guy’s body,” like playing the role grossed him out. I kind of feel sorry for him—but not really. We got a great performance from his suffering lmao. I'm actually very sad he never played more villains. The only time he ever topped his onscreen body count in this movie was when he appeared on THE MUPPET SHOW in 1980 and comically slaughtered a bunch of puppet bunnies (not joking; that happened).

Then again, NORTH from 1994 is kind of a scary movie too.....

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I did hear one story, though I don’t know if it’s true: according to a story at an Audrey Hpeburn retrospective in the early 1990s (at the Film Society of Lincoln Center), Arkin went to visit his mother after this film premiered. Normally, she would shower him with praise for his work, but that time, she was cold and rather annoyed with him. When he asked what was wrong, she said, “Alan, how could you do all that to that wonderful girl?!” Once again, I have no idea if that is true, but it is funny.

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I'd like to think it is true; and its the kind of story that SOUNDS true. A mother couldn't help but be disappointed in her son for playing such a part and doing that to AUDREY HEPBURN. Arkin himself, when asked if he thought he was Oscar-snubbed for playing Roat so great , said "You don't get nominated for being mean to Audrey Hepburn."

In a few decades. Arkin WOULD have been nominated as were Hannibal Lecter and Annie Wilkes and DeNiro's Sam Cady -- with Lecter and Wilkes winning.

I would expect, however, that the huge box office success of Wait Until Dark made Alan Arkin marketable for years to come.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Actually, Arkin’s own distaste for his experience playing this role makes it all the more disturbing for me.

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And over time(decades) I expect that Arkin came to realize that Roat WAS his most famous, unforgettable role -- along with "The In Laws" on the comedy side.

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On my Criterion bluray for THE IN-LAWS, there is an interview in which Arkin talks about his big roles in the 60s and 70s, and he says working with Audrey was the only pleasant thing about WUD. He said something like, “I hated feeling like I was inhabiting this guy’s body,” like playing the role grossed him out. I kind of feel sorry for him—but not really. We got a great performance from his suffering lmao.

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Ha...yes. Sorry if playing Roat was a downer for him but...the results are what movies are all about: immortality of sorts.

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I'm actually very sad he never played more villains. The only time he ever topped his onscreen body count in this movie was when he appeared on THE MUPPET SHOW in 1980 and comically slaughtered a bunch of puppet bunnies (not joking; that happened).

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Ha! "I did not know that." As for playing more villains, perhaps Arkin realized he could never really top Roat. It took a long time -- and career decline -- for Anthony Perkins(Norman Bates) to agree to play other villains (like in "fflokes.")

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Then again, NORTH from 1994 is kind of a scary movie too.....

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Ha. Directed by Rob Reiner. Roger Ebert wrote: "I hated this movie. I hated, hated, hated, HATED this movie" -- and Billy Crystal read the review out loud TO Reiner at his Comedy Central Roast.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

We’ll have to disagree about Roat being predatory towards women. I always got that vibe from him in the movie as opposed to the play: between the laundry-sniffing, face stroking, and the emphasis of “I want you in the bedroom,” not to mention the fact that Lisa's blouse is torn open, I find it very likely his sadism extends to the sexual. It would be another way to exercise power over Susy and Lisa in particular, both of them women who dare to go against his interests. Compared to what a modern filmmaker would do, it’s all subtle and more open to speculation though and the ambiguity of his bedroom plans actually makes the sequence more terrifying than an outright graphic sequence a la A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Whether Roat was going to attack Susy that way or not, emphasizing the “bedroom” was a good way of at least making Susy assume that might have been a part of his intentions, thus terrifying her even more.

(Going back to the Zaroff connection, I always felt that both those characters linked violence with desire. Zaroff has a door knocker featuring a centaur carrying off a woman and Roat’s knife is in the shape of a half-dressed Venus figure. Heck, even the way he tears open the doll to get the heroin out suggests those elements to me: he pulls the skirt up first then pierces it with the phallic symbol—er, I mean Geraldine. It’s a very Hitchcock move, if I do say so, suggesting rather than spelling out violence.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

We’ll have to disagree about Roat being predatory towards women.

