A plena luz del día

I saw this in the 1970's and recently viewed it again...it is still enjoyable. Richard Boone is great as a blind actor who plots revenge on his unfaithful wife played by Stella Stevens. Suzanne Pleshette and John Marley also play key roles. There is lots of suspense and LA scenes.

Having recently lost his eyesight, actor Tony Chappel (Richard Boone) finds that blindness is only one of his problems. While he was away in rehab, his beautiful wife (Stella Stevens) has gotten a bit too friendly with Tony's attorney. Now, Tony sets out on a seemingly impossible revenge scheme.

IN BROAD DAYLIGHT is a satisfying made-for-TV thriller with a simple, yet ingenious storyline. Written by the great Larry Cohen, it's a novel twist on the crime drama. Boone is convincing in his sightless role. His barely contained outbursts of temper are perfectly executed. Suzanne Pleshette plays Kate, Tony's kindly rehabilitation instructor, and John Marley is Lt. Bergman, the determined cop on the case.

The final act might be a tad predictable, but it's still a fitting denouement...

John Marley must have played his role in IN BROAD DAYLIGHT just before his most famous role of all as Jack Woltz in THE GODFATHER. As is well known, criminals always think themselves cleverer than the policemen investigating them, and that is exactly the case here: Richard Boone, portraying fairly convincingly an actor and movie director who has gone blind, catches his wife having intimacy with his best friend and decides to ice her and make the adulterous pal the culprit.

Needless to say, a blind man is bound to make more mistakes than a normal person, even one of poor eyesight, and in this instance he makes the mistake of taking his therapist's umbrella.

Suzanne Pleshette plays that therapist - a small and largely meaningless part, rather sad to watch. She helps with advice and a guide dog, but ends up compromising her client twice by speaking too much and coming back searching for her brolly.

That is where Marley proves the superior intelligence of the copper, immediately pouncing on the fact that Pleshette had lost her umbrella and linking it to the Greek fella who went into Boone's wife's hotel with the umbrella that only the porter saw. (Puzzled as to the reason for linking a missing brolly to a fellow no one could identify? So am I!)

Of course, blind Boone makes the classical mistake of returning to the scene of the crime... and catching the wrong taxi.

Passable TV entertainment that does not tax your brain cells.

Also original! Of course I won't tell the movie, like most others do. I will only say this: it's absolutely worth seeing! Richard Boone, an actor I love, is excellent. Stella Stevens, when she was attractive and sexy, is no less good in the role of the adulterous wife. There is also the sweet Suzanne Pleshette in the role of a caregiver. John Marley, was much more convincing in "Love Story" (1970) and "The Godfather" (1972) here, as a detective cop is not perfectly credible. Instead, a very beautiful and very smart dog is also in the cast. Robert Day, the English director, was a good craftsman, directing episodes of famous TV series such as "The Avengers", "The Invaders", "The Streets of San Francisco", "McCloud", "Kojak", "Dallas". He also directed "She", the boring "cult" film with Ursula Andress. This "In Broad Daylight" is perhaps his best film.

This was a great script from the prolific Larry Cohen, who wrote episodes for "Columbo," "Arrest and Trial" (a forerunner of "Law and Order") and episodes for Kraft Suspense Theater and "The Defenders." He has also written feature films.

I'd love to see this film again - I wish it would come out on video. It stars Richard Boone as a newly-blinded actor and Suzanne Pleshette as his teacher. Though the Boone character puts on a big show for Pleshette of refusing to accept his blindness, he coldly and calculatedly trains himself to act as a seeing man so that, in disguise, he can get rid of his wife and her lover.

It's a suspenseful story, a fascinating character-study and all around great entertainment. For some reason, this kind of TV movie fare has gone out of style and been replaced by women at risk films, rather slow-moving versions of Robin Cook and Mary Higgins Clark novels and the like. But we mystery buffs old enough to remember the '70s remember - with nostalgia - this kind of film.