Susy (Wait Until Dark)

FEAR: BEING UNDERESTIMATED

When you think of Audrey Hepburn and the kinds of movies she starred in, horror and suspense are probably not the first genres you think of.

She was usually seen in, now iconic, romantic comedies, such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Funny Face, wearing Givenchy and lighting up the screen with her effortless charm.

Perhaps the farthest stray from her usual material is Terence Young’s 1967 film Wait Until Dark, in which she plays Susy, a blind housewife in New York City, who becomes wrapped up in a drug deal gone wrong.

It seems three conman, the leader played by Alan Arkin, believe Susy is in possession of a heroin-filled doll.

Unbeknownst to the leading lady, a desperate woman who was once associated with the conmen has handed the doll off to Hepburn’s on-screen husband at the airport, in hopes of getting the evidence off her hands.

Neither Susy or her husband are aware of the precious substance inside the doll, or how desperate the criminals are to get it back.

The majority of the film is a grim series of tricks played on Susy by the conmen, as they pretend to be different people in hopes of her telling them where the doll is.

Also thrown into the mix is a nosy upstairs child who frequents the apartment of Susy and her husband, mostly to talk because she’s lonely, but also to take out her neglected-child angst on Hepburn, who really doesn’t need another source of stress in this film.

Susy must rely on the word of strangers, some trustworthy and some not, to let her know everything, from who’s in the apartment, to what’s going on outside, and everything in between.

The last 30 or so minutes of the film are notoriously suspenseful, as two of the three conmen have perished at the hands of Alan Arkin’s Mr. Roat, leaving only him and Susy in the apartment.

Susy attempts to completely blackout the room to incapacitate her attacker, which serves as a terrifying setting for the final scenes in which the two characters try to survive without any vision.

It is clear that most people in the film have underestimated Susy and her abilities; she has an especially impairing disability, and on top of that, she’s not the most physically imposing person to begin with. Audrey Hepburn doesn’t exactly come across as an action star, after all.

Against all odds, she proves herself by the end of the film, and her grit throughout the film makes you root for her from the very start.