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You know, I can't say that I have/had a strong position that Roat was NOT predatory towards women. I think I saw Wait Until Dark so young that it simply didn't occur to me. When he tells Susy "And now, I want you to go into the bedroom," I flashed back to the Lisa murder and thought: "he wants her in the bedroom so he can hide the body for a time."

Consequently, your remarks below make sense to me and I can easily switch sides:

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I always got that vibe from him in the movie as opposed to the play: between the laundry-sniffing, face stroking, and the emphasis of “I want you in the bedroom,” not to mention the fact that Lisa's blouse is torn open, I find it very likely his sadism extends to the sexual.

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Yes, the voluptuous Lisa's blouse is torn open, which makes her disturbingly sensual in death. That was a "shocker moment" for me, when Richard Crenna stumbled onto the dead Lisa hanging in the closet in a translucent clothing bag. And yet, there is no blood on Lisa, its is a reminder that Wait Until Dark is largely bereft of the kind of blood and gore and "ultra-violence" of thrillers to follow. I think with Audrey Hepburn in it(for a million dollars), it was held to a certain "lower level of gore, higher level of suspense and scream-able action.:

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

---It would be another way to exercise power over Susy and Lisa in particular, both of them women who dare to go against his interests.

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Yes...Lisa (so briefly met, so beautiful) comes off as one of those "drug trade mules" who THOUGHT she could get away with stealing from her bosses -- and there's Roat waiting for her at the airport, she didn't get away with anything. (And poor Audrey's torments begin as Lisa slips Audrey's husband the "drug doll.")

We learn retroactively from Roat that Lisa was ALSO part of the "con team" with Crenna and Weston who used to blackmail married men for money(roles: seductress, husband, cop) so Roat seems to have been kept well aware of Lisa's work...and had the goods on Crenna and Weston to blackmail THEM into HIS scheme. This is a throwback to Knott's OTHER play -- filmed by Hitchcock in 1954 -- "Dial M for Murder" where Ray Milland blackmails and old acquaintance into committing murder -- Act I of Dial M and Act I of Wait Until Dark are roughly the same -- except Roat is so much creepier and funnier than Milland.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Compared to what a modern filmmaker would do, it’s all subtle and more open to speculation though and the ambiguity of his bedroom plans actually makes the sequence more terrifying than an outright graphic sequence a la A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

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Ah...what a difference some years and an X rating would offer -- though Kubrick wasn't interested much in a "straight ahead thriller," either with Clockwork Orange, or, some years later, with The Shining. He was an "art guy" -- with a very disturbing vision.

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Whether Roat was going to attack Susy that way or not, emphasizing the “bedroom” was a good way of at least making Susy assume that might have been a part of his intentions, thus terrifying her even more.

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"Thus terrifying her even more..." his sadism is off the charts without any physical violence being shown.

Truth be told, in the long climax between Hepburn and Roat, SHE gets the upper hand a time or two(throwing hypo acid into his face; getting the matches) and he is likely infuriated that she "won a round or two" -- hence his sadistic comments increase once he gets control back. He's vengeful.

But yes, now I can see Roat adding some sex to his murder...in the bedroom.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

(Going back to the Zaroff connection, I always felt that both those characters linked violence with desire. Zaroff has a door knocker featuring a centaur carrying off a woman and Roat’s knife is in the shape of a half-dressed Venus figure. Heck, even the way he tears open the doll to get the heroin out suggests those elements to me: he pulls the skirt up first then pierces it with the phallic symbol—er, I mean Geraldine. It’s a very Hitchcock move, if I do say so, suggesting rather than spelling out violence.)

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Wow. Great points...things I did not see in Wait Until Dark...and a nice crossover to Zaroff.

Sex and violence in the movies were kept "symbolic" and not shown together for decades, and then slowly emerged as the ratings offered the R and the X (stating in 1968.)

