In Broad Daylight

"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.

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 For some reason, this kind of TV movie fare has gone out of style and been replaced by women at risk films, rather slow-moving versions of Robin Cook and Mary Higgins Clark novels and the like.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.

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...

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

This is very much like a Columbo episode. Clocking in at 73 minutes, it was written by Larry Cohen, who later penned quite a few Columbo episodes. If you are a youngster and don't know who Columbo was, he was a raincoat wearing TV cop who looks at the less obvious suspect and wears them down with his "Just one more thing..." questions and his annoying quirky presence until the murderers trap themselves.

Richard Boone plays an actor, Tony Chappel, who recently went blind and is leaving some institute where he has been recovering and relearning basic skills as a blind person. He is being allowed to leave five days early and with his own full time therapist - somebody to help him continue learning how to adapt. This person is played by Suzanne Pleshette. If you have your calculator out and find this sounds all very expensive, first off Chappel was apparently a very successful actor and thus very rich, and plus healthcare costs have grown far faster than the rate of inflation this past fifty years.

On the way home Tony asks the therapist, Kate, if he can stop by his lawyer's apartment and get something without her assistance. He even knows the desk drawer. She relents. Tony actually does find his way up to the apartment and lets himself in with a key that he knows is hidden outside. Once inside, he hears his wife Elizabeth (Stella Stevens) and his lawyer in the bedroom doing bedroomy things with her talking about how exciting he is and what a drag it will be having to take care of Tony once he gets home. Tony leaves undetected but pretends to his therapist that he got lost and never got into the apartment. He immediately and secretly plans to murder his wife by shooting her and set up his attorney for the crime. But how can a blind man shoot anybody? Watch and find out.

Just like in Columbo, relationships are not deeply probed. The focus is on Tony and how he arranges everything to pull off the perfect crime. I've never seen Boone in much but "Have Gun Will Travel" and he did command my attention throughout. As an actor, Tony effectively and continually misleads everybody about both minor and major details and never lets on to his wife that everything between them is anything but perfect.

After the crime, which happens rather ironically itself, "an inspector calls" - John Marley as Lt. Bergman. Marley is rather bland in this part but he is methodical and thorough. But the important thing is from the beginning, he suspects Tony, in spite of evidence that the attorney did do it and that Tony is blind. Suzanne Pleshette, in spite of being second billed, does not have that much to do here.

I'd recommend this. But there is just one thing...never is it revealed HOW Tony became blind. Was it an accident? A disease? It is never mentioned. Also, was Tony's arrest even legal? The aftermath would have made a great episode of Law&Order. It is a very suspenseful made for TV treat and I would recommend it.