¶ Intro / Opening
HP.
What does November the eighth mean to you? Specifically November the eighth, nineteen seventy two, Where were you on that day?
I wasn't even born yet, father alone.
And yet the day was a momentous one. That was the day the New York Rangers faced the Vancouver Canucks. More perspecting that more importantly, it was the day that Home Box Office debuted its very first programming, which was that NHL game Home Box Office, premiering very locally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, before spreading like a virus across the globe. Now there are twenty three HBO stations. Is it even
HBO anymore? We call it Max these days. Point B special appearance by miss Ripley Jean Hey, she's always been a Cinemax fan. HBO the very first paid cable service, just to start servicing the entire United States, offering programming uninterrupted by advertising, uninterrupted by meddling, television sensors, unedited programming. Now they could offer concerts, they could offer a stand up comedy, and on occasion, they could offer theatrical productions.
And that's what cable box theater is all about. Welcome patrons and new listeners all alike. This is Cable Box Theater with me in here in this inaugural episode HP, host of Night, mister Walters and composer of Everything Great from the weirding Way Media Network.
Oh. Thanks, it is such a pleasure to be here, Father Malone. I'm so excited that this is such a part of our shared experiences growing up watching these things on cable. So I'm really excited to talk about this.
And for our inaugural episode, we're gonna be We're gonna be talking about a theatrical production from nineteen eighty three. It is Wait Until Dark, the Frederick not penned stage play that actually premiered in nineteen sixty six at the ethel Merriman Theater. Within a year, it had been transformed into its first adaptations, first separate adaptation. That was a film adaptation directed by Terrence Young, starring Audrey Hepburn and
mister Allan Arkin. And there are some other people in there. But really this is a two hander. It's a two hander with a bunch of peripheral characters. HP. Had you seen the film of Wait Until Dark prior to the production we're discussing today.
I did not. I saw Wait Until Dark the movie much much later. I want to say I probably saw it within the last fifteen years, not which is a long time, but relatively speaking, that we're talking nineteen eighty two was when the HBO taped version of it was, so, yeah, it was quite a bit after it. How about yourself.
Yeah, my introduction to Wait Until Dark was the theatrical production we're discussing today. Before we go any further, I want to mention that everything we're going to be discussing here on cable box theater will be available for free
¶ Plot Summary of 'Wait Until Dark'
to the public in one form or another. In this case, you're going to want to head to YouTube. You're going to want to type in Wait until Dark Stacy Keach After that that'll do. That'll bring you to this particular production. HP. If you had to summarize the plot of Wait Until Dark, how would you do that?
So it's pretty easy to summarize. We have the protagonist as a blind woman, the newly blind. I don't think she was had an accident that rendered her blind. She has a husband who came back from a business trip with a doll that was given to him under mysterious circumstances. This doll is filled with drugs heroin, and the people who want it back devise a plan by which they're gonna use khanmen to try and convince her that her
husband is involved in some shady dealings. This is all in an effort, a plot to convince her to give them the doll before the husband is aware of what's happened. And this is she's not nearly as helpless as they think she is, and that's where the story goes.
You can go ahead and spoil it listen. Actually, speaking of spoilers, and I did mention where you can see these things, but we are going to be spoiling the fuck out of everything we're talking about here. In a case like this, which is all predicated on mystery. This is a mystery thriller. You're gonna want to seek it out if spoiling is a problem for you, because because here we go.
Yeah, this is your last chance to see it. If you want, pause the podcast right now, go to YouTube, watch it, then come back and listen to us chop it up. Okay, so this is your last chance. Go Okay, we're back. Let's talk about this. Spot them alone, Let's go
¶ Personal Experiences with 'Wait Until Dark'
for it.
Oh, let's go for it. Okay, So okay, Now I had seen this stage production on television like you did. I'm sure it was on a lot.
I think part of the charm of these televised plays is, and I believe you made this point on one of your weekly roundups, which is there wasn't a lot. There was a lot of air time to fill on these cable networks and not a lot of content fill it. So this was one of those things. It was an easy way to fill time in a given day, right, just videotape a performance of a play and just there
you go, you slap it up there. So it was on a lot, But I can't say that as a nine year old, I actually sat there and watched it from start to finish. I would usually turn on HBO. There's Stacy Keach doing his thing, there's Catherine Ross. I didn't have a lot of context, but I just remember the look of it, the stage set with the stairs. It's iconic. But I honestly don't think I really followed the plot much as a nine year old. Did you?