Take Psycho -- from Hays Code 1960. The famous shower stabbing of Janet Leigh features a nude victim(never really SEEN nude, save one body double shot) and a phallic knife -- but the sexual aspects are kept "hidden"(the killer seems to be an old woman, Perkins' Mother.)

Came Hitchcock's Frenzy -- from R-rated 1972 -- Hitchcock could get explicit and psycho killer Bob Rusk is shown first raping his female victim ...and then strangling her. Now, Hitchcock could "go all the way." He got good"comeback" reviews(for the overall structure and style of the movie), but the box office was not spectacular. Too many people were put off by the graphic nature of the killing.

As it turned out, "Wait Until Dark" was neither as violent as Psycho(from 7 years earlier) OR Frenzy -- but managed to create terror just the same. I think in the final analysis, Wait Until Dark is about "good versus evil" and good DOES win. In Psycho and especially Frenzy, the killer is caught, but not before killing some very innocent victims.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

PSYCHO is definitely grimier and more of an outright horror movie as well as a bolder cinematic experiment in general. Heck, the monochrome alone makes it creepy (that’s part of why it’s hard for me to get into PSYCHO 2—the Bates Motel feels wrong in color!).

I don’t much compare WUD to PSYCHO—as far as Hitchcock’s oeuvre goes, I think WUD is more like ROPE or REAR WINDOW in terms of tone. Those films were also in color, populated by attractive performers, and kept to a one-room setting, slowly mounting the tension as the story progresses. PSYCHO is just a whole other ballgame—even watching that movie now, it feels like a revelation, a diving line between classic and modern cinema. (I still remember watching PSYCHO at a college screening with fellow 20-somethings a few years ago and when we had to walk back to our dorms in the dark, it was so very very unnerving!).

That being said, while Terence Young mostly sticks to conventional direction, the lighting in the climactic scene is phenomenal. I don’t consider WUD horror, but those scenes with the apartment only lit by a safety light, then the flickering matches and then the cold, electric light of the icebox—those were all masterful. They make that set, so warmly lit and “studio” earlier, seem nightmarish and unfamiliar, especially when you see the enraged Roat dragging his bleeding body through puddles of gasoline to get to poor Susy.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

PSYCHO is definitely grimier and more of an outright horror movie as well as a bolder cinematic experiment in general. Heck, the monochrome alone makes it creepy (that’s part of why it’s hard for me to get into PSYCHO 2—the Bates Motel feels wrong in color!).

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Agreed on all points.

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I don’t much compare WUD to PSYCHO—as far as Hitchcock’s oeuvre goes, I think WUD is more like ROPE or REAR WINDOW in terms of tone.

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Yes...though it is a filmed play like Dial M for Murder or Rope, it has more "life to it" and hence recalls Rear Window as well.

Hey, back in 1968 I felt that the moment in WUD when Crenna is outta nowhere killed MATCHED the chill in Rear Window when James Stewart picks up his phone , thinks he's talking to his cop friend...and realizes its the killer calling him. This "chill moment" is called "the frisson" and I think Wait Until Dark feels plush and lush(in color) where Psycho(despite Hitchcock's expert 3-D camerawork from his DP) is pretty gritty.

THAT said, here is the key connection between Psycho and Wait Until Dark as I have always seen it:

These were among a handful of mainstream films that really made audiences SCREAM out loud.

I saw Wait Until Dark first run, and Psycho at college revival with a full house, and both times, the screaming just took the movies out of mere "movie" status and into "thrill ride territory." Its the EFFECT of the two films, rather than the look.

Jaws was like that, too. Big screaming all the time in the theater when I saw it first run.


