In Broad Daylight

Got a bit tense towards the end. Felt as good as a Columbo episode. Bravo!

"In Broad Daylight" is an enjoyable made for TV movie, but in order to get the most of it you really need to suspend that nagging voice within you telling you how ludicrous the story really is. This is not a huge problem...but the story is very difficult to believe.

Tony (Richard Boone) is a famous actor who recently lost his sight. As a result, he's working with a therapist (Susanne Pleshette) to learn to adapt to everyday life. However, during this time Tony learns that his wife is cheating on him and so he concocts a complicated plan. First, he starts pretending to do poorly with his rehab--pretending to get lost and having great difficulties finding his way outside his apartment. In reality, he's VERY adept at such things. Second, he works out an intricate plan to go to his lawyer's apartment and kill his wife since that's her lover. But to do this, he dons makeup and pretends to be a nice Greek man who can see just fine. While it seems to work very well, a cop investigating the case (John Marley) is determined to find out who killed Tony's wife.

There are 1001 different problems which could have arisen during the complicated drip to and from the lawyer's home. Yet, inexplicably, Tony does a near perfect job...something a blind person MIGHT be able to pull off but unlikely....and even more unlikely since he only recently lost his sight. Additionally, the umbrella angle came off as a bit silly--particularly when Tony goes to retrieve it. Still, despite all this, it's an interesting little made for TV film and never bores.

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.

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.