I would assume you, being much more refined in your viewing habits, did you watch it all the way through as a kid.
Oh yeah, multiple times, over and over and over again. This felt like a suppressed memory when I re encountered it. The image of Stacy Keach in an all white suit during a dark out sequence which the last act of this play, part of it takes place in total darkness, and although not obviously total darkness on stage, just a hint of light, but certainly he shines through the darkness
in his white suits. I certainly remembered that there were aspects of his performance that I had not remembered, and we're certainly either we're certainly going to get to that interesting choices. I remember really enjoying this production as a child. I felt like it was like, somehow a version of Hitchcock that was available to young me. I felt like it was because all you kept ever hearing about thrillers and mysteries was fucking Hitchcock and how he had done
it all, and it was already done. But here was this thing that was live and breathing on the television in our home that was new. I didn't know there was a history with it being a readaptation of a film, but I certainly really liked the production a lot. Upon
¶ Comparing Performances: Film vs. Stage
rewatch of both of the film and this adaptation, I have come to a conclusion, which is I don't really like way it until.
Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I still really enjoy it. I watched the movie again and I watched this production to prepare, and I will say I enjoyed it. But and maybe this is what you're getting at. There's a lot of suspension of this belief required to
watch this. It's not necessarily the most believable scenario. If I am these nefarious characters and I want to get this doll back from a blind woman, there's a lot easier ways to do it than concocting this convoluted scheme with multiple characters, people playing different characters, walking in, coming out. It's I decided very early on that that's the mode you have to be in to watch this. And once I decided to do that, I had a great time. I was on the edge of my seat. I thought
it was really entertaining. But you just have to accept the fact that they're going they're taking the long way home. Right.
Knowing what we know about criminal element, particularly with the character we're given here, Harry wrote, if this play film any iteration of it has produced anything. It's the fantastic character of Harry wrote who in the film version, portrayed by Alan Arkin, portrayed as a psychotic beatnik, a very subdued psychotic beatnik, very low talking, very measured performance.
He's menace personified for me in the movie. It's because maybe younger listeners to this podcast might know him. He's not necessarily known for his bad guy roles.
Right, He was primarily known for comedies Yeah right.
Miss Sunshine. More recently The in Laws. I think he was in with Peter falk Right, of course, the Return of Captain Invincible, which is one of our personal favorites. To see him in such he really is scary in this role. To see him in such an nefarious evil role is a revelation for me even now rewatching it, I said, why I forgot how really good he is?
You know, Yeah, I've always been a mind of that. The quiet villain is the scariest villain, and so his choices all through that performance are fucking great because he never really he loses it at the end because it's necessary to lose it by the end, but he maintains control until that last moment. He is wearing his sunglasses until he's doused in chemicals in the dark. He's a
cool cucumber. Now to your point about the stuff that you have to suspend disbelief on the point I was making is that given a character like Harry, he would immediately go into that house and knock her out or stab her to death and then ransack the place and find the down leave. That's what would have happened.
The only hole in that theory is that they don't know where the doll is. She doesn't know where the doll is. No one knows where it is until about three quarters of the way through the play. So I could see him breaking in, killing her whatever, disabling her in some way, but he's still not going to be able to find the doll. And that's I guess that's where the scheme comes in.
Yeah, it just seems a lot of machinations and it seems a lot of costumes in order to convince a blind woman you're somebody else.
There is because he portrays a man aggrieved by his wife who they portray as cheating on her husband with and then he also plays that gentleman's father who comes in and up ends the whole place. But to me,
that's a delight. In this case, we'll get to the eighty two production, But in terms of the movie, it's a delight for me because Alan Arkin is just so good in every iteration of Harry wrote we get to see because they're throwing everything but the kitchen sink at this blind woman, trying to convince her of this thing going down and keech, I shouldn't short change Stacy Heach because he's great in a similar way that he has to do the same things. He has to pretend to
be different characters. He's got to try and convince this woman of the veracity of his story. But again it's hard. He's very much in Alan Arkin's shadow through the whole production.
