BY FRED BLOSSER
The
fashions, set designs, and social conventions of “Midnight Lace†were finely
tuned to the expectations of audiences who trooped to their local theaters to
see the film on its release in 1960, making it the year’s eleventh
highest-grossing production. Nearly
sixty years later, those same glossy Hollywood trappings have an almost campy
quaintness. How often do you see anyone
wear a pillbox hat anymore, outside of a drag parade? Regardless, the film’s basic plot would still
fit nicely into any of today’s TV soap operas. The principal characters would be a little younger, they’d sleep
together in the same bed instead of by themselves in separate twin beds, and
the male lead would take off his shirt at least once an episode to display his
ripped physique -- that’s all.
Kit
Preston (Doris Day), an American heiress newly married to British financier
Anthony Preston (Rex Harrison) and relocated from the U.S. to London, begins
receiving obscene, threatening phone calls from an anonymous stalker. Her husband and her friends are sympathetic
at first, but gradually they begin to express skepticism because Kit is the
only one who hears the calls. Inspector
Byrnes of Scotland Yard (John Williams) is even more cynical: “We waste half
our time looking for crank phone callers who don’t even exist, except in the
minds of unhappy women. You’d be
surprised how far a wife would go to make a neglectful husband toe the
mark.†Today a comment like that would
get a senior police officer censured for insensitivity if not kicked off the
force, but in the mindset of 1960, his opinion seems to be supported by the
circumstances. The charming but work-obsessed
Anthony spends more time in the boardroom than at home, and as a newcomer to
the U.K. the lonely Kit feels isolated. Even her visiting Aunt Bea (Myrna Loy, sharp as a tack and looking
terrific at fifty-five) begins to wonder.
From
the outset, though, the viewer knows that Kit is telling the truth, and the
mystery for us becomes not whether she’s delusional, but who’s behind the
threats? The script serves up a rich
array of suspects. Is she being menaced
by her housekeeper’s smarmy nephew (Roddy McDowell)? By her husband’s financially troubled
associate (Herbert Marshall)? By
Anthony’s assistant Daniel (Richard Ney), who seems to be nursing other
ambitions under his obsequious facade? “So many red herrings!†as critic and writer Kat Ellinger observes in
her fine audio commentary on a new Kino-Lorber Blu-ray release of the
movie. A handsome construction manager
overseeing a renovation next door seems to be a good guy (John Gavin), but he’s
troubled by lingering wartime PTSD, and he’s been using the phone in the back
room of the local pub to make calls of an undisclosed nature. When a stranger intrudes into Kit’s
apartment, inconveniently disappearing when she summons help, he’s likely to
become the viewer’s prime suspect, and not only because of his black overcoat
and sinister cast of features. He’s
played by Anthony Dawson, well-remembered (like John Williams as the police
inspector) from “Dial M for Murder.†In
the Hitchcock thriller, Dawson was the guy who attempted to strangle Grace
Kelly. By and large, the script plays
fair in planting its clues and casting our suspicions first on one character
and then another, although the resolution may not surprise hardcore
movie-mystery fans. The phrase “Midnight
Lace†is uttered once in the film as the style of a black negligee that Kit
promises to wear if Anthony takes her on their deferred honeymoon to Venice,
but it doesn’t have any real bearing on the character’s plight. Still, it’s a classy and evocative title that
was repurposed for an inferior, unrelated made-for-TV movie in 1981.
The
Kino-Lorber Blu-ray presents a sharp, rich transfer that allows viewers to
appreciate what passed for luxury, movie-style, as the Eisenhower age
transitioned into the Kennedy era those many decades ago. The Universal-International studio sets are
populated with every veteran British actor or supporting player in Hollywood
and then some, offering the illusion common in those days that every American
picture set in London was actually filmed there, and not on a California sound
stage with stock footage used for establishing shots. In addition to Kat Ellinger’s commentary, the
Kino-Lorber Blu-ray includes captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing, the
movie’s venerable trailer, and coming attractions from the company’s other
“Studio Classics†series. Although IMDB
lists the film’s official aspect ratio as 1.85:1, the menu instead offers the
options of 2.00:1 and 1.78:1. On my set,
the picture looked better at the framing of 2.00:1.
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