Julie

"Julie" starts out as a mass of tension, (other than the ridiculous rear-projection car scenes where everyone turns the steering wheel in wrong directions!) packing an intense amount of story in the first 40 minutes. By the second act, when the pace slows down, all the previous scenes seem too condensed for comfort. One scene in the beginning of the film is especially intriguing: Lyle practices his piano piece while Julie lays on the couch. Watching his hands dance over the keys, and the beautifully framed shot of him against the open window is truly surreal, almost too profound for a film of this type.

The third act, all about Doris Day landing the airplane, feels like an entirely separate movie. With the loss of the human threat after her, it stops being a thriller and becomes the tag ending of an action blockbuster. "Julie" has uneven bursts of calm and nail-biting tension, all in all a strange combination with its own memorable moments.

JULIE! Doris Day runs for her life in this drama about a woman with a psychopathic husband (Louis Jourdan). The story seems to start in the middle - it begins with Jourdan trying to crash his car with Julie in it because he's jealous of her talking to someone. We learn that Jourdan, who plays a concert pianist, is Julie's second husband, her first having committed suicide. Except that apparently he didn't according to a mutual friend, Cliff (Barry Sullivan). Cliff is worried about Julie living with this nut job and thinks that hubby #2 may have gotten rid of hubby #1. Determined to find out, Julie confronts him, and he admits it. Thus begins her desperate attempt to get away from him. When she finally escapes, she goes back to her old job as flight attendant on an airline.

The story hit a little too close to home for Doris Day, who didn't want to make the film because it reminded her of two earlier marriages. And possibly her third, as Marty Melcher insisted that she do it and was unhappy when she appeared friendly with Jourdan. However, thanks to the film, she discovered Carmel and Monterey and eventually made her home there. The scenery is glorious.

Day does the narration which uses the phrase "strangely disturbing" several times. It's maybe not the best movie you've ever seen but it is very entertaining, and Doris is great as the terrified woman. What a talent, and her '60s reinvention made her bigger than ever. Jourdan is quietly terrifying, and there are many suspenseful moments in the film. Highly watchable - it's a little all over the place, starting off as one thing and ending as another - but it will really hold your interest.

Having just finished "The Man Who Knew Too Much" for Alfred Hitchcock,

Doris Day repeats the genre and does a wonderful job in a suspence drama. The story flowed well, and Miss Day's performance was outstanding. ( She even smokes !! ) Too bad She never got to do a second film with The Master of Suspence. That is the only thing that could have improved this movie. It has a lot of the feel of Suspision, and the edgeness of Midnight Lace. Both fine films of Hitchcock and Day respectivly. Highly recommended for a good rainy afternoon.

A thriller starring Doris Day a few years before she hit the jackpot with her string of coy sex comedies, Julie is what was known in the trade as a `jep' – a woman-in-jeopardy drama. It starts off promisingly with a spat at a country club between Day and her second husband, Louis Jourdan (the first Mr. Day, a presumed suicide, may have been his victim) that escalates into an incident of road rage. Jourdan is passed off as a concert pianist – you know, one of those unstable `artistic' types. And he fills out a startlingly up-to-date profile of the irrationally jealous, controlling spouse, alternating between murderous rages and mawkish contrition. (Since Charles Boyer launched the prototype of this sort of abusive male in Gaslight, it seems that Hollywood thought it safe to cast chiefly Frenchmen in subsequent outings.)

Julie wastes no time in setting Day to flee, with Jourdan in pursuit; her ally is old friend Barry Sullivan, who tries to smuggle her safely from Carmel to San Francisco. But Jourdan, who apparently missed his calling as an international master of intrigue, proves too smart for them and manages to get himself, gun in trenchcoat, aboard a cross-continental airliner.

Julie, you see, used to be an airline stewardess, and here is where the script's credibility ultimately crumbles. As the movie prepares to come in for a landing, it abruptly shifts gears, leaving behind the dark psychological drama of the noir cycle for the purely mechanical thrills of an Airport. And so what at first seemed daring – revealing Jourdan as a woman-hating psycho without a tedious buildup – turns into a time-saving gimmick to place Day as swiftly as possible behind the controls of an airplane. And so what started out as a psychologically astute study of obsession descends into the merely routine.

I was disappointed that Doris Day only sang one song for this movie and it was played and over by the end of the opening credits. The road rage scene was exciting, but if you've ever driven on a winding road like that one in Monterey/Carmel, you know there would be no way to avoid going off the road in that situation.

The story was pretty good though. The wife who fears her husband will kill her and the police cannot help her without any evidence. She tries to get away, but he figures out every move she makes and it all comes down to a climatic ending.

I think the plane landing was done well. Doris Day was very convincing in her role. I really enjoyed her as an actress for this movie, when I normally think of her as a wonderful singer.