I think, I think if you didn't have Alan Arkin in that movie, it wouldn't be much of a movie on it. Agreed, and God bless them. We all love Andrey Hepburn, but she's a little too austere for playing the mousey, newly blinded housewife of a struggling photographer in a Greenwich Village basement apartment.
I didn't mind that as much because it gave me more sympathy because I felt like she because she seemed worldly and refined that it was much more of a loss for her to lose her sight. The issue that I had with her performance might have just been the tenor of acting at that time. I just found her at times overly hysterical and overly you know, just laying it out there, you know, a little more reservation I
think might might have improved it a little bit. But again, you know, acting means and modes change with the decades, and I think that was just more appropriate for that movie at that time.
Would you say that she was better or worse than Catherine Ross in the same role.
I would say I liked I enjoyed her performance better. I somehow I found her more believable. My issue with excuse me, my issue with Catherine Ross was it was a decent performance, but it was almost too measured in in how she conveyed the character A little bit. I wanted a little bit more. Maybe a little more hysterics might have been more interesting to me, because she is in a very scary situation and eventually she finds herself in but it was a little too guarded, I think.
So what is the middle ground between Audrey Hepburn and Catherine Ross where one is too hysterical and one is not hysterical enough.
I don't know. What do you you mean an actress who might have bridged the gas?
Yes, hmmm, Angie Dickinson. Angie Dickinson, she could have done it.
She could have done it. I don't know.
You know it's Angie Dickinson circa nineteen sixty six, like when they made the original movie instead of Audrey Hepburn stick, Angie Dickinson in that role.
Could have been interesting, could I don't know. Does she have the chops of an Audrey.
Hepber dare you? Does she have the chops of an Audrey Hepburn. She has just as many chops. They go to the same chop shop.
It's hard to She was policewoman, right, Yeah, it wasn't exactly taxing her acting ability.
She's a big bad mama.
Yeah, you're only supporting my point.
I am not. How dare you I'm saying she shines in garbage?
Oh okay, Well, I guess you raise a good point there. I guess probably as good of a choice of an actress as one that I can think of right off the top of my head.
Okay, let's agree the only good thing about that movie is alan Ark and we'll move on.
No, that's not true. I will reject that to that assertion. The thing the other thing that well, I won't boil it down to only these things, but I would say another thing that it has over the eighty two production is the music.
Oh well, yeah, music by.
Henry Mancini is superior.
In the movie.
You think that's better than Lalo Schiffrin's attempt in the stage production, I do, because versus Shiffrin, I didn't see
¶ The Role of Music in 'Wait Until Dark'
this coming.
Yeah, I thought Henry Mancini's score was much more innovative. He used two pianos, but what was interesting was one was tuned four steps below the other. So it creates this weird dissonance, this uneasy feeling through the whole picture, especially towards the end. And I think that atmosphere was brilliantly captured. Not to say that Lalo Schiffrin's score was something to sneeze at it. It was fine, it was great, but in my opinion, it doesn't compare with the sixty seven soundtrack.
I will just say that they're both pretty great. I was not expecting a score for the stage production at all. So the fact that we got a good one and the fact that it was different made that one special. But I completely agree with you about the Mancini scory. It is superior and those discordant kind of notes that
they're jangling on out during the opening sequence. Even I had the movie on a couple of times, so at one point just had it on in the background and I could not focus on what I was doing because there was something just stabbing me in the fucking neck. It was Henry Mancini.
Yeah, it's like this. It was like ASMR before there was such a thing as ASMRI. It kickles this thing in your brain that makes you uneasy. By the way, did you know that Henry Mancini wrote the theme to What's Happening? Do you know that?
No?
I didn't know that either. I just found out. How cool is that?
It's absurd?
It's absurd. Anyway, we can move on. So, yeah, I thought the music was superior. In the sixty seven version. We talked about Alan Arkin.
I'll say this about the movie. The movie is seems more sent bound than the stage production filmed on videotype.