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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

Ah...what a difference some years and an X rating would offer -- though Kubrick wasn't interested much in a "straight ahead thriller," either with Clockwork Orange, or, some years later, with The Shining. He was an "art guy" -- with a very disturbing vision.
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Oh definitely-- I'm a big Kubrick nerd and ACO is actually a favorite of mine, though I understand your issues with it listed in a later post. (Personally, I see it as more "Alex is transformed into a figure of state-sanctified evil with questionable claims to being 'cured', thereby becoming more loathsome and dangerous" rather than Alex's evil is excused or even that he just returns to being a street thug... but that's for the ACO board.) However, I felt like making the comparison just to say how suggesting Roat's intentions through his words, physical behavior, and leering is more effective in a thriller like this (rather than a dystopian satire like ACO) than having Roat just throw Susy onto the bed and tear her clothes off. What you imagine can be so much worse.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Ah...what a difference some years and an X rating would offer -- though Kubrick wasn't interested much in a "straight ahead thriller," either with Clockwork Orange, or, some years later, with The Shining. He was an "art guy" -- with a very disturbing vision.
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Oh definitely-- I'm a big Kubrick nerd and ACO is actually a favorite of mine, though I understand your issues with it listed in a later post. (Personally, I see it as more "Alex is transformed into a figure of state-sanctified evil with questionable claims to being 'cured', thereby becoming more loathsome and dangerous" rather than Alex's evil is excused or even that he just returns to being a street thug... but that's for the ACO board.)

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For the ACO Board. Yes.

But...your take is interesting. Me, I think I was just too "narrow minded" to look beyond Alex's rapes and beatings and murders without wanting him PERMANENTLY punished (prison or death._

But that is an art film.

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However, I felt like making the comparison just to say how suggesting Roat's intentions through his words, physical behavior, and leering is more effective in a thriller like this (rather than a dystopian satire like ACO) than having Roat just throw Susy onto the bed and tear her clothes off. What you imagine can be so much worse.

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It is now!

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

“And yet, there is no blood on Lisa, its is a reminder that Wait Until Dark is largely bereft of the kind of blood and gore and "ultra-violence" of thrillers to follow. I think with Audrey Hepburn in it(for a million dollars), it was held to a certain "lower level of gore, higher level of suspense and scream-able action”
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Oh definitely, though I always thought Lisa was likely strangled and probably with that pink scarf Roat uses to torment Susy with (it makes his dragging it over her face like that much grosser if you assume it’s a murder weapon). Heck, I figured he was going to strangle Susy after assaulting her in the bedroom since he leaves Geraldine on the kitchen table but still has the scarf in his coat pocket.

However, Hepburn being in the movie does give it a “classiness” that prevented the filmmakers from going insane with blood or sleaze. For example, later “blind women in peril” movies like SEE NO EVIL and PENTHOUSE NORTH often have scenes with the protagonist stripping down and bathing while the leering villains lurk nearby, adding cynical exploitation to the suspense. Can’t imagine THAT flying in this movie.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

As far as other sadistic villains I find in Roat’s tier, I gotta go with Count Zaroff as played by Leslie Banks in THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME and Alex Delarge in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Zaroff is a pure sadist like Roat, and mixes an animalistic bloodlust with a keen intellect and charming manner that makes him compelling despite how awful a person he is.

As for Alex, like Roat, he sees himself as a kind of artist in evil. I always felt Roat took a bizarre pride in his con: he goes far more into detail with his costuming than Carlino or Mike do, and there’s this great moment after he expresses exaggerated shock at “Mrs. Roat”’s death over the phone where he’s outside and he makes this annoyed grunt, like he thinks his performance isn’t good enough! Just as Alex sees himself as the Beethoven of crime, linking his “ultraviolence” with his love of classical music, Roat seems to view himself as an Orson Welles of crime, directing, writing, and acting in his own perverse dramas. (Good on pointing out Bob Rusk too—he has a humorous element to him as well, but he is so messed up that he isn’t as likeable, oddly enough. Then again, I find that movie on the whole too unpleasant to really enjoy.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

As far as other sadistic villains I find in Roat’s tier, I gotta go with Count Zaroff as played by Leslie Banks in THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME and Alex Delarge in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Zaroff is a pure sadist like Roat, and mixes an animalistic bloodlust with a keen intellect and charming manner that makes him compelling despite how awful a person he is.

