The reaction was always the same. During my high school days, I must have seen “Wait Until Dark” five times during its theatrical release. Audrey Hepburn was appealing, of course, but the main attraction for me was Alan Arkin’s chilling portrayal of a psycho sadist who, in the course of reclaiming a misdirected heroin shipment, terrorizes a blind woman in her apartment. Late in the 1967 thriller, the distressed damsel temporarily gets the upper hand by stabbing her tormentor. But as she walks away, the psycho leaps back into her kitchen and grabs her ankle.
And every time he did this, every time I saw “Wait Until Dark,” people in the audience (including me, the first time) screamed. Really, really loudly. Like, louder than the folks around me in a theater seven years later during the first jump-scare in “Jaws.”
While reading the online obituaries and social media tributes as the sad news of Arkin’s death spread, I was struck by how many other people vividly recalled that shocking moment as a highlight of the 89-year-old actor’s decades-long career (and, not incidentally, an indelible memory they’ve never quite been able to shake). But, of course, “Wait Until Dark” is merely one movie in the multitude of movies that demonstrated Arkin’s prodigious talent and protean versatility.
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Beginning with his film debut in Norman Jewison’s hilarious 1966 Cold War comedy “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” which cast him as the frazzled Soviet Navy commander of a submarine that runs aground near a small New England community, and continuing through his Oscar-winning turn as a foul-mouthed, heroin-sniffing grandfather in “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006) and beyond, Arkin found dozens of ways to make us laugh. In “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” (1968), Robert Ellis Miller’s wildly uneven drama based on Carson McCullers’ classic 1940 novel, he made us weep with a meticulously implosive and deeply affecting dramatic performance as a deaf-mute silver engraver driven to despair by the death of a similarly impaired friend.
Arkin masterfully traversed the tightrope between dark comedy and wartime horror as WWII Army Air Force bombardier John Yossarian in “Catch 22,” Mike Nichols’ critically divisive film of Joseph Heller’s novel, which managed to make audiences gasp, if not scream, with its own shocking scene: Yossarian, who’s frequently very funny in his vain efforts to be diagnosed as too crazy to fly, is irrecoverably traumatized by his discovery of a badly wounded turret gunner on his plane.
Talk to enough film critics and movie buffs about Arkin’s wide range of performances, and you’ll start to suspect that almost everyone has a different favorite. It might be his coolly methodical Sigmund Freud treating a paranoid Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” (1976). Or his sometimes snarky, sometimes snarling, always bombastic Hollywood producer involved with the fake-movie cover for a hostage-rescue mission in “Argo” (2012). It might even be his uproarious tag-team with Peter Falk in “The In-Laws” (1979), a comedy that fails to qualify as a cult favorite only because its fan base is way too large.
And there are the equally impactful performances in lesser-known movies: his desperate Puerto Rican father who seeks a better life for his two sons by passing them off as political refuges from Cuba in the under-rated dramedy “Popi” (1969); his chronically glum insurance claims adjustor who debates the concepts of luck and chance with a fellow bar patron (Matthew McConaughey) in the portmanteau drama “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing” (2002); his B-movie studio executive whose patience is sorely tested by salary demands from a would-be cowboy star (Jeff Bridges) in the nostalgic comedy “Hearts of the West” (1975); his small-time crook who proffers his writer son (James Woods) dubious advice based on, ahem, fanciful Bible interpretations in Ted Kotcheff’s film/miniseries of Mordecai Richler’s “Joshua Then and Now” (1985).
Marshall Brickman’s inspired satire “Simon” (1980) showcases what is arguably the absolute best of Arkin’s too-often-overlooked performances, as a psychology professor brainwashed by irresponsible scientists into believing he is an extraterrestrial assigned to “save” Earth. Simon (Arkin) takes his new identity so seriously, and the hoax proves to be so effective, that the “visitor” impresses reporters with his rules for earthling self-improvement. Among the joltingly still-relevant mandates: “Anybody who owns a factory that makes radioactive waste has to take it home with him at night to his house.”
And if you’re looking for an answer to the challenge often posted on Film Twitter — “Name an actor who always can improve any movie with his presence!” — consider this: More than a few of Arkin’s most engaging performances can be found in late-career films that most people (even people who actually liked those films) don’t discuss in polite company.
In “Grudge Match” (2013), for example, he repeatedly steals every scene that isn’t bolted to the floor as Louis “Lightning” Colin, a seen-it-all, screw-it-all boxing trainer who’s tasked with readying a monumentally out-of-shape fighter (Sylvester Stallone) for a long-delayed rematch with an old rival (Robert De Niro). Indeed, Arkin’s sardonic verbal sparring with co-star Kevin Hart (as a motormouth promoter) is so consistently sidesplitting, you can’t help wishing the two actors had been spun off in an “Odd Couple”-flavored sequel.
Arkin never, ever phoned it in. To be sure, he might have wished for a better movie than “Spenser Confidential” (2020) as his swan song — and, really, who could blame him? — but there’s no denying this instantly disposable Netflix programmer benefitted greatly from his comic relief as an irascible ally of Mark Wahlberg’s cop-turned-shamus Spencer (who bears only a slight resemblance to the private eye character in Robert B. Parker’s mystery novels).
Likewise, “Going in Style” (2017) was not treated kindly by critics who found the remake vastly inferior to the 1979 comedy of the same title about retirees who try their hand at bank robbery. But Arkin develops an irresistibly amusing give-and-take with co-stars Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman — and clearly enjoys his last on-screen romance with a well-cast Ann-Margret. Talk about going in style.