That's exactly what I was about to say Botom alone, it was much it was if by that you mean it was more claustrophobic and more, you know, more you felt more closed in. I think the movie did a better job than that, but it's only it only makes sense because you have the ability to have, you know, different lenses to focus in on framing of cast and everything like that. It's harder to do that. I'll get
that with a stage production. And also given the fact that the stage production is the original, we can't forget that this movie was an adaptation. Like you said, so, yeah it was. I found it a little more effective in that sense. But the set is the set. It's iconic. When you see that the curtain come up on that eighty two production, it's you know where everything is because that's it. I'm sure it's clearly written in the stage
directions and everything where everything needs to be. But that staircase coming down the middle, the windows off to the to stage right, that's all brilliant that it's wonderfully captured in both cases.
Oh, I agree with all of that, But by set bound, I meant that the film production looks like they filmed it on a fucking set. It seems like they're they're in a studio somewhere.
I could see that it is a little bit artificial.
They got a couple of hiccup shots that may or may not be on the streets of New York. There's an Amsterdam thing and an airport thing at the beginning, or rather a Montreal or some Canadian location. But once, once we get to that set, it's just a fucking set. It feels like a set, and then they go out onto the back lot.
Yeah, but that's but to me, that's almost like a nod to the stage origins of the original play.
Absolutely not. Fuck. You go to the Lower East Side fucking film this in a basement apartment. You have the ability to do that. It's nineteen sixty six. This is the way to do it.
I didn't mind it. I didn't mind it, but I see your point. I just didn't mind it as much as you. I didn't mind the artifice of being on
¶ Cast and Performances in the Stage Production
a set, all right.
So we're talking about the stage production of Wait Until Dark. Now, the stage productions, and we've mentioned Catherine ross is playing Susie in this one. Stacy keach Is wrote, and then a whole bunch of other people, including David Leisure, who is one of the policemen who rushes at the end. That he was, of course, Joeysuzu.
Joe is Suzu. And he was also in that at sitcom Empty Nest with Richard Mulligan.
That's right, and he's one of the Harry Christian is an airplane.
That was see. That was his debut movie role and this was his second big role, was Cop number two in Wait Until Dark.
My God, Robin Gamble. He's one of the cops in it. He's a recognizable face. He's terrible in this. He's the Sergeant Carlino.
Oh yeah, but he lives in the shadow. Let's face it is it. Jack Weston played the Carlino And of course what do we know Jack Weston from Father Malone, The Four Seasons.
Don't eat in the Mercedes. That's all I have to say about Jack Weston.
Maybe we'll get to that someday, because that's also very stage bound.
Oh, we're definitely getting to that because they've got a television series on the way.
The rest of the cast of the eighty two production, I couldn't pick him out of a lineup, but certainly it's the It's Stacy Keach. It's Catherine Ross and the fellow who played mister Hendrix. His name escapes me, but I've seen him in other things. I can't think of his name, though.
He's the senator in Porky's two. The next stays trying to get re elected.
That's right, Edward Winter. You're right, But like you were saying, much like sixty seven, this is all about Stacy Keach and Katherine Ross. The other the guy who the other two confidence men, Mike Tallman and Sergeant carlino Are. I couldn't pick them out of a lineup. But it's all about Stacy Keach and Catherine Ross.
Okay, we've already talked about Katherine Ross. I think she's fine. I think she's giving a different performance. I think she's giving a as you said, a more It's odd because in the film version, Audrey Hepburn is over the top and Alan Arkin is completely underplaying it, and here in the stage production, Katherine Ross is underplaying it and Stacy Keach is going way the fuck over the top.
It's interesting that you put it that way, but you're one hundred percent correct, Stacy Keach in this is it's much more like my impression initially was he's much more of almost like a haughty super villain take on the character. He just he's laughing Minigah and just seems so unhappy. It's worthy. He seems so what's the words. Yeah, he's just over the top, laughing and menacing in a different way than Alan Arkin never was.
I won't give it to you. I won't give it to you. I won't give it to you. You remind me of somebody else has said that.
Only She said, I don't know where it is.
I don't know, I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
So I've heard people say that before, only she was much more stubborn.
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. It's very Caesar Romero's joker.
It's very joker like, and I did write that down. It doesn't go completely over the top until the moment that we're driving towards here, but it is very much like a joker type thing. Where's he's discussing his plan with the other two surrogates and he's so amused by himself and by the machinations of the scheme that he's come up with, it's almost like he should be like, ha,
¶ Comparing Keach and Arkin's Portrayals
like doing these He doesn't necessarily do that, but he's definitely he's not menacing in a quiet way. He's menacing in a bellowie, take charge of the room kind of way. I don't know how would you describe his performance.
