Plot

A videotaped production of the Frederick Knott play in which three criminals play an elaborate scam on a blind woman who is in possession of a doll that, unbeknownst to her, is very incriminating.

The set is a humble basement apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City. The set is one large room containing areas for the kitchen, living room, and an entry staircase, while the bedroom is offstage. A man (Joshua Bryant) enters, apparently unfamiliar with the place, and begins to rummage through the apartment. While he is offstage in the bedroom, another man (Robin Gammell) enters and does the same thing, and they nearly attack each other. Turning on the lights, they realize they know each other. Each of them has been summoned there by a phone call from a person they didn't recognize. They have a conversation that reveals they are both ex cons, recently released from prison. They are both associated with a woman named Lisa, and they assume it was Lisa who summoned them to this apartment.

However, they are joined by a man they don't know (Stacy Keach). He is a sinister-looking character that the men immediately mistrust, he introduces himself as Harry Roat, Jr. from Scarsdale, and he addresses the two men as Mike Talman and Officer Carlino. These are not their real names, but he insists that they are now Talman and Carlino. Roat tells them that Lisa sent him to set up a job for the two of them: the people who live in this apartment are a young couple named Sam and Suzy Hendrix. Mr. Hendrix has accidentally come into possession of a child's doll that Lisa used to smuggle a large stash of heroin into the country. Lisa apparently gave it to him at the airport when she felt she was about to be accosted; when she returned to the apartment to collect the doll, Sam could not find it. Their mission is to recover the doll without making the Hendrixes think that anything truly suspicious is going on. They cannot use force, because the Hendrixes may not really know where the doll is, so they decide to get Suzy alone and con her out of the doll. In the course of the conversation, Carlino and Talman question Roat about his involvement in the setup and suddenly he turns violent, pulling a switchblade. The two men quickly subdue him, however, and they find out the truth: Lisa is actually dead, murdered by Mr. Roat, and her body is hanging in the closet of the apartment. Since Carlino and Talman have touched things all over the apartment, their fingerprints are everywhere and they would surely be convicted of Lisa's murder; they are forced to comply to Roat's wishes. Talman and Carlino demand a larger percentage of the take.

They are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Suzy Hendrix (Katharine Ross). Suzy is blind and walks with a guide cane. They duck for cover and she enters the apartment alone, repeatedly coming close enough to touch the intruders. Suzy instinctively knows she is not alone, but she assumes that she's being watched by Gloria (Natalie May), the 12 year old girl who lives in one of the upstairs apartments. Suzy phones Sam at his photography studio and asks about the woman who was supposed to meet him there for photos; the woman hasn't arrived yet, and it's clear that she is a ruse that's been created by Roat to distract the Hendrixes long enough to search the apartment. Suzy leaves to meet Sam, but not before admonishing "Gloria" for lurking in the apartment. Once more alone, the three men form an uneasy partnership--they will dispose of Lisa's body and return the next night to con Suzy into giving them the doll.

The next day, Suzy helps Sam (Edward Winter) develop photos in the makeshift darkroom, which is really their galley kitchen. Sam has a heavy blind over the windows to block out the light from outside. Suzy and Sam discuss the murdered woman that was found in the parking lot near their apartment, whom we know was Lisa. Sam thinks it's a ploy by Suzy to keep him from going to Asbury Park, where the same Italian woman supposedly has summoned him for a photo shoot. Of course we know this is another deception of Roat's, meant to get Sam out of the way. Suzy and Sam have a long discussion as he gets ready to leave for the rest of the day. Sam has a list of chores he would like Suzy to accomplish, all of which require her to overcome the handicap of her blindness. Suzy is frustrated by this and thinks Sam is pushing her to become the "champion blind lady". It is clear that Sam merely wants Suzy to be independent, for her own sake, in spite of her disability. One of the things they discuss is Gloria, who Suzy mistrusts. Gloria is feisty and angry, and likes to torment Suzy in minor ways. Sam sees her behavior as harmless, and an obvious result of her lonely home life. Sam collects his items and sets out for the bus station to take a bus to Asbury Park.

Shortly after he leaves, Talman arrives to begin the elaborate con game. Coincidentally, he arrives just as the cigarette Sam left behind sets fire to some paper in the ashtray. Suzy makes a panicked phone call to the fire department, but before she can summon them, Talman arrives and helps her. He introduces himself as an old friend of Sam's from his military days, and he easily gains Suzy's trust. He talks to her for a short while and then leaves, after which Gloria arrives. She seems very bratty and sarcastic toward Suzy, and makes a few knowing remarks about seeing Talman alone with Suzy in their apartment. Suzy and Gloria wind up having an argument and Gloria starts throwing items around the aparment to upset Suzy. Finally they have a truce and Gloria helps clean up the mess she made.

As Gloria leaves, a man they don't recognize bursts into the apartment; it is Roat in disguise as an old man. He rants and raves in a semi-comic manner and retrieves a photograph from the bedroom of Sam and Suzy. Talman arrives and pretends to confront the old man, but Roat runs off. Talman tells Suzy that the old man escaped with a photograph, and thus begins the con. Roat reappears as a younger version of the old man and introduces himself as Harry Roat, Jr. from Scarsdale; he pretends to be the son of the old man, and the photograph was meant to suggest that Sam was having an affair with Roat Jr.'s wife. Talman pretends to make a phone call to the police and Carlino arrives pretending to be a police officer. The men are really making phone calls to a phone booth across the street, where they take refuge in a parked van between their visits to Suzy's apartment. The men spin a wild story meant to link Sam to the murdered woman found just outside the apartment. They convince Suzy that the doll is incriminating evidence connecting Sam to the murder, and that it must be found and destroyed before Sam returns from Asbury Park.

