Julie

In 1956 Doris Day was cast in Julie between two of her best pieces of work, the highly dramatic Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much and her best musical The Pajama Game. Usually those two films are either or both listed on Doris Day's top ten. Julie never is.

There was nothing new by 1956 in leading ladies marrying psychopaths, Ingrid Bergman had done it twice already in Rage In Heaven and in Gaslight. But both of those films were intelligently done while Julie goes into the hysterically melodramatic.

Doris is cast in the title role in Julie as a woman with an obsessively jealous second husband in Louis Jourdan. Louis married Doris after her first husband committed suicide and about all there is to recommend him is that he's a great concert pianist. But after another pathological outbreak Day seeks some solace with an old friend in Barry Sullivan. And she's determined to leave Jourdan and give him the slip.

But Jourdan is one grimly determined psychotic. When she returns to her old job as an airline stewardess, Jourdan stalks her and ends up on her first airline job. After that things get real interesting over 15,000 feet.

Julie actually won two Academy Award nominations, the first for original screenplay. Impossible for me to believe but as Casey Stengel used to say in baseball, you can look it up.

The second Oscar nomination was for Best Original Song. That year Doris came out a winner of sorts because while the title song Julie didn't win Doris came home a winner with Que Sera Sera, a much better song from a much better film.

The over the top melodramatics throughout the film made what could have been a spine tingling climax into something quite camp and quite laughable. I won't reveal what the midair climax is, but just to say that it could have worked under different circumstances.

"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.

I thought Day was great in this movie and should have done a lot more in this vein instead of the fluffy sex comedies. Her performance was really moving and that's my own litmus test for drana. Few actors can really move you emotionally, putting you in their corner and making you more than just a disinterested spectator.

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.