He's unfortunately missing his patented Mike hammer mustache here because this is the perfect time to be twirling it with what he's going for. I wonder if he's chosen this tack for the character because of how understated Alan Arkin was and because, let's face it, that in nineteen eighty two, that movie is still fresh in people's minds Arkins performance
is still sitting there. Stephen King in his book Dance maccob has an entire section devoted to this film and that was like nineteen eighty and he's describing as one of the most horrifying experiences you could see. He's talking about a theater where the exit signs were burned out, so the entire audience was burned was in total blackness during the finale. So I wonder if Keach is going he did it so subtly let me just giggle and be happy as opposed to quiet and ultimately outwardly menacing.
Did you know they wanted to kill me?
I did. I knew it even before they did.
They were awful images, and that's why you saw threw them. The lovely thing was the way I let them set it all up. Oh that silliness, A meeting in the parking lot, the whole thing.
They had comic book mind.
So he did it their way right until the end.
You would have to think that that was a deliberate choice on his part because it is so diametrically opposite of what Alan Arkin brought to the role. I mean, he, like you said, he's doing everything but twirling his mustache. He's, for lack of a better term, he's flouncing about the apartment as he's describing his scheme and their role in it and how all of this, Whereas Alan Arkin, I think, is sitting through the whole analogue that happens in the movie.
Should we should we get to that moment yet, because it's it's hard to keep talking about his performance without mentioning the part that goes completely batchet over the top. I mean, it's crazy.
HP, Why are you trying to rest to our finale? Like, you know, where do we go after after that moment?
Because we're dancing around it. Let's all right, let's let's back up for a minute. Yes, I would say, he he, he must have had that top of mind as he's doing this. As I think anyone playing wrote would that they're they're kind of in the shadow of Alan Arkin because not only is it a definitive performance, but because it's committed to celluloid, it's not like a theatrical performance or play a lot live theater performance where you just have the word of mouth to say, oh, that person
was really good in that role. People can just pop in, they can watch it on TV, they can pop in a video cassette or later a DVD. Alan Arkins performance is captured forever, so it's only ever as far away as your nearest entertainment system.
Right now available on to be for free.
Exactly, which I think is one of By the way, one of the wonderful things about this series is, as Father Malone mentioned, these are all things that you can find for free, so enjoy that. That is just it's great. It's just so easy. You can hear this and check it out anyway. So anyway, my point is, you have if you're essaying the role of wrote, you've got to figure out a way to separate yourself from Alan Arkins performance.
And I think that's exactly what he did here, because even though he begins, maybe in a little bit of an homage to Row, he starts out with the glasses, doesn't he comes in with sunglasses.
Absolutely, he's completely aping Alan Arkin when he walks through. He's meeting everyone's expectations when he walks through the door for the first time. Oh here we go, We're gonna get some Alan Arkin. Now, I got to say.
So.
We talked about this a little bit beforehand, and I mentioned that for me, Stacy Keach's is inseparable from my camera because that was on TV when I was a kid. That was my first exposure to Stacy Keach. I know that he has history as a comic comedic actor. He was in Cheech and Chongs, Thy Dreams, He's done a lot. He's a very versatile actor. But for me, that's all
he ever knew him as. So to see him in this is to appreciate that the man has range and he can play a lot of different types of roles, not just the hard boiled detective and not just the clueless cop. He's really he's actually very good in this.
Yeah, this was my first exposure to mister Keach, and then on the heels of this, it was as you mentioned, Chiechen Chong's Nice Dreams. So for me, Stacy Keach has always had range because he went from this terrifying performance to this ineffectual bumbling he's been up and smoke as well.
Yeah, he's really. As I was watching this, I actually was thinking the older Stacy Keach I think might have actually made if they ever made a live action Dark Knight Returns. I think he might have actually made a pretty good older Bruce Wayne.
Oh my god, absolutely, if they had made in nineteen eighty eight. Yeah, yeah, he.
Had the right He had the right build for it, he had the right look. Either that or even he actually might have even made a good Jim Gordon also because he does look like Commissioner Gordon a little bit with when he had white hair, but he had the build. He was stocky, a little wide. But yeah, to see him in this and to rewatch this after so many years gave me a new appreciation for how good he was, Like I said, because I in my mind he was already type cast as a hard boiled detective.