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I have not seen The Most Dangerous Game -- though I read the short story in many places, including Hitchcock short story collections -- and I think I will add the "Banks" version to my "need to see list." From the STORY, there is that sadism, slowly and elegantly revealing itself until matters clearly become a matter of life and death...the hunting of humans. (So many modern action movies have used this premise --Ice T was the prey in one; Jean-Claude Van Damme in another.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago


As for Alex, like Roat, he sees himself as a kind of artist in evil.

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True. Both men are "showboaters."

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I always felt Roat took a bizarre pride in his con: he goes far more into detail with his costuming than Carlino or Mike do, and there’s this great moment after he expresses exaggerated shock at “Mrs. Roat”’s death over the phone where he’s outside and he makes this annoyed grunt, like he thinks his performance isn’t good enough!

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Great catch on that "grunt"; I just remembered it. One gets the weird feeling that Roat -- somehow -- may do a little "off-Broadway acting" somehow squeezed in between murders and drug trade work. I'm SERIOUS. Why ELSE would he be so invested in playing characters and "dressing up" even when his audience is blind?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Just as Alex sees himself as the Beethoven of crime, linking his “ultraviolence” with his love of classical music, Roat seems to view himself as an Orson Welles of crime, directing, writing, and acting in his own perverse dramas.

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My issue with Alex and A Clockwork Orange has always been that the movie doesn't so much end up lionizing Alex as excusing him. We see him commit rape and murder and then he goes through a bunch of "behavior modification" punishment in prison that I, for one, enjoyed watching him receive. (Rusk in Frenzy does horrible things to women and pretty much just gets arrested.) The punishment in turn makes Alex physically ill over sex and violence -- again, fair enough -- but by film's end, Alex is "cured" of the behavior modification, and free to roam and rape and kill again. A "statement" is made...but the villain pretty much gets away with everything, except for that punishment segment. Let's face it: in Wait Until Dark the Very Bad Villain is DEFEATED. He's hateable, he's bad, he dies. And the good blind lady kills him. By the time Susy's husband finally shows up with a cop car (siren roaring) and cops -- Roat's dead.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

(Good on pointing out Bob Rusk too—he has a humorous element to him as well, but he is so messed up that he isn’t as likeable, oddly enough. Then again, I find that movie on the whole too unpleasant to really enjoy.)



Its funny about Frenzy. It was sort of a big deal in 1972 -- a critical comeback for Hitchcock after several years and movies of decline. Hitch also used the R rating -- for the only time -- to make sure that nudity and rape made it into his movie("up to date.") It has great structure and Hitchcockian style(the killer uses neckties; a big scene is in a truck full of potatoes) -- and he returned to his hometown of London to make it.

For all of that, Frenzy is largely forgotten now, and even THEN, it did not satisfy. And I would pit it against "Wait Until Dark" to show WHY. In Frenzy, Rusk manages to kill not one, but TWO successive heroines -- the movie is a really big downer even if Rusk is arrested at the end. And one of the rape killings is shown in graphic, terrifying detail which -- while profound in its own way -- killed off the entertainment value of the film.

Not so, Wait Until Dark. That one has humor and great characters all the way through, enough violence and murder to keep the stakes high but -- the audience gets a seesaw battle at the end between Hepburn and Arkin and gets to cheer(for Hepburn) as much as it gets to scream. Wait Until Dark is a VERY entertaining movie, the heroine lives, and ITS villain gets what he deserves.

Not so, Rusk in Frenzy(who deserves a beating the hero is prevented from giving him.) That said, Hitchcock did make sure to show Rusk -- when not in "rapist-killer" mode -- as the most likeable Cockney in London, everybody's back-slapping pal. A slight variation on how Roat could be funny.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

One gets the weird feeling that Roat -- somehow -- may do a little "off-Broadway acting" somehow squeezed in between murders and drug trade work. I'm SERIOUS. Why ELSE would he be so invested in playing characters and "dressing up" even when his audience is blind?
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No I get you! A friend and I joke that Roat is a failed theater student who couldn’t make it onstage, so now he uses his skills with performance and make-up to pay the bills! When I think of all the wigs, costumes, and pancake makeup he has to have in the back of his van, I cannot help but smile. The guy definitely lives his passions.