Suzy, however, does not know where the doll is. Carlino, Talman and Roat think that it might be in the locked safe that the Hendrixes have in their apartment, but Suzy says it can't possibly be in there because the safe doesn't belong to them and they can't open it. Talman's job is to act as Suzy's confidant, and together they tear the apartment up looking for the doll, but it simply cannot be found.

Eventually Suzy begins to become suspicious; she notices that the men who come into the apartment are constantly fiddling with the blinds, after which the phone always rings. She also can tell that Roat Jr. and Roat Sr. are the same person, because one of Roat's shoes squeaks. She enlists Gloria to help her confirm her suspicions by having her spy on the phone booth; she has Gloria ring the telephone every time someone goes into the phone booth to make a call, and by this she determines that Carlino and Roat are working together, and that Carlino is probably not a police detective. It also comes to light that Gloria stole the doll from the apartment; this is why they couldn't find it, Gloria had it in her own apartment. Suzy discovers this and has Gloria hide the doll in the trash can underneath the garbage bag. She then phones Talman to tell him that she has the doll, but she is shocked when Gloria's signal comes through right after their phone call; Talman is in on the ruse, too.

Talman arrives, with the other two silently listening to the conversation as well. Thinking quickly, Suzy tells Talman that she knows the doll is in Sam's studio. She pretends as if she's going to go and retrieve it, but instead Talman says he will go find it. She gives him the key to Sam's studio and concocts her own fictional story about where it's located. The three men leave and go off to the studio, buying Suzy some time.

Not knowing what to believe anymore, Suzy does not want to summon the police for fear that Sam really could be implicated in the murder somehow. Instead she calls Gloria and has her help prepare the apartment for whatever confrontation might occur; Suzy blacks out the window with the blind and takes out all the lights in the apartment at the fuse box. She even has Gloria smash all the lights in the outer hallway to make it totally dark. Finally, she has Gloria pour chemicals into a small flower bowl, which she places on the table. Suzy sends Gloria off to the bus station to meet Sam's bus and tell him of everything that's gone on, and she waits alone for the men to return.

Talman returns on his own and, now knowing that Suzy must have realized their scam, he asks her for the doll point blank. Suzy says she knows Talman is a good person at heart and could never really hurt her, and therefore she refuses to give him the doll. Talman attempts to frighten her into it by telling Suzy that there is "someone waiting just outside" that could hurt her very much, but Suzy remains steadfast. While they are arguing, they hear the sound of someone just outside the apartment being hit by a speeding car. Talman finally comes clean and tells Suzy everything, including the fact that Sam has no knowledge of any of this and had nothing to do with Lisa or her murder. Talman says that the car accident they heard was Carlino murdering Roat; they felt they had no other choice, since Roat was obviously dangerous and would have killed them anyway. Suzy thanks him for his honesty, and Talman reveals that he respects Suzy for her independence and her own cunning.

Just as he goes to leave, Roat rushes in and kills him, stabbing him in the back with the switchblade. It was actually Carlino who was run over out in the street, Roat being too crafty to let Talman and Carlino get the better of him. Roat, who is now acting even more deranged, chains the door shut, trapping Suzy in the apartment with him. He drags Talman's body into the bedroom and then menaces Suzy, terrorizing her with a number of items while making veiled references to Lisa's murder. Roat scatters gasoline all over the apartment and threatens to set it on fire unless Suzy gives him the doll. Suzy is terrified, but she knows that if she gives Roat the doll it will mean certain death for her. Roat becomes even more erratic and skittish, applying women's cosmetics and a large dangling earring, until finally he threatens to lock Suzy in the bedroom and burn down the apartment. When he advances on her, Suzy hurls the bowl of chemicals into his face, temporarily blinding him. She then takes out the remaining light until the apartment is in total darkness. Roat throws his knife at Suzy but misses, and is also now without his weapon. When he starts lighting matches to see, Suzy douses him with the rest of the gasoline. Suzy produces matches of her own and threatens to set Roat on fire, forcing him to sit down at the table and tap so that she knows where he is.

Roat nervously obeys Suzy until he remembers something she forgot: the refrigerator light. Since Suzy was supposed to defrost it that day, it should be disabled, but she has forgotten it and Roat has the advantage once again. He retrieves his knife and makes Suzy give him the doll. She pulls it out of the washing machine, but Roat doesn't see the kitchen knife she has concealed with it. When he has the doll, he intends to lock Suzy in the bedroom again and set the place ablaze. Knowing that he will not stop until she's dead, Suzy pulls out her hidden kitchen knife and stabs Roat in the stomach. Roat falls away from her and disappears into the bedroom. Suzy tries to get out but the door is chained and she is still trapped. When she goes back down into the apartment, Roat lunges at her suddenly from the bedroom, bloodied but still alive. Brandishing the knife, he chases Suzy across the apartment until she is trapped behind the refrigerator, desperately trying to unplug it so that Roat can't see her anymore. Finally he reaches her and she screams.

The police break down the door to the apartment and Sam is behind them; they find Talman dead in the bedroom and Roat nearly dead in front of the refrigerator, but no Suzy. Talman runs upstairs to look for her and the police move Roat's body away, and suddenly Suzy appears from behind the refrigerator door, in shock but otherwise unharmed.

Gloria rushes in and comforts Suzy, admonishing the policemen to not try and help Suzy get out. "She can manage by herself!" she snaps. Sam appears in the doorway and calls Suzy over to him and she goes. They embrace as the stage goes black.

This telefilm includes a curtain call where all of the actors come back out onstage and take a bow to the applause of the live audience.