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Midnight Lace - 1960
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Our next film is 1960's "Midnight Lace", a stylish thriller in which a newly married American woman living in London receives strange telephone calls which foretell her impending death. No one will believe her, and the perpetrator of the crime is someone whom she doesn't even suspect.
The film's cast includes Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin, Myrna Loy, Roddy McDowall, John Williams, Hermione Baddeley, Anthony Dawson, Natasha Perry, Herbert Marshall, Doris Lloyd, Hayden Rorke, and Richard Ney.
American Kit Preston is walking home in a thick fog. Her address is well known Grosvenor Square. As she walks, Kit hears a man's strange mechanical-like voice that announces that he will kill her when the time is right. In a panic, Kit immediately runs home.
When she arrives home, Kit tells her husband Tony what happened. He calms her fears by telling her it must've been a practical joker. The thick fog brings out the worst of those kind of people. With her fears assuaged, Kit embraces her husband and makes plans to have lunch with him the next day.
Kit goes on a shopping spree before lunch the next day and buys a negligee called "Midnight Lace". She shows it to Tony, and he's very enthusiastic about it. Unfortunately, he won't be able to have lunch with her. Disappointed, Kit goes home.
As she arrives home, a falling girder nearly drops on top of Kit. She's saved by a Mr. Brian Younger. Kit thanks him and continues on her way.
As she takes her leave, Kit is startled to know that Brian knows her name and has been asking around about her.
Inside her apartment, Kit is confronted by her maid's son, whose oily personality grates on her.
After he leaves, the telephone rings, and Kit hears the mechanical voice telling that she is to be killed.
She talks with her friend and neighbor Peggy about it. Peggy advises Tony to take Kit's story to Scotland Yard and make a police report.
Tony does just that. When the inspector gets Tony alone for a moment, he suggests that since know one has heard this voice but Kit, she must be doing it for the attention. Tony feels the inspector may be right.
A bright spot in Kit's life comes in the form of her Aunt Bea, who is visiting London. The two laugh in the cab on the way to drop Bea at her hotel. "Oh, Bea, don't ever change," smiles Kit. Bea replies, "I try not to, but the bills at the beauty parlor get bigger every year."
The phone calls from the mechanical voice keep coming, and Kit begins to feel like she is unraveling.
She's particularly distant when she and Tony go out with Bea and her date. While Kit goes dancing with Bea's date, Tony talks with Bea about how the police feel Kit might be making up the whole thing. Bea dismisses it as utter nonsense.
However, the more she tries to make sense of it, the more Tony's suggestion seems to be the only logical thing that makes any amount of sense to Bea.
One day, Kit gets trapped in the apartment elevator when a blackout occurs. She hears rapid footsteps on the stairs and sees a man's silhouette outside the elevator door. She nearly has a breakdown. It's only Brian Younger, who came to tell her that the workmen blew a circuit.
He takes her to a pub across the square for a stiffener. Brian tells of some of his World War II experiences that caused him blackouts and nightmares. Kit is wary of him because of his intense manner.
After Kit leaves, the owner of the pub asks Brian if she should put certain phone calls he made the previous night on his bill.
Tony, Bea, and her date Charles continue to try and cheer Kit up. They take her to a gala performance at the ballet, and everything seems to go swimmingly.
However, at one point during the evening, Kit is left alone in the box, and her maid's son Malcolm corners her and asks for money. When she refuses to give it to him, he threatens her.
And still, the phone calls keep coming. Kit is at her wit's end and on the verge of hysteria.
And what's worse, she can't seem to make anyone believe the phone calls are actually legitimate since she is the only one that has heard them. The police inspector basically tells her that she's making them up.
To add to the confusion, during an outing in the city, Kit is pushed in front of an oncoming bus and narrowly misses being run over.
Bea decides to answer the phone when it rings one evening. It turns out to be the mechanical voice, but the voice is questioning why Kit hasn't called. Bea and Tony decide that Kit must be delusional and insist she see a psychiatrist.
At the pub one night, Brian sees an ominous looking man in the corner who gets up and leaves after a while. The pub owner Dora tells him that he comes in and just stares across the street in the direction of the apartment building with a no good look in his eye.
As part of a plan to help Kit, Tony wants to take her to Venice. On the night before their departure, the phone rings again. Kit answers it, and Tony picks up the other extension. It's the mechanical voice. Now Tony hears it and knows Kit is telling the truth.
As a way of drawing out the murderer, Tony makes plans to pretend to leave for the office.
After she bolts the door behind Tony, Kit is left alone in the empty apartment.
The apartment goes black and an intruder appears through the window followed closely by a second man. A gun-fight ensues, which terrifies Kit. Still more terrifying is the identity of the person behind the phone calls.
Kit escapes from a window and climbs onto some scaffolding. While up there, Brian comes to the rescue and guides her down the treacherous pilings.
Bea is waiting on the sidewalk and wraps Kit in her coat. The three of them walk away from the building as the police have come to take the murderer away.
Cast rundown:
Doris Day...............................Kit Preston
Rex Harrison...........................Anthony Preston
John Gavin.............................Brian Younger
Myrna Loy..............................Bea Coleman
Roddy McDowall......................Malcolm Stanley
John Williams.........................Inspector Byrnes
Hermione Baddeley..................Dora Hammer
Anthony Dawson.....................Roy Ash
Natasha Perry.........................Peggy Thompson
Herbert Marshall.....................Charles Manning
Doris Lloyd............................Dora Stanley
Hayden Rorke.........................Dr. Garver
Richard Ney............................Daniel Graham
And that's it for Midnight Lace. Myrna Loy told that story that when Doris Day filmed a scene on the staircase, she became so hysterical and overcome with emotion that she couldn't stop crying after the director yelled "Cut". She had to be carried to her dressing room. Doris Day vowed never to make another thriller after this movie. She kept her word and only appeared in comedies until her retirement.
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