You want to see a fantastic performance of Stacy Keach nineteen seventy two, The Life and Times of Judge roy Bean, starring Paul Newman. Paul Newman is horrifically miscast in the role. John Millius wrote that movie, and Wow, Stacy Keach shows up as a character named Bad Bob who is an albino gunfighter, and it must be seen to be believed. Stacy Keach sounds Stacy Keach is fucking fantastic. He seems
¶ Makeup Scene
down for anything. He didn't ever seem bound by any genre or medium. He fluidly going between television and movies his entire life, and always a solid performance. All I can say is, mister Keach, we love you.
He's really good. Like I said, I'm so glad to have seen this and rekindled my admiration for the man. He's really good.
Oh boy, let's talk about mister Keach's biggest choice in this play now. In the regular play, as HP has mentioned, wrote, his compatriot Lisa, who has smuggled the drugs and it's not a compatriot at all. He was there to kill her at the airport, right.
Yeah, that's what motivates her to give up the doll because she gets off the plane. In the movie, she sees him waiting for him on the tarmac or whatever, and in a panic, she hustles over to this guy getting off a plane who is Susie's husband, gives him a sob story about I got to get this to a kid at the hospital. He takes the doll, and then she gets intercepted by Wrote and eventually murdered by him.
Right and yeah. In both versions, when Sergeant Carlino and other guy are in the apartment with Wrote, they make the discovery that a rote has already placed the body of Susie or not Susie placed the body of Lisa, who was the drug mule, into the closet there. Right, That's the last we hear or really see of Lisa other than as dialogue for the rest of the thing. She doesn't really come back up, and certainly Alan Arkin doesn't really lean into what he did to her at
all at the end of that film. But here in this adaptation, while the finale is going down, the finale involves wrote he's killed both of his partners in this. They're both dead now, and he's alone with Susie in the apartment. He's chained the door and he intends to get that doll. Susie has turned the tables on him, knocked out all the lights, but now he's got in the upper hand again and by opening the refrigerator. That's
how it ends anyway. But before that, while he's interrogating her, alone with her in the apartment, and she knows he's got the knife, and he's got a thing of gasoline and he's taunting her. Stacy Keats has decided to open up Lisa's purse that he has kept missus wrote she's referred to. And then he proceeds to put on makeup during his monologue and dialogue with Susie, which the think of this one HP.
And it's not even it's not even just that he's putting on makeup, but he's putting it on in a very exaggerated fashion, like the lipstick is big and smeary on his lips, He puts rouge on. He even produces an ear ring and puts an earring on. What the disconnect. That's weird enough as it is, but as he's doing this, he is basically describing, almost beat for beat, how he murdered Lisa, this woman Lisa, and what she was saying
to him, and she was begging for her life. And I had to I watched it, and then later I had to go back and rewatch just that scene because I was watching it really late for the first time, and I had to say, did I hallucinate that? Did I dream that Stacy Keach was applying makeup grossly while he is basically taunting this woman and threatening to murder her.
And there it is, And it's such a weird, weird it's an inexplicable choice, but it's such an indelible image to me that, honestly, like, I can forget everything else about this production, but this will stick with me because it's so out of left field and so jarring as a tableau. That's happening is anything I've seen in these sort of cable plays. I don't know what was going through your mind as you're watching this play out foam.
It reminded me that that image that I had carried in my head of Stacy Keach since childhood. The one of him in the white suit also included glistening lipstick as he was lunging. I was shocked that I had forgotten about this, but then I had forgotten a good portion of it. But certainly yeah, inexplicable. Let's explicit now is the choice here that Harry wrote will recount his murders and put on trophies of his victims and assume their identity for a moment. Is this a common thing?
Because here's the thing the psychopath wrote that Alan Arkin gives us. Is that low key psychopath here we mentioned the joker. This is a lunatic performance of his, like, once this makeup has gone on, he's way the fuck over the top. I'm not saying it's a bad performance.
It's a good performance. It's just I'm wondering if he has made that choice that that's what he's doing, or has he decided that wrote is has some sort of dissociative sort of situation, or what I think is more likely than anything, This production comes on the heels of Brian de Palm was Dressed to kill, which had made a huge stir with a transvestite villain or transsexual villain.
