Midnight Lace (1960)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

I know that there are quite a few people who reviewed here who really enjoyed this movie, and Doris Day's performance. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. I was a child when I saw this movie when it came out (I was about 6), and I vividly remember the outcome, so obviously it made an impression on me. But Doris Day's character has to be the most irritating damsel in distress of all time. Anytime anything happens (shadow, stray noise, phone rings), she launches into outlandish hysterics that made me long for someone to slap her and order her to get it together. The worst was a scene where the phone rings when her husband is standing next to her. She snatches up the phone, identifies herself and thrusts the receiver into her husband's hands so he can hear her stalker. Then she stands there, hands clasped together as if pleading or praying, eyes dripping tears, shaking in terror and distress. I wanted to kill her, and I was a viewer!She also must spend an inordinate amount of time changing her clothes, with a different outfit in every scene. The clothes are the height of fashion circa 1960, and they have not aged well, particularly a hat resembling an overturned bucket with a red flower on the front.But a lot of people love this movie, so obviously my opinion is not universal. Plus, to be fair, even for those of us who denigrate this film, it is fun to watch in a "OMG, now what?" kind of way.

Despite the frilly-sounding title, Midnight Lace is not a girly chick flick. It's very scary, putting Alfred Hitchcock's films to shame. As it is, I liked it very much, but I would have loved it had I watched it in the afternoon instead of the evening. Some movies are just scary for me!Doris Day is married to Rex Harrison-I know, suspension of disbelief-and is trying to adjust to her new married life in London. She hears a frightening voice while walking home alone one day, but that's just the beginning. . . Someone is following her and threatening her, but when she tells her husband and the police, no one believes her. Myrna Loy, her aunt, comes for a visit, but an added authoritative presence doesn't deter the stalker.I've said it before, but Midnight Lace is pretty scary. If you liked getting frightened by the phone calls in Scream, you might find it fun to watch Scream's grandfather film. Doris is great, as she always is when given a chance to show her dramatic talents, and with John Gavin, Herbert Marshall, Roddy McDowall, and Hermione Baddeley to round out the supporting cast, she's got plenty to work with. I'm not a Rex Harrison fan, but he didn't ruin the movie. Try it out on Halloween and see what you think!

After her smash success in Pillow Talk, Doris Day was actually Hollywood's # 1 Box Office attraction and she actually cemented that position with a rather shrill melodrama called Midnight Lace.Day plays Kit Preston, the American trophy wife of wealthy British industrialist Anthony Preston (Rex Harrison), who starts receiving phone calls threatening her life and though she can't get anyone to believe her initially, she is driven to the edge of her sanity when all the clues start to point to her own husband as the guilty party.This film was one of 1960's biggest box office hits and for the life of me, I have never understood why. Day's performance here is strictly a matter of taste...this is the kind of role that Lana Turner could play in her sleep, but I found Day to just be out of her element here and Rex Harrison seems to be phoning it in as the husband. The presence of the eternally wooden John Gavin as Day's hero doesn't help matters either, but Myrna Loy is fun as Kit's Aunt Bea. For hard- core Doris fans only.

The last of Doris Day's dramatic roles came with her being the terrorized wife in Midnight Lace. Henceforth she did nothing but comedies and musicals.Not that she wasn't good in dramatic parts. Doris did well in Love Me Or Leave Me, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Storm Warning, and Julie. But in Midnight Lace she does pull all the stops out as a woman who seems to have attracted a stalker. In fact she meets the stalker in a fog bound London park near her home who threatens to kill just before the opening credits.Doris is practically a newlywed, married to Rex Harrison a London businessman who is concerned but never is quite there enough to offer support. Even her visiting aunt Myrna Loy is thinking Doris has lost a step or two in her ladder. The only one who seems to believe her is John Gavin who is boss of a construction job next door. He's even a bit creepy himself because he knew who she was without any introduction.The Man Who Knew Too Much was probably her best dramatic role and it was done for the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. But the Hitchcock film that Midnight Lace is best compared to is Dial M For Murder with Grace Kelly being the stalking victim there. Even the Scotland Yard inspector is the same in both films, John Williams.By the way Williams unravels the truth behind the harassing phone calls in a most unusual way that the perpetrator never took into account.The mood of Midnight Lace is somber and tense and Doris, Rex, and the rest of the cast perform their roles to perfection.