Doris Day is terrorized in 'London' by a man with a 'sing song voice'. She's actually something of a wet blanket, descending into hysteria far too easily and not simply having the gumption to tell the nuisance to fuck off. Luckily it's an amusing film, as I remembered who the culprit was from the go. Clearly Doris is nowhere near London but on Universal sets, where she's accompanied by her husband Rex Harrison, aunt Myrna Loy and best friend Natasha Parry. Possible red herrings come in the shape of menacing Roddy McDowell, too nice to be true John Gavin, sinister Anthony Dawson and shady Herbert Marshall, but good old reliable John Williams is there to set things right. With Hermione Baddeley and Mrs Miniver's Richard Ney (knew I recognised that voice).
Williams, I realised while watching it (and simultaneously not being able to recollect the name Górecki) I had never seen in a British film. He started out in British theatre but moved to America in the 1920s, where he had a career primarily as a stage actor. He won a Tony Award for his role in 'Dial M For Murder' and when he acted in the film version, it changed his career into that of a film and TV actor. He was in fact in two British wartime films, Ealing's The Foreman Went to France, edited by Robert Hamer, and The Goose Steps Out, a Will Hay anti-Nazi comedy.
Williams aside, fake British accents abound, underscored by Frank Skinner, but this is Universal and Russell Metty shoots everything in his trademark colours of total unrealism but gorgeousness, daring to keep faces in shadow whenever it pleases him. (Ross Hunter for a change has a co-producer in Martin Melcher.) It was written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts from the play 'Matilda Shouted Fire' by Janet Green, which is essentially Gaslight again.
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