'Midnight Lace' (1960)

Been a while since I saw it, but I remember quite enjoying it. Unfortunately I've got about 150 feature films I plan to re-watch (rough estimate), so it may take a while till I watch it again. 

EDIT: Love the above photos of Doris Day. 

Day has always been among that species about which much is heard, but which is all too rare in life: a natural. Everything she did was done not only well but exceptionally, and from the beginning, she had it all: looks; talent; personality; instinctive ability. All the more remarkable that her youthful ambition was a career as a dancer (Ginger Rogers had been an idol), a dream sidelined by a leg shattered in her teens by an auto accident, and that pursuit of another as a vocalist came only after her recovery. Imagine having a talent like that to fall back on. And that still wasn't all. 

Long before her debut in feature films, her charisma came across in recordings, as did her camera-sense in "soundies" of the '40s that displayed a refreshingly relaxed authenticity. That last word may be the key to her onscreen success. In a way, she was a Method actor who never studied The Method: while she picked up many tricks of the trade along the way, she explained in her autobiography that her approach was merely to draw upon her own feelings and life experiences as befitting whatever the roles and scenes required.

Such was the case with Midnight Lace, the third and last of her "women in jeopardy" trilogy, preceded by The Man Who Knew Too Much and Julie. Day found such films emotionally grueling experiences as she drew deeply from within to relive her own traumas, such as an abusive first marriage, to put that authenticity on the screen. Small wonder that she much preferred sunny, nostalgic musicals with the likes of Gordon MacRae or rom-com romps with Rock Hudson, James Garner or Rod Taylor.

In mood, manner and appearance, Midnight Lace rather resembles Dial M For Murder, and indeed, suave Ray Milland would have served as a more-than-acceptable substitute for Rex Harrison; even stuffily skeptical John Williams and menacing Anthony Dawson are brought aboard in more-or-less carbon copies of their roles in the earlier film. An edge that Harrison had over Milland, however, was an inherent undercurrent of danger that peeked out from under his elegant charm and was apparent in many of his best roles from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Unfaithfully Yours to My Fair Lady and The Honey Pot.

Thematically, Midnight Lace plays something like Sorry, Wrong Number from a skewed point of view. It may be predictable, but the fun is in the journey rather than the destination, and a cast rounded out by reliables like Myrna Loy, Roddy McDowall, Herbert Marshall and Hermione Baddeley make it a satisfying one amidst the Ross Hunter gloss and glamour (the suffering of the affluent being always more enjoyable than that of the downtrodden).

If you'll forgive a minor correction, petrolino , Midnight Lace was directed by David Miller (Sudden Fear, Back Street, Lonely Are the Brave, Executive Action) rather than David Butler (Caught In the Draft, Road To Morocco, They Got Me Covered, The Princess and the Pirate for Bob Hope, and a half-dozen for Day, It's A Great Feeling, Tea For Two and Calamity Jane among them).  

But back to the lady herself, it's something to consider that she achieved iconic status within a big-screen career of only twenty years, augmented by a TV one of another five, and remains so nigh unto forty-five more after her final appearance as an actress. She became quite the skilled comedienne and tore her guts out for us for the sake of drama, and made herself an indelible presence in the process.             

  

     

       

Julie is certainly worth a look. It's a B&W thriller whose modest scale and extensive location work suit the paranoiac atmosphere of a woman trying to escape the husband she comes to realize is dangerously deranged (an icily malevolent Louis Jourdan), and is grimmer and grittier than either the colorful thrills of The Man Who Knew Too Much or melodramatically atmospheric Midnight Lace. It does, come to think of it, have some things in common with Sudden Fear.

While Julie does engage in its own melodramatics with an airliner-in-distress climax, that, too, is of modest and claustrophobic scale and Day pulls it off well with her characteristic, all-in commitment.

Coming directly on the heels of Love Me Or Leave Me and TMWKTM, Day must have been quite wrung out and greatly relieved to jump next into The Pajama Game and Teacher's Pet after all that concentrated intensity. 

I remember it as a good movie, with enough mystery to make it interesting. The foggy London scene is great.

I've heard about it, but I've never seen it.