“What were they thinking?” is the question that becomes almost inevitable after you compare the resources and talents involved in Bloodline, the 1979 thriller directed by Terrence Young, with what you can see on the screen. The plot, based on the best-selling novel by Sidney Sheldon, begins with a mountain‑climbing accident that claims the life of Sam Roffe, president of Roffe and Sons Pharmaceuticals, the world’s third‑largest company. The controlling share is inherited by his daughter Elizabeth (played by Audrey Hepburn), who is at first reluctant to take the reins of the business empire, only to change her mind and try to run the company with the help of her father’s trusted CEO Rhys Williams (played by Ben Gazzara), whom she brings into the family through a marriage of convenience. Her relatives – French adventurer Hélène Martin (played by Romy Schneider), Italian playboy Ivo Palazzi (played by Omar Sharif) and British politician Sir Alec Nichols (played by James Mason) – aren’t happy with that because they expected the company to go public, which would have allowed them to solve their financial problems by selling their shares. Swiss police inspector Max Hornung (played by Gert Fröbe) informs Elizabeth that her father didn’t die in an accident, and Elizabeth soon becomes the target of someone attempting to kill her. That person might be associated with a number of prostitutes strangled to death after being tricked into shooting snuff films.
Terrence Young is best known as the director of the first two James Bond films – Dr. No and From Russia with Love – and for his successful collaboration with Audrey Hepburn in the effective thriller Wait Until Dark. Hepburn, one of the most beloved actresses of mid‑20th‑century cinema, came out of semi‑retirement for this film, in which she was joined by an impressive international cast. Bloodline enjoyed a very high budget, which was spent on numerous locations in different countries around the world. Yet almost nothing works here. That includes a terribly sentimental and melodramatic soundtrack by Ennio Morricone used in the wrong scenes, including a disco theme that plays while Rhys shows Elizabeth the company’s high‑tech facility. Even more disappointing is Young’s inept direction, even in action scenes, and the terrible editing that makes the plot and character motivations utterly confusing. After a while, Bloodline, despite its large budget, begins to look like an uninspired low‑budget television film. Even worse, there are segments that look as though they were artificially inserted from other films – a subplot involving life‑extension research, a reconstruction of Elizabeth’s ancestor’s life in old Poland and, finally, a subplot involving snuff films (probably in a misguided attempt to turn Bloodline into a high‑budget Hollywood version of Italian giallo thrillers). The only bright spot might be found in Gert Fröbe, whose character, despite being the oldest in the film, shows surprising enthusiasm for new technology, in his case a giant computer that helps him sort data about crime suspects and connect the dots necessary to solve the mystery. Those semi‑humorous scenes, however, aren’t enough to improve the general impression of Bloodline, further eroded by a melodramatic and unconvincing finale which raises even more questions about what the producers of this utter failure were actually thinking.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
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