For me, I think you would have to. I don't think it's some indication that the character is gay or anything like that. I don't think it's that thought through. It feels it's I don't know. I read somewhere. I know actors they love props. They love to have business to do while they're delivering lines. It could be somebody lighting a cigarette, rolling a cigarette and lighting it as part of their whatever. I think this was partially just because actors like to do stuff with their hands and
have business while they're delivering lines. And I think for this was just yet another way for him to differentiate himself from the Alan Arkin version of wrote this is so unexpected and like I said, so indelible that it's a shocking choice. But here we are still talking about it's forty somewhad years later, so it's interesting. What I would be curious about is, let me ask you, have you ever seen any other productions of Weight until Dark?
Is there anything approaching the weirdness of this moment.
I've not seen it produced with this choice for Rote as a character. This is an actor's choice or director's choice, because this isn't in the book of the play. Yeah, the thing is scene through the lens of today's current sexual lens. This is beyond problematic, but is I just don't understand the intent behind it to comment on it other than it's weird and nicky and maybe not the best choice.
Certainly, as you said, and with two modern viewers, it's definitely problematic or only hints at how weird and awful it is and squishy it is, but it's I don't know. I again, he's good as Rote, but he swings too far in the manic jokery, giggly, having way too much fun with this psychopathic role. That's that's why Alan Arkin will always be more effective, because he does way more with way less. It's hard to imagine Arkin making a similar choice with his version of the character.
Yeah, I don't think he had any evil intent in his heart. I don't think he was trying to punch down. But at the same time, it's maybe one for the dust bin. He's certainly scary. He frightened me. Look, here's the thing. If you're comparing this to the original film,
there is no comparison in performances. Alan Arkan is just fucking terrifying and completely believable, and Keach leans into cartoonishness from time to time, and a lot of times it feels like, as we've mentioned, just a way to differentiate his performance from Arkins, and it just feels like you don't need to go that hard. But as it turns out, we have an actual answer, right we do.
This was an interview that Stacy Keach did with the Seattle Gay News in April two thousand and nine. The question was put to him by the interviewer. He says, towards the end of the interviewer says, and wait until dark with Catherine Ross. Towards the end of the show, your character pulls out lipstick and a feminine handkerchief, implying transvested behavior. What inspired that interpretation and Keats's response is interesting and it lines up with what you were saying earlier.
Favl alone, I thought it would be dramatic. This character had power over her and yet she couldn't see him, but the audience could see me. I thought I'd show a duality, something theatric and dramatic. Plus it was something to distinguish my interpretation of a role that was so well done in the movie. So there you go. That's exactly what we.
Thought, did Quentin Tarantino go that hard in two thousand and one when he took over the role.
I can't imagine anything more horrifying in a different way than seeing Quentin Tarantino play the role of Rote, because on his best day, the man is nowhere near the actor that I have. Either of these gentlemen are at Arkin or Keach?
And I remember you have you not seen on the radio?
Sh it's terror? I don't need to, because I've seen all of his bit roles in all of his movies, all the cameos that he does. But and I remember when he got that part yet in that production of Weight Until Dark, and it was it's stun casting. Let's call it what it is. I would not have put it past him, being flamboyant and his choices to do something like that, but I would. It would have surprised me to no end if any of the other wrotes throughout the play's history have done anything close to that.
But I guess in some way you could you could just mark that as another bit of fearlessness from Stacy Keach. The man doesn't care. He wanted to put his own stamp on the role, and by God, that's exactly what he did. Whether it stands the test of time as far as sensitivity is where that's what we're discussing, but it's certainly his own. No one can't stay.
Different, right, That is one way to describe it. Do you recommend people go watch this?
I do, I do, but I think it's very worthwhile. I'm such a fan of live theater anyway. I guess people should understand that going in. I think we both are. And this is such a great opportunity for us to relive, recapture the sort of wonder of these shows. And this is a great example of that because I don't get out to as much live theater as i'd like to, and that's what these shows did so well. They brought the theatrical performance to your living room, and that's that's
what I got from this as well. It was fun. It was like watching a live performance. And the performances are all at a minimum, they're decent. Some of them are better than others. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. What did you think? What was your experience watching them?
