Middle of the Night *** (1959, Kim Novak, Fredric March) – Classic Movie Review 12,305

Delbert Mann’s once mildly controversial 1959 romantic drama film Middle of the Night is written Paddy Chayefsky, based on his TV and Broadway plays, and stars Kim Novak and Fredric March.

Director Delbert Mann’s 1959 romantic drama Middle of the Night is written Paddy Chayefsky, based on his TV play, and stars Kim Novak and Fredric March.

It is a dissection of a romance between a Manhattan clothing maker in his 50s (March) and an office worker (Novak) 30 years his junior.

Mann’s film is a commendably strong adaptation of the TV play by Paddy Chayefsky, but avoiding – and missing – the Jewish element of the original. The weighty personal subject matter is handled with sensitivity and intelligence, gaining in significance from the big-screen opening-out treatment, though the pace is ponderous in an over-long-seeming movie, running 118 minutes. But March and Novak do very well to keep it motoring along involvingly. This rarely-shown film deserves to be better known.

Also in the cast are Glenda Farrell, Jan Norris, Lee Grant, Effie Afton, Martin Balsam and Joan Copeland.

The story originally appeared as an episode of The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse. Its seventh season began on 19 September 1954, with E G Marshall and Eva Marie Saint in Chayefsky’s Middle of the Night, a play which moved to Broadway 15 months later before being filmed by Columbia Pictures in 1959.

Middle of the Night (1959) is part of the Kim Novak Collection released on 3 August 2010 in a DVD box set that also includes Picnic (1956), Pal Joey (1957), Bell, Book and Candle (1958), and Jeanne Eagels (1957).

Kim Novak turns 90 on 13 February 2023, making her one of the Notable Nonagenarians.

Lee Grant (born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal) was born on 31 October during the mid-1920s.

The cast are Kim Novak as Betty Preisser, Fredric March as Jerry Kingsley, Glenda Farrell as Mrs. Mueller, Albert Dekker as Walter Lockman, Martin Balsam as Jack, Lee Grant as Marilyn, Lee Philips as George Preisser, Edith Meiser as Evelyn Kingsley, Joan Copeland as Lillian, Betty Walker as the widow Rosalind Neiman, Lou Gilbert as Sherman, Rudy Bond as Gould, Effie Afton as the neighbour Mrs Herbert, Jan Norris as Alice Mueller, David Ford as Paul Kingsley, and Lee Richardson as Joey Lockman.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,305

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