Cinema Sunday: Midnight Lace

Last week's Cinema Sunday looked at the psychological thriller Vertigo that explored a mystery that questioned what was seen and heard and experienced.

This week we check in on another psychological thriller that explores similar themes with America's mid 20th century sweetheart Doris Day as the target for mental torture and maybe even... MURDER! 

From 1960, we look at the film Midnight Lace.   

Doris Day is American heiress Kit Preston who lives with her British business owner husband Tony (Rex Harrison) in a wealthy neighborhood of London in a building undergoing major renovations. 

Tony's dealing with business stuff when an assistant tells him a large sum of money has been embezzled from their firm.

Meanwhile, Kit is dealing with a series of episodes that results in increasing levels of anxiety.  

• Returning home one evening in a dense fog through Grosvenor Square, Kit is startled by a disembodied male voice that threatens to kill her. 
• The next day Kit notices a strange gaunt man stalking her. 
• Then a falling girder from the building renovation nearly hits her. She's shoved out of the way by a contractor named Brian. 
• And then Kit gets a threatening phone call, the voice the same as the one from the park: Kit is going to die. 
• Kit is trapped in an elevator. Sinister shit or just a temporary problem due to the building renovations.
• A shadowy man is stalking her in the trapped elevator. Nah, it's just Brian there to help her get out. 
• Kit gets another obscene phone call.
• Malcolm, the son of Kit's maid who is off work due to illness, makes vague threats toward Kit, requesting additional money to help care for his mother. Could Malcolm be her stalker?
• That strange gaunt man mysteriously appears in her apartment and just as mysteriously vanishes.  
• Kit is pushed in front of a bus, narrowly avoids being run over.

In short, all sorts of shit keeps happening to poor Kit and she is a paranoid mess. 

Tony takes this up with Scotland Yard where Inspector Byrnes blows this thing off as Kit seeking attention from her too busy with business husband.

Well, screw you, dickwad! Just another poor hysterical wife desperate for some attention for her husband? Fuck you!

Except....

There is the little matter that no one else has heard these threats Kit keeps hearing. No one else saw the strange gaunt man. No body saw anyone push Kit in front of the bus.

Her neighbor Peggy hasn't seen anything.

Tony hasn't heard any of the phone calls.

Even Kit's beloved Aunt Bea, visiting London, is starting to worry. 

Is Kit delusional?  

On the grounds that Kit really could use a break, Tony finally decides to put business stuff on the backburner and take Kit on a long promised and long delayed trip to Venice.

Then Kit gets another phone call. Time is up and Kit is going to die.

And this time, Tony hears it. 

Tony calls Byrnes and sets up to have the house surrounded while Tony pretends to leave. They're going to catch this son of a bitch and Kit will finally be safe.

Except....

There was no call to the police. 

Kit is alone with the one who has been threatening her all this time...

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Her husband Tony! 

He was the one embezzling from his own company!! 

And Kit was worth more dead than alive to get Tony out of trouble!!! 

And he was having an affair with neighbor Peggy!!!!

Peggy was in on the scam the whole time!!!!!!

And the gaunt man was Peggy's husband lurking about looking for a chance to kill his conniving cheating wife!!!!!!!

And before Tony can kill Kit, Inspector Byrnes bust in to arrest Tony's treacherous ass 'cause he knew Tony was up to sketchy shit.  

Well, damn! 

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Dept. 

The role of Kit's sweet Aunt Bea was played by Myrna Loy. I'm used to seeing Myrna in black & white, young and sensuous as hell, co-starring with the likes of Cary Grant & William Powell. It's kind of weird seeing her as more mature and in color. But that unmistakable Myrna Loy charm and style is still there. 

The title Midnight Lace refers to the slink black lacy dress that Kit buys early in the film and wears at the climax.

My only experience with the acting of Rex Harrison is from My Fair Lady so seeing him exposed as the dirty rotten scoundrel trying to make his wife go insane before killing her is well, it's a bit shocking. 

Meanwhile, Doris Day being cast in this sort of lurid, intense thriller works against her normal lighter persona but helps to buy the audience's sympathy. These bad things just shouldn't be happening to America's sweetheart!!

Midnight Lace is at worst a overwrought gothic thriller but at it's best, a twisty tale of watching someone spiral into madness and the viewer is drawn down into that spiral with her.   

Cinema Sunday next week is 2 days before Halloween and I will post about 2 classic thrillers starring Vincent Price and Claude Rains.