Middle of the Night (1959)
Fans of Ten North Frederick will fight each other in line at the video stores to rent the last copy of Middle of the Night. As sad as it is that there are no more video stores, that means that everyone can rent this movie—or buy it—at the same time!
Fredric March stars as a fifty-six-year-old widower who gets a second chance at happiness when he takes a bravery pill and asks twenty-four-year-old Kim Novak out to dinner. He’s one of the bosses at a women’s clothing factory, and she’s a receptionist and part-time model. While it might seem like he’s only attracted to her beautiful appearance, that’s not exactly the case. She cries on his shoulder about her painful divorce, and their temperaments click. She needs an older man for guidance, and he likes to be needed. It’s really very simple, like many May-December romances, but it’s hard to convince friends and family members who disapprove.
Freddie’s daughter Joan Copeland has a very interesting and realistic character. She’s obsessed with psycho-analyzing everyone else to make herself feel well-adjusted. While she says her aunt is too attached to Freddie, it’s really Joan who has the unhealthy attachment. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when her husband Martin Balsam finally cracks; it’s a speech that deserves applause.
Freddie and Kim are absolutely adorable together, and since Freddie has been complaining on screen about being an “old man” since 1946, it’s really cute to see him acting romantic and virile. There’s much more to his performance than just acting like a lecher, though. As a realistic man in 1959, he doesn’t like to show his pain or hurt feelings, even though he does get hurt. With Kim, his sister Edith Meiser, and his boss Albert Dekker, he tries to cover his tears and shows them only to the camera. If it weren’t for the unbeatable Ben-Hur the same year, Fredric March could have easily won a third Best Actor Oscar. As it was, he wasn’t even nominated this year, or the next year for his tour-de-force role in Inherit the Wind.
Kim Novak wasn’t given enough chances by Hollywood to show off her dramatic talents, but thankfully, at the start of her career, she was cast in some meaty roles. Whatever research she put into her character for Middle of the Night worked. She could have played the role off as just a flighty, young girl who doesn’t really care who she hurts because she doesn’t understand the ways of the world. Instead, she puts across every facet of her character to the audience. She’s insecure, she’s afraid of abandonment, she tries to push men away before they get a chance to hurt her. She’s impulsive, yes, but she’s still sorry – something that comes across even in the fast patter of her speech. And when she doesn’t say a word, her eyes do the greatest talking. When she cries on Freddie’s shoulder about her ex-husband, she starts to tell him about their “mutual attraction,” but before she says the phrase, she suddenly realizes she’s talking to her male boss. You can see her embarrassment, her thesaurus, and her quest to prove she’s mature enough to talk about such things before she changes what she was about to say. Kim Novak was nominated for Best Actress at the Rag Award for her performance, and since she was usually typecast as a bimbo or sexpot, I hope she appreciated the compliment.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Classic Cinema Central Seleus B" for posting!
More Martin Balsam movies here!
More Fredric March movies here!
Fredric March stars as a fifty-six-year-old widower who gets a second chance at happiness when he takes a bravery pill and asks twenty-four-year-old Kim Novak out to dinner. He’s one of the bosses at a women’s clothing factory, and she’s a receptionist and part-time model. While it might seem like he’s only attracted to her beautiful appearance, that’s not exactly the case. She cries on his shoulder about her painful divorce, and their temperaments click. She needs an older man for guidance, and he likes to be needed. It’s really very simple, like many May-December romances, but it’s hard to convince friends and family members who disapprove.
Freddie’s daughter Joan Copeland has a very interesting and realistic character. She’s obsessed with psycho-analyzing everyone else to make herself feel well-adjusted. While she says her aunt is too attached to Freddie, it’s really Joan who has the unhealthy attachment. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when her husband Martin Balsam finally cracks; it’s a speech that deserves applause.
Freddie and Kim are absolutely adorable together, and since Freddie has been complaining on screen about being an “old man” since 1946, it’s really cute to see him acting romantic and virile. There’s much more to his performance than just acting like a lecher, though. As a realistic man in 1959, he doesn’t like to show his pain or hurt feelings, even though he does get hurt. With Kim, his sister Edith Meiser, and his boss Albert Dekker, he tries to cover his tears and shows them only to the camera. If it weren’t for the unbeatable Ben-Hur the same year, Fredric March could have easily won a third Best Actor Oscar. As it was, he wasn’t even nominated this year, or the next year for his tour-de-force role in Inherit the Wind.
Kim Novak wasn’t given enough chances by Hollywood to show off her dramatic talents, but thankfully, at the start of her career, she was cast in some meaty roles. Whatever research she put into her character for Middle of the Night worked. She could have played the role off as just a flighty, young girl who doesn’t really care who she hurts because she doesn’t understand the ways of the world. Instead, she puts across every facet of her character to the audience. She’s insecure, she’s afraid of abandonment, she tries to push men away before they get a chance to hurt her. She’s impulsive, yes, but she’s still sorry – something that comes across even in the fast patter of her speech. And when she doesn’t say a word, her eyes do the greatest talking. When she cries on Freddie’s shoulder about her ex-husband, she starts to tell him about their “mutual attraction,” but before she says the phrase, she suddenly realizes she’s talking to her male boss. You can see her embarrassment, her thesaurus, and her quest to prove she’s mature enough to talk about such things before she changes what she was about to say. Kim Novak was nominated for Best Actress at the Rag Award for her performance, and since she was usually typecast as a bimbo or sexpot, I hope she appreciated the compliment.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Classic Cinema Central Seleus B" for posting!
More Martin Balsam movies here!
More Fredric March movies here!
Hot Toasty Rag Nominatons:
Best Actor of 1959: Fredric March
Best Actress: Kim Novak
Best Musical Score: George Bassman