Middle of the Night (1959) Delbert Mann

Middle of the Night is a story of a May/December romance. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Delbert Mann. Mann directed three films written by Cheyefsky, Marty, his first film which won Best Picture of the Year and Best Director awards, followed by The Bachelor Party and Middle of the Night. Later on Cheyefsky would write the screenplays for Network and The Hospital. He also adapted the William Bradford Huie novel, The Americanization of Emily for the screen.  Middle of the Night began as a TV episode on the anthology series “The Philco Television Playhouse”, starring E.G. Marshall and Eva Marie Saint. In 1956, Cheyefsky turned it into a play and it opened on Broadway with Edward G. Robinson as the older man and Gena Rowlands as the young woman. In 1959, the  movie version was released with Fredric March and Kim Novak in the roles.

Jerry (Fredric March), a 56 year old lonely widower, is a successful businessman in the garment district in New York and 24 year old Betty (Kim Novak) is working there as a receptionist and part-time model. Betty is newly divorced and uncertain about her future. The story centers on their romance and eventual decision to marry, the ups and downs in any relationship and specifically about one with a wide age difference. One of the more uncomfortable scenes is when Jerry meets Betty’s mother who it turns out is approximately the same age as he is. Later there is an even more painful confrontation with his family, which includes his daughter, a year younger than Betty, and his single over protective nagging sister. Everyone seems to have an opinion though the one thing everyone is in agreement on is that they are against the marriage. If all that is not enough there are the couples  own insecurities, Jerry’s jealousy when she talks to younger men or will she leave him in a few years? Betty anxieties are over her newly divorced husband, a musician who wants her back, and then there is her father fixation. In the end, despite all the objections from family and their own uncertainties they realize they love each other and maybe just maybe, they have a chance.

Fredric March is excellent as Jerry who at 56 feels that life has passed him by. Family and friends tell him that he should relax in his old age and take it easy. Jerry feels like everyone is ready to put him out to pasture until he starts dating Betty who makes him feel alive again. He tells everyone he’ll have enough time to take it easy when he’s dead! (Jerry would liked Warren Zevon’s song, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead). You absolutely believe March in this role, the struggles and fears that he is facing at this particular junction in his life. Kim Novak also does a fine job as the young and insecure Betty whose father dumped his family when she was young. Conflicted about the breakup of her marriage she finds comfort and security with Jerry. She brings a nice vulnerability to Betty that makes her real. Throughout her career Novak has been underrated as an actress. She holds her own here with a magnificent cast that includes Lee Grant, Martin Balsam, Albert Dekker and Glenda Farrell. There are also some nice location scenes of New York’s garment district and other areas circa the late 1950’s. 

One aspect that I found interesting is how old the actors look considering the age they are portraying. Fredric March who was 62 at the time portrays a man who is 56. Albert Dekker’s character was 59 ( he was 54 in real life), however both men look closer to being in their late 60’s maybe even in their 70’s. Compared to some of today’s actors equivalent in age like Dennis Quaid (55) or Jeff Bridges (59) or Harrison Ford (66) they looked much older than the ages they are portraying. Lifestyle? Healthier living? Whatever it is, people do look a lot young today than their counterparts of forty or fifty years ago.

Delbert Mann began his career during the Golden Age of Television drama. When people discussed directors from the Golden Age of Television who came to film in the late 50’s and early 60’s the names usually consist of John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet and Arthur Penn. Delbert Mann is rarely mentioned yet his filmography in those early years is pretty impressive. His debut film was Marty, which as previously mentioned won a few Oscars. That was followed by The Bachelor Party in 1957, Desire Under the Elms, Separate Tables, Middle of the Night and Dark at the Top of the Stairs. All of these were adaptations of stage plays except for Marty and The Bachelor Party. In the 1960’s Mann had success with two Doris Day comedies, That Touch of Mink and Lover Come Back. He made a few more films including Mister Buddwing and The Pink Jungle before going back to television in the 1970’s and 1980’s. While no auteur, Mann was a solid actor’s director and always told a good story.

