Another hello to Gas Light by David Miller and Doris Day After the enchanting success of the last two romantic comedies - "Intimate conversation" (1959) and "Please do not eat daisies!" (1960), the career of Doris Day was completely restored and the actress again entered the top ten movie stars in Hollywood.
Against the background of such popularity, Doris ventured to play a more serious role in the psychological thriller Midnight Lace. The plot of the film has similarities with other similar films in this genre - "Gas Light" (1944), "Julia" (1956), "Risk Experiment" (1944) and "Sorry, Wrong Number" (1948).
Judge for yourself: the main character of the film, Keith Preston, begins to be pursued by a stranger who constantly calls her and threatens to kill her. She tells her husband, friends, aunt and police about it, but she has no proof, so no one believes her. . .
Acting in the film at a very high level. Doris Day did an excellent acting job in this film. Her heroine in the tape changes from a sweet and friendly woman to a complete hysteria, driven to madness.
The actress recalled that while preparing to shoot one of the scenes of her heroine’s tantrums, she remembered an incident from her first marriage. Back in 1942, when she was pregnant with her son, she once again quarreled with her husband. In response, he dragged her out of bed, and with all his might hit her against the wall, and then began to beat her.
During the filming of the scene, she tried to revive these memories, and eventually she began to have a real tantrum. All this ended with the fact that she fainted and filming was stopped for a week.
Rex Harrison is also good as the husband of the main character. In his character, it is difficult to suspect anything wrong - he played brilliantly, so further events related to his character surprised me. Bravo!
In his memoirs, the actor barely mentioned the film, saying that he didn’t like the script and didn’t like the film, nor did he talk about it. He was also sure that Doris Day passed out on the set because the script requirements brought her to this state, although the real reason was different, and, as I have already indicated above.
John Gavin made quite a successful beautiful decoration in the film. Veterans of Hollywood Myrna Loy, Herbert Marshall and John Williams also perfectly complement the film.
In general, a quite successful film for its genre was released, in some ways copying the style of Hitchcock, and in some ways even surpassing it. The film was a success at the box office, but unfortunately for Doris Day it was the final dramatic role in her film career, which, I think, is due to the above circumstances.
But, whatever it was, fans of the genre and fans of creativity the main cast of the picture - the film is worth watching. I really liked the movie!
9 out of 10