Midnight Lace *** (1960, Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin, Myrna Loy, Roddy McDowall, Herbert Marshall, Natasha Parry, John Williams, Anthony Dawson, Hermione Baddeley) – Classic Movie Review 3,126

The polished 1960 Hitchcock-style thriller film Midnight Lace stars Doris Day, exquisitely gowned by Irene, who was Oscar nominated for Best Color Costume Design. Day plays a terrified married American heiress, threatened by an anonymous stalker in London. 

Director David Miller’s polished 1960 Hitchcock-style thriller film Midnight Lace stars Doris Day, exquisitely gowned by Irene, who was honoured for her work by being Oscar nominated for Best Color Costume Design, while the star swung a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress.

Doris Day pertly plays a terror-stricken married American heiress in London, gasping and quivering over threatening phone calls, strange voices and every kind of melodramatic mayhem as the newly-wed Kit Preston’s sanity comes into question when she claims to be the victim of an anonymous stalker. Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts’s screenplay is based on the play Matilda Shouted Fire by Janet Green.

Matilda Shouted Fire would certainly not have made a good movie title, and the smart new one refers to a lace-type dress that Day’s character Kit Preston buys early in the film and wears at the climax.

Rex Harrison also stars along with Day as her husband, Tony, while John Gavin, Myrna Loy, Roddy McDowall, Herbert Marshall, Natasha Parry, John Williams, Anthony Dawson, Hermione Baddeley are on hand too as friends, family, foe or possible suspects.

This wonderfully artificial thriller, with its Eastmancolor cinematography by Russell Metty and its unreal views of London in particular and the world in general may now seem a bit preposterous. It is a reminder of a long-ago era – the capital just doesn’t have pea-souper fogs any more!

But, nevertheless, it is eerie and thoroughly enjoyable, laced as it is with the most luxurious trimmings in a lavish production typical of its producer, Ross Hunter, at Universal Pictures. A co-production between Universal and Arwin, the company of Day’s husband, Martin Melcher, it is released by Universal.

Also in the cast are Richard Ney, Rhys Williams, Richard Lupino, Hayden Rorke, Doris Lloyd, Elspeth March, Peter Adams, Rex Evans, Terence de Marney, Anthony Eustrel, Jack Livesey, Joan Staley, Richard Peel, John Sheffield, Anna Cheselka and Vladimir Oukhtomsky.

Midnight Lace premiered in New York City on October 13, 1960.

It runs 103 minutes or 108 minutes (TCM print).

It cost $3.5 million and earned $3.5 million at the box office.

Midnight Lace was remade for TV in 1981, with Mary Crosby, Gary Frank and Celeste Holm.

Hunter convinced Myrna Loy to come out of retirement to appear.

The play was touring the provinces in Britain before arriving in London when Universal announced in August 1958 that it had bought the screen rights as a vehicle for Doris Day.

Because of playing a woman threatened by an anonymous stalker, Day found making the film emotionally difficult, and Hunter had to halt production when she collapsed on set.

John Williams and Anthony Dawson both star in Hitchcock’s 1954 Dial M for Murder. Doris Day stars in Hitchcock’s 1956 The Man Who Knew Too Much. John Gavin stars in Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho.

Doris Day’s white gown is the one she wore to the Oscar ceremony when she was nominated for Pillow Talk (1959).

Irene Maud Lentz (December 8, 1901 – November 15, 1962), known professionally as Irene, was an American actress in secondary roles in silent films who became a fashion designer and costume designer. Irene met and married writer Eliot Gibbons, brother of Cedric Gibbons, MGM ‘s head of art direction, who hired Irene when gown designer Adrian left MGM in 1941 to open his own fashion house.

Doris Day in Midnight Lace (1960).

Irene was a close friend of Doris Day In 1950, Irene also left MGM to open her own fashion house and left the film industry entirely for nearly 10 years. But Doris Day requested her services Midnight Lace and the following year she did the costume design for another Day film, Lover Come Back (1961).

Irene created the gowns for Ginger Rogers for the 1937 film Shall We Dance and Lana Turner’s wardrobe in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

The cast are Doris Day as Kit Preston, Rex Harrison as Tony Preston, John Gavin as Brian Younger, Myrna Loy as Aunt Bea Vorman, Roddy McDowall as Malcolm Stanley, Herbert Marshall as Charles Manning, Natasha Parry as Peggy Thompson, Hermione Baddeley as Dora Hammer, John Williams as Inspector Byrnes, Richard Ney as Daniel Graham, Anthony Dawson as Roy Ash, Rhys Williams as Victor Elliott, Richard Lupino as Foster, Hayden Rorke as Doctor Garver, Doris Lloyd as housekeeper Nora Stanley, Elspeth March as woman, Peter Adams as man at American Consulate, Rex Evans as Basil Stafford, and Gage Clarke as salesman in gun shop.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3,126

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