****

Pushover (1954) Richard Quine

Kim Novak, in her official screen debut (she had a bit role in the Jane Russell film The French Line), was Columbia Studio’s answer to Marilyn Monroe and there are some early scenes where I thought I detected Kim doing an imitation of Marilyn’s breathless soft whispering style of talking.  Only about 21 years old when this film was released she looks fantastic. Continuously criticized for being limited in range as an actress here she is alluring and provides a decent performance as a femme fatale in this early work. In fact, she is extremely enticing and I for one do not blame MacMurray for being a pushover for her. In real life as well as reel life director Richard Quine became her mentor, and her lover. They would do at least five films together including “Pffft!”, “Bell, Book and Candle”, “Strangers When We Meet” and “The Notorious Landlady.”

“Pushover” is a quick moving low level “Double Indemnity” without The Wilder Touch, nicely written by Roy Huggins who would go on to create the classic 1960’s series “The Fugitive.”  Want proof of the good writing just listen to the dialogue in a very early scene where Novak and MacMurray’s characters meet for the first time. There is some crisp double-entendre writing here actually worthy of Mr. Wilder.

     The film begins with a bank robbery. Harry Wheeler (Paul Richards) and his partner steal $200,000 from a bank killing the bank guard in the process. We then cut to the outside of a movie theater where Lona McLane (Novak), dressed in a fur coat, is exiting the theater (double feature showing “It Should Happen to You” and “The Nebraskan”) heading for her car. The car won’t start, suddenly a man’s voice is heard asking if she needs help. It’s Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray) a man she noticed sitting alone in the theater. Sheridan admits to noticing her too. How could he not? How many beautiful women do you see in a movie theater alone and wearing a fur coat?  Paul tries to start up the car, checks under the hood, but admits to not being able to get enough spark, to which Lona seductively replies “I’m not enough of a spark?”  A repairman is called who informs them it will take a few hours to fix. The two agree to wait together by going to his apartment while her car is being fixed. It’s made pretty obvious what they do to pass the time.

In the following scenes, we find out Paul is a cop and Lona is under suspicion of being Harry Wheeler’s girlfriend. Once convinced she is Wheeler’s main squeeze the police set up an observation post in an apartment across the street from her place, figuring that eventually Wheeler is going to show up.  At one point during the surveillance, Lona puts on her coat and leaves the apartment. Paul volunteers to follow her. She ends up at a hotel waiting for Paul who by now she suspects is a cop. “I had my car checked”, she tells him, “there was nothing wrong. What did you do to it?”  Lona is ready to walk out but they are hot for each other and swiftly fall into each other’s arms. Before long the two lovers have devised a plan that will, put Lona’s boyfriend bank robber in jail without the police recovering the $200,000 in stolen money, which Sheridan and Lona will keep and run off with together. Of course, soon things start to go wrong. Nosey next door neighbors, honest cops and too many cover ups all contribute to its failure.

 The film is suspenseful with touches of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” voyeurism thrown in when the cops are keeping surveillance on Lona’s apartment, which is for a good portion of the film. They not only check on Lona but also start viewing her beautiful next-door neighbor (Dorothy Malone) who will have a significant impact on the storyline. These voyeuristic scenes do not have the erotic impact or suspense of Hitchcock’s classic. The voyeurism in “Rear Window” is more enticing, as we watch the James Stewart and Grace Kelly characters viewing the going’s-on in the various apartments across the courtyard. Then there is us, the moviegoers, also getting our own voyeuristic pleasures by not only watching what Stewart and Kelly are watching but by watching them also. In “Pushover”, while you see what’s going on in the two women’s apartments, and in the apartment the police setup up for surveillance, it is certainly more exciting to watch Stewart and Kelly than Fred MacMurray and his police cohorts recording conversations and drinking some joe. Of course watching any movie in itself is a voyeuristic act and we as moviegoers are all participants in this guilty pleasure.

After watching these scenes in “Pushover”, you may walk away with the impression that Director Richard Quine was derivative of Hitchcock, or dare I say, Hitchcock was derivative of Quine? Well it was really neither, just coincidental that both films have similar voyeuristic scenes.  According to the IMDB website, the two films were not only both released in 1954, but within a week of each other!

