Doris Day vowed to never make another thriller after this movie, claiming it emotionally drained her. She stayed true to her word; until her retirement eight years later, the only movies she made were comedies.
Doris Day's costumes for this film were created by Irene, a well-known, single-named designer who received her second Oscar nomination for her work here. Two years after working on Midnight Lace, Irene committed suicide, jumping from an upper-floor window of Hollywood's Knickerbocker Hotel.
In her autobiography, Doris Day wrote that to prepare herself for one of the terror scenes, she recalled a time when her first husband, trombonist Al Jorden, dragged her out of bed when she was ill and pregnant and hurled her against a wall. Day related that in the scene she wasn't acting hysterical, she was hysterical, and at the end of the take, she collapsed in a real faint. She was carried to her dressing room, and Producer Ross Hunter shut down production for a few days while she recovered.
Myrna Loy recalled that in the scene where Doris Day becomes hysterical on a staircase after one of her tormentor's taunting phone calls, Day was so overwrought with emotion that when Director David Miller called "Cut!", Day could not stop crying, and had to be all but carried to her dressing room.
The white gown that Doris Day wore is the same dress she wore to The 32nd Annual Academy Awards (1960), where she was Oscar-nominated for her performance in Pillow Talk (1959).