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| Audrey Hepburn |
BLOODLINE (1979). Director: Terence Young.
"People who don't pay up end with their knees nailed to the floor."
When her father, the head of an international pharmaceutical firm, is murdered, Elizabeth Roffe (Audrey Hepburn of
The Unforgiven) takes over the company with the help of Rhys Williams (Ben Gazzara of
The Young Doctors), whom she marries. But virtually all of the board members, all of whom are Elizabeth's relatives, are desperate for money, and appalled that she refuses to make the firm public, whereupon they could get ready cash. Before long, there are several attempts on Elizabeth's life, including an elevator crash that kills her secretary (Beatrice Straight). Who is the culprit: Ivo (Omar Sharif), whose mistress is demanding money; Helene (Romy Schneider), a ruthless race car driver; Sir Alec (James Mason), whose wife (Michelle Phillips) has run up huge gambling debts; or someone else? And who is responsible for the murders of several young women in snuff films?
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| Ben Gazzara and Audrey Hepburn |
Certainly an entertaining movie could have been made from Sidney Sheldon's absorbing page-turner, but this is a by-the-numbers effort with some unfortunate casting, slack direction, and an obnoxious musical score by Ennio Morricone, who simply layers the same treacly tune over every scene whether it is appropriate or not. Director Young seems to have forgotten all he knew about directing, and despite an okay climax,
Bloodline has virtually no suspense. The aforementioned elevator crash sequence is so brief and inept that it's positively comical. The best passages in the book, which concern Elizabeth's grandfather's ordeals in a Polish ghetto and the origins of Roffe Industries, get only a little screen time. This was sort of the second "comeback" picture for Hepburn, who gives a competent performance and looks good, if a little scary-skinny with, as one viewer put it, "ribs up to her neck." Gert Frobe from
Goldfinger plays an inspector who tries to track down the culprit, but James Mason positively walks off with the picture, which is no surprise.
Verdict: So much happening and still so dull. **.
2 comments:
Too bad, because the book is a real page-turner. Miss Hepburn is about 20 years too old to play the heroine, much as I love her. Bloodline is not the worst movie ever it's watchable, but only because I was a fan of the book.
-C
Sidney Sheldon was not the world's greatest writer -- eventually he just churned out books that read more like outlines or synopses -- but some of his earlier titles were suspenseful and intriguing. They should have made great movies but they never did!
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