     Quine keeps the film claustrophobic, hard edged, and moving at a nice pace. As a director, Quine never fore filled his early promise. His choice of films was eclectic (Pushover, My Sister Eileen, Sex and the Single Girl, The World of Susie Wong, Strangers When We Meet) and he never seemed to find his niche. At his best, his films are entertaining without standing out from the crowd. Two of his best comedies, “Operation Madball” and “The Notorious Landlady” were co-written by Blake Edwards. Quine’s career went downhill in the 1970’s mostly confined to TV shows and in 1989, deep in depression, he unfortunately committed suicide. Fred MacMurray was always at his best when he is in his creep mode, in films like “Double Indemnity”, “The Apartment”, and “The Caine Mutiny” where he reveals a slimy quality behind a decent guy façade. Here, like in “Double Indemnity”, he’s a bit of a sap for a sexy dame and Kim Novak is a hell of a sexy dame! From the first scenes in the parking lot when she first meets MacMurray she is incredibly alluring and has the most amazingly seductive eyes. For an actress of supposedly limited talent throughout her career she managed to work with some great directors: Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Joshua Logan, George Sidney and Robert Aldrich. I can only surmise that these talented men must have seen something in her. At her worst she sometimes can be a little stiff. At her best she is alluring, sexy and possesses a captivating aura that just sucks you in. The cast also includes E.G. Marshall as a police Lieutenant. “Pushover” is a decent, entertaining thriller; just do not expect anything new or innovative. Everything here has been done before, crooked cops, a guy who’s a sucker for a beautiful dame and stolen money.

Kim Novak

    With Turner Classic Movies recent Kim Novak day as part of their Summer under the Stars Month, there have recently been a lot of articles reevaluating or just discussing her career. So having been a fan of Novak’s for years I’m throwing my two-cent in.

    Underrated, surprisingly good.  You hear these terms a lot when critics discuss Kim Novak. She has always been underrated. Kim was surprisingly good in “Middle of the Night.” The question becomes if she is always considered underrated and is always surprisingly good how many films does it take before the surprise wears off.  The woman just never received the respect she deserves. What I want to know is when is the AFI going to do a tribute to her? With this year’s tribute to Warren Beatty and last year’s to Al Pacino, they seemed to have already moved on the next generation passing her by. She was a major star in her day working with many great directors and has appeared in quite a few films that most would consider classic.

 

It is no secret that she was originally signed by Columbia Pictures as a Marilyn Monroe substitute. All the studios were looking for their own Marilyn. There was Jayne Mansfield, Sheree North and Mamie Van Doren, none achieved the level of success, nor did they have the magnetism of Marilyn. Kim was successful and had the star quality, without the cheapness of the Marilyn wannabes, and unlike Marilyn, Kim came across as a real woman. She was sensual, all you had to do was just look at her eyes and listen to her voice. She was certainly more attractive than the others were. Monroe never came across as authentic, someone that you could actually meet in the street whereas Kim was genuine. She was no fantasy figure. Kim was sexual without being obvious about it. Just watch her in “Pushover”, or “Strangers When We Meet.”

    For someone who was suppose to be of limited talent she certainly attracted  some of the great directors of her time and she handled herself well under the guidance of Hitchcock in “Vertigo”, Preminger in “The Man with the Golden Arm” and Delbert Mann in “Middle of the Night.” With Richard Quine, she seemed to be exceptionally responsive. Just look at her performances in “Bell, Book and Candle” or “Strangers When We Meet.”  I have also enjoyed her performances in films like “Kiss Me Stupid”, “Boy’s Night Out” and “The Notorious Landlady.”

TCM’s recent all day Novak festival was a joy. While I have most of the films they showed, I finally got to record and will soon watch for the first time “Five Against the House.” I was also pleased to record “The Notorious Landlady” a particular favorite of mine being both a Novak and Jack Lemmon fan and not available on DVD, this was a must.

   Novak retired from the movies in the early 1990’s and she hardly ever looked back. Making only rare appearances like the Larry King Show in 2004, where she still looked very good, otherwise Kim lives on her ranch with her husband and their many animals