Writer/director Michael Cristofer himself adapted the sultry, obsessively sensual tale of Original Sin from Cornell Woolrich's novel Waltz Into Darkness. Woolrich is best known in Hollywood as the writer of It Had to be Murder (which inspired Alfred Hitchock's classic Rear Window) as well as Truffaut's celebrated The Bride Wore Black (based on Woolrich's novel of the same name), but Woolrich is also highly regarded as one of America's finest noir novelists. In most of his novels (like The Black Path of Fear and The Black Curtain), Woolrich's vision casts an eerie pall of doom over the world, revealing the irrational acts and dark impulses that lead men and women astray. As Ellery Queen once wrote of Woolrich's work: "He can distill more terror, more excitement, more downright nail-biting suspense out of even the most commonplace happenings than nearly all his competitors."
Waltz lnto Darkness was Woolrich's most unusual and complex novel, and it turned the conventions of the murder-and-revenge genre inside out into a compelling and unexpected story of obsessive love. Dipping into the realm of the psychological thriller, Woolrich spun a rich, sweeping tale about a lonely man driven to near madness by his only encounter with love, an encounter with a woman who turns her feelings into dangerous games.
Reading Waltz Into Darkness1 Michael Cristofer was struck not only by the excitement of the story but by the shockingly contemporary nature of its themes, themes such as the fierce tension between desire, power, sexuality and identity, which he decided to bring into the foreground in his adaptation. He was particularly intrigued by the daring, erotic undertone — and how it leads to revelations about why the characters act as they do.
"On the surface, this story is about the power of sexuality, and how far those instincts can lead and overpower you," says Cristofer. "But at its heart the story is really about acceptance of one's self— good and bad, dark and light."
In writing the script, Cristofer became aware of how Julia and Luis play dangerous games with love — but only because they are both so desperate for it. "Julia is torn between two worlds," explains Cristofer, "one that is false, a con game, but which offers her love — and another that is more real but infinitely more dark and dangerous. Because she cannot accept herself as someone worthy of being loved, she tries to reject Luis's love. She becomes caught between the lighter side of herself and a much darker side — which, in this case, is very dark indeed."
Luis, on the other hand, appears to be completely in control of his life — until he meets Julia. "Julia opens one door after another for him," says Cristofer. "In the beginning, there's an extraordinary discovery of the emotional side of himself, which he wasn't really in touch with before. Then, as the story progresses, he begins to explore a more shadowy part of himself and his obsession with Julia grows, leading into an almost criminal side of existence in his pursuit of her. Finally there is compromise — which I believe is the only way that love survives."
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