On his own, without the transformative talents of a Douglas Sirk directing, producer Ross Hunter reverted to tasteless, high-gloss schlock like this risible Doris Day suspenser. Trying for GASLIGHT/’44 meets DIAL ‘M’ FOR MURDER/’54* in modern-day London (brief location shots filled out with slicked-down backlot Universal exteriors & hold-your-nose chintzy interiors), it adds a whodunit element not in those films, with a mystery stalker threatening murder. So it is hubby Rex Harrison; contractor John Gavin (with an accent as phony as the sets); the servant’s wastrel son Roddy McDowall; elderly Herbert Marshall, Harrison’s office partner? I vote for Ross Hunter! Or if not him, there’s Day’s real-life creepy hubby Martin Melcher, who died suddenly in ‘68, leaving her in financial distress. (Maybe that's why she's constantly screaming here.) This one does have something of a camp/cult following, but why celebrate bad Doris when there’s so much good Doris out there. Mostly before those tin-eared sex comedies, PILLOW TALK & the like. She's ever so much better in the films she made (in Groucho Marx's phrase) ‘before she became a virgin.’*
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Hunter really wants you to make the Hitchcock Suspense connection, reaching out for DIAL ‘M’ players John Williams & Anthony Dawson in similar parts.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Day is remarkable in real Hitchcock, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH/’54; while Harrison had one of his best early roles in Carol Reed’s fine Hitchcockian NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH/’40.
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