4. Wait Until Dark (1967)
Another film starring Audrey Hepburn. Wait Until Dark is originally a play by Frederick Knott. As you can imagine as you watch the film, the setting looks like one congruent to a stage, which builds up tension thanks to the claustrophobic quality of rarely stepping foot outside of Susy Hendrixs apartment. Whether this was intended as a faithful adaptation to Knott or Hitchcock, however, is unknown, since it has a very similar aura to the latters Dial M for Murder, which was released about a decade earlier. Nevertheless, the setting is only a drop in a bucket of sweat coming from viewers witnessing a very enthralling, Hitchcockian triumph. The film starts when a woman named Lisa collects a sewed up doll implanted with bags of heroin. This, as many Hitchcock cinephiles out there may guess by now, is his trademark macguffin. A macguffin is an inanimate object of desire chased after by the characters in the film, but the object is merely a tool that kick-starts the chase rather than research of its significance. For example, the briefcase in Pulp Fiction is necessary for Jules and Vincent to take action, but the briefcase turns out worthless in relation to the films actual plot the documentation of Jules and Vincents quest is what keeps the audience pumped. This doll ends up in Susys possession, but the viewer could not care less what happens to it, since we are instantly sucked into the elaborate scheme of retrieving it. Three criminals are after the doll, and they develop a con game with the aim of extracting the doll through stealth. Now, you may be wondering what is so suspenseful about a group of men retrieving a doll from a fragile woman? Susy is blind, and they wish to play a complex version of Marco Polo in order to retrieve the doll. Like this, no shred of evidence can be left behind, and they gain an alibi that can disprove their greedy intentions as long as the con is executed perfectly. Their only mistake was underestimating Susys other senses, since her instincts constantly alarm her of foul play. The entire film echoes the aesthetics in a scene from Hitchcocks Marnie, in which Tippi Hedren steals money from a safe at her workplace during after-hours. The camera focuses on her infiltrating the safe at the right side of the screen of the frame, whereas the other half which separated by a wall shows a woman who starts mopping the floor. From the viewers point of view, we see both characters minding their own business. The walls obstruction denies them from being aware of one another, and the tension skyrockets since we, the audience, are perfectly aware that Hedren is on the verge of being caught in the act. Hitchcock gives us an omniscient power, and we actually side with Hedren because the odds are against her favor, even if she is the criminal. Wait Until Dark, however, has men dancing their way around an unaware and sight-impaired Hepburn through the majority of the film, but we do not sympathize with them chiefly because the odds are on their favor instead. We want Hepburn to win. And she does in one of the most astonishing climaxes in Hollywood cinema history.