Bloodline

It seems best to consider Richard Lester's lovely "Robin and Marian" Audrey Hepburn's swansong."Bloodline " is the most distressingly mediocre movie she ever made.

Terence Young had already directed the actress in the excellent thriller "wait until dark" ,a film which compares favorably with Hitchcock's "rear window" .So it was only natural that they teamed up again .

The screenplay is a mess,a disaster ,and it's more complicated than complex.Full of plot holes,of implausibilities (the fabulously rich heiress ,after several murder attempts does not even think of hiring a bodyguard!),and see how Young even copies himself for the last sequence where Hepburn is alone in the house ,of course in the dark,like in the 1967 highly superior effort.

An absurd international cast gives the coup de grâce to the movie: Americans (Ben Gazzara),English (James Mason),Germans (Romy Schneider,Gert Froebe),French (Maurice Ronet) ,Greeks (Irene Pappas),Egyptians (Omar Sharif).All are given lousy parts .They are supposed to be the suspects of a whodunit.

"Bloodline", based on a novel by "I Dream of Jeannie" creator Sidney Sheldon, probably qualifies as one of Audrey Hepburn's lesser movies. Hepburn plays the heir to a pharmaceutical company who becomes a marked woman following her decisions about the company's future. I didn't find it a terrible movie, but Hepburn obviously starred in much better films (much of the movie seems like a rehash of her earlier movie "Charade"). She and co-star Ben Gazzara later co-starred in Peter Bogdanovich's bizarre "They All Laughed".

Director Terence Young is probably best known for "Dr. No" and "From Russia with Love". He didn't hit the bottom with this flick, but I doubt that anyone would want to stress it in their resumes. Usually I would say that there would be an incentive to remake it to try and do it right, but I actually don't like the idea of remaking an Audrey Hepburn movie. Since everyone is bound to have a few bad spots on his/her resume, we can leave it at that. "Bloodline" is still a pretty enjoyable movie, if not a masterpiece.

Also starring James Mason, Claudia Mori, Irene Papas, Michelle Phillips, Maurice Ronet, Romy Schneider, Omar Sharif, Beatrice Straight, Gert Frobe, Marcel Bozzuffi, Pinkas Braun, Ivan Desny, Vadim Glowna, Walter Kohut and Wolfgang Preiss.

Regarding "Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline", I'd like to correspond to Paramount and inquire why not re-edit the film (remaster), and create a SPECIAL EDITION, maybe with deleted scenes (with Ursula Buchfellner and Eleonore Melzer, which were cut), and commentary. I read parts of the book, and like the book, but the movie, when I watched it in the theater back in 1979, it made no sense, and was confusing, particularly with the Snuff films. The book lets you know WHY these films are created, as with the movie, you wonder why?! OR: remake the movie the way the book is! Great cast, but overall, movie STINKS! Anyway, anybody know the address to write to Sidney Sheldon so I can ask him?! Thank you.

I enjoyed this movie! Any time Audrey Hepburn graced the screen was an occasion and for her to be paired with Ben Gazzara made this movie extra special for me. The story is interesting; the scenery is beautiful; a delightful romance develops; and who could forget Omar Shariff's shenanigans with his wife, his daughters and his mistresses? I do not wish that every single copy would disappear - I wish that they would put it on DVD. In fact, I have an excellent copy on VHS that I taped from TV. I have tried to copy it on my DVD recorder but they marked it so that it cannot be copied. I don't understand this practice but that has nothing to do with this movie! Sidney Sheldon is an excellent storyteller - and this one is no exception. As pointed out by another reviewer here, there may be cinematic flaws and shortcuts in this film - I did not notice them. I was much too engrossed in the story.

...which makes this movie interesting to watch. It looks expensive and cheap at the same time. The money probably went to pay the stars, their wardrobe and to rent airplanes because the characters keep landing at airports. There seems to have been no money left for setbuilding or a proper editor! There are some really bad continuity gaps in the film.

The film is just trash! I thought it would be a serious study of a business empire run by a family. Instead it's a murder mystery without mystery and also a soft porn killer thriller! Did poor Audrey know about the naked ladies? She looks classy in her Givenchy clothes but the film is garbage; beneath her! She tries to pretend to care about the plot but the other stars (with the exception of Romy Schneider) are terrible!!!! I'm astounded at the low level of movie-making in "Bloodline"! See it for that reason only!