About the only other explanation for him dressing up despite targeting a blind woman is that it’s all for the sake of Gloria, who is also in the building that day. She caught a good look at both Jr and Sr so it was a good thing he put his off-Broadway skills to use!

One detail I really love is when Jr first appears—Mike answers the door, then gives Roat Jr is “are you serious” look that always has me laughing. And Roat just keeps rolling with it. Honestly, with a few tweaks, you could turn this story into a comedy… just like Romeo and Juliet is a rom-com gone wrong, WAIT could be seen as a potential farce turned bloody and horrifying.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

(Going back to the Zaroff connection, I always felt that both those characters linked violence with desire. Zaroff has a door knocker featuring a centaur carrying off a woman and Roat’s knife is in the shape of a half-dressed Venus figure.)

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I could not find your other reference to Count Zaroff -- in the 1932 film "The Most Dangerous Game" -- as a villain to match Roat -- so I'm using this one to note that I was able to find that movie on streaming and I gave it a watch. Its a short movie, reasonably quick and easy to watch -- but certainly impactful. And Leslie Banks as Zaroff IS a helluva villain.

But then, Zaroff in the original story is a helluva villain -- I read the story decades ago and he locked in way back then. It turns out that there have been films of the short story(sometimes under the same title, sometimes under different titles) over the decades. I saw a modern version with Ice T being hunted by a group of well-to-do, nutcase men(Surviving the Game) and even THAT version captured some of the perverse terror of the 1932 original. What's key in both versions is the 20 minutes or so in which the psychotic hunter(or hunters) treat the intended prey to a "courteous hospitality as a host" before eventually revealing the psychotic truth of the character. Let the hunt begin!

This 1932 version was "limited" somewhat by 1932 dramaturgy and staging(at one point when he is "revealed" as mad, Zaroff gets an outta nowhere expressionistic monster lighting of his face against as suddenly black background), but hey, back in 1932, I'm sure it was fine.

The 1932 version was "pre-code" so we get Fay Wray a little too scantily clad at one point, some fairly rough violence (how hero Joel McCrea kills a couple of villains -- Zaroff has helpers). And a brief glimpse (evidently edited even in 1932) of Zaroff's trophy room -- with some human heads. Interesting!

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I read up that (famously?) this "Game" was filmed by the makers of King Kong, CONCURRENTLY , and on many of the Kong sets(that log bridge across a chasm looked awfully familiar.) Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong got "double pay, double duty" by being in both films -- here Armstrong's huckster from King Kong becomes Wray's drunken brother -- in an interesting touch, when Joel McCrea is the sole survivor of a shipwreck and comes to Zaroff's island castle -- Wray and Armstrong are already there, guests from AN EARLIER shipwreck. (Zaroff just keeps luring them in on the rocks.)

So all that novelty but at heart "The Most Dangerous Game" honors the brilliance of the short story -- the idea of a madman who elects to hunt human prey. Watching the slow turn of Zaroff from cultured, erudite host to bloodthirsty sadist is something to experience. And has been in all the knock-offs made ever since.

Oh, that "satyr" door ringer reappears as a painting in Zaroff's castle and is expressed in his own reality: this being a "pre-code movie," Zaroff announces to male prey McCrea that once he has been killed, Zaroff will reward himself with Fay Wray -- sexually(it is made clear) and against her will(ditto.) There is no woman in the short story; this movie adds a sexual component and has McCrea racing to save Wray from rape as well as to kill off Zaroff.

Nifty little movie...limited in its 1932 origins but still able to make the blood boil at Zaroff's evil -- and to applaud McCrea's turning of the tables at the end -- much as Hepburn foils Arkin.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 3 years ago

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it! It's a thriller I've watched countless times. It's just effortless fun.

Zaroff is a great bad guy. I've seen Banks in other movies, like Hitchcock's original THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and the infamous JAMAICAN INN, but this is easily my favorite role of his. He's campy but vicious in a way few horror movie villains tended to be around that period.

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