After all these years, you know, we've been getting a glut of live productions on television. These days, whether it's re enactments of old episodes of sitcoms or hey, it's Grease Live, Rocky Horror Live. And I understand the resurgence and popularity. And it speaks to what you said, which is it's nice to be able to sit at home and view professionals doing the thing and something that you might not have gotten a chance to go out and spend one hundred and fifty dollars to sit in the
back row. But I will say that this is the way I prefer it. This is a film will a tape of a production going on on stage, where it seems like all of the recent television versions are just attempts to make movies in real time. They're very impressionistic, and they have lots of sets and moving parts and the cameras always and this is like sitting in the audience and watching a stage production. So that's what I like most about it. I still don't like Wait Until Dark.
I think it's mediocre at best. I think Frederick Nott, who wrote it, he also wrote dial M for Murder, and I think that is far superior. There's a reason they keep redoubtedly they keep remaking dial M for Murder which they've done two or three times now. Not so much this wait until dark business. Although it's ripe for a redo, right and they fire up the NBC engine.
There's rifts on it. I think. I remember years ago Victoria Principal did a TV movie where she was a blind woman, and not exactly the same thing, but I think there's been rifts on it. By the way, one of my one of my favorite movie experiences was seeing dial m from Murder in the original three D at in Brookline at.
The Foolage Corner.
Yeah, it was fantastic, but anyway, yeah, and I agree. I was actually encouraged when George Clooney think with spearheading this notion of doing live performances on television. He did a failsafe was the thing that I remember most. He might have done one or two others I don't recall, but I thought the attempt is noble enough in my mind, because you just don't see these anything like this much anymore.
To your point, it's usually, let's redo an episode of different strokes or facts of life or all in the family, and that's fine. I watch those and I enjoy them, but there's usually some attempt to gust see them up for a modern audience. To your point, there's nothing for me like seeing just a videotaped performance of a theatrical play played from start to finish, no artifice, no crazy editing or camera tricks, just the actors doing their thing. I agree, like a good.
Old playhouse ninety. All right, that's we're gonna wrap this one up here. Thank you all for listening, all you patrons. This is a patron on the episode. I know I introduced it as the sort of inaugural one where we're sharing it with everybody, but that's actually not the case. This is just for you guys. Thank you all for listening. Keep subscribing or something I don't know, get more subscribers, HP. Where can these other people find you?
Oh? You can find me. I co host the podcast called Night Mister Walters, a taxi podcast with yourself. Of course. I also am producing new episodes of another podcast called Noise Junkies, which is a music podcast. Please check that out as well. I'm an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Chris Stashu. Enjoy that, and I have a band camp site called Hpmusicplease dot bandcamp dot com.
As for me, I'm not going to give you the Patreon thing. You're already here, but keep listening to Midnight Viewing. We're on there twice a week, you know that. Monday's Father Malone's Weekly round Up with Ripley Gene, and then
¶ Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Fridays or Thursdays or whenever the fuck I feel like it, well put out either Horror Anthology podcast with Towns from the dark Side I Do with Christashu and mister Mike White from the Projection Booth and Anthology's Attack with Antonio Lapour. There's too many shows, and it's all for you, all for you Patreon, and then I dive off with the news on my neck. Remember Damien, anyway.
Give till it hurts people support, support.
No, they're already supporting. Thank you guys, Thank you everybody. We'll talk to you next time.
I played Harry Road Junior in the script and he was He's a monster. He's a statistic, drug ridden psychopath. I think playing heavy is liberating if you have a lot of rage and negativity in you that you want to xpia and I'm afraid to do in your own life. I have my problems like everybody does, but I don't think that's one of them. It wasn't liberating for me. In fact, I don't think anybody was terribly happy with
what I was doing. For a long time, I had a plan for this guy, and that was that he gets unleashed the first time he pulls an iphon somebody, which was weeks into the shooting of the film I was playing him. Was what looked like him being a kind of a laid back guy, but it wasn't laid back, like a snake being laid back. He's just waiting for an opportunity. He was on every conceivable drug known demand, and they were all kind of counteracting each other, so
he was in a state of negative neutrality. I remember that for like two minutes after I pulled a knife for the first time in the script, everybody breathed a sigh of relief, and everybody's, oh, yeah, okay, we see what he's doing. Now it starts to make sense.
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