Julie (1956), a noirish thriller directed by Andrew L. Stone; starring Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, and Barry Sullivan. I decided to check out other Doris Day thrillers after writing about Midnight Lace (1960) (see previous entry below.) This film, made four years before Midnight Lace, starts off with a great black-and-white, noirish ambience, but it quickly derails under the weight of a terrible script and utterly clueless direction by Stone.
Known for directing a lot of light-hearted comedies in the '30s and '40s, Stone seems uncomfortable with this type of story, at least for this particular film. As a director here, he shows no idea of how to build up a suspenseful story or frame a relentless villain, and he blows numerous opportunities to improve the film's pacing and acting. There are also several gaping plot holes that are just glided right by, leaving the viewer baffled.
Day does a good job of portraying the title character, Julie, a widow in her early 30s who has married Lyle, one of her late husband’s good friends, rather hastily. From the first scene we know that marrying Lyle (Jourdan) was a big mistake; he’s supposedly insanely jealous. The story starts with some gorgeous shots of a luxurious country club golf course on the shores of the mid-California coast (the Monterey Peninsula, to be exact.) Then we see Day as Julie, stomping furiously through the course and the clubhouse with an upset look on her face, moving toward her snappy two-tone convertible.
Just as she’s ready to pull out of the country club parking lot, Lyle jumps in the car and Julie upbraids him for scolding her in front of friends for allegedly flirting with another man. Lyle says nothing but forces his foot on the gas pedal, making the car go faster and faster in a dangerous way. This could have been a great, heart-pounding scene, but it’s ruined by the obvious rear projection footage of the road they’re supposedly traveling on, made worse by the way that Julie spins the steering wheel around furiously, totally conflicting with the relatively straight path of the road. She’s so awful at pretending to steer that it made me wonder if Day even knew how to drive at this point in her career.
Jourdan, the French actor who made his name in Hollywood as the charming foreign heart-throb in frothy rom-coms and musicals, is miscast as Lyle. He simply doesn’t come off as an insane, violent villain. To be fair, the script doesn’t give him much to work with—there’s no build-up of Lyle acting insane and dangerous; we are just told that he’s jealous and crazy with not much shown to back it up. When a friend of Julie’s named Cliff (Barry Sullivan), points out that Julie’s first husband, who allegedly hanged himself, could have been murdered by Lyle, Julie rushes off to confront Lyle, who calmly states, “Yes, I did it.” No build-up, no angry meltdowns, no suspense, nothing. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, he ain’t.
From Lyle’s confession, the movie just gets belabored and tedious. Julie runs away from their lavish beach house in Carmel with the help of Cliff, and Lyle (what kind of a name is that for a Frenchman anyway?) pursues in a languid, diffident manner. She eventually ends up in San Francisco, working at her old job as an airline stewardess while rooming with a girlfriend.
When Julie's called to work a late-night international flight, Lyle turns up on her flight and causes more trouble. The on-board cliches just don’t quit as Lyle’s shenanigans result in the plane having to make an emergency landing—with Julie at the controls! — while being assisted by the doctor (Barney Phillips), who’s conveniently on board. All of which is filmed in the same lackadaisical, suspense-killing style as the rest of the film.
The movie does have its positives, including great black-and-white cinematography and a haunting ballad called Julie that’s sung by Day over the opening credits. Day also gives a much spunkier performance here as a hunted wife than she would give in a similar role a few years later in Midnight Lace, but she’s still depending on male authority figures for everything and probably ended up marrying faithful dog Cliff in the end, although that wasn’t shown.
Julie is currently streaming at Amazon; I give it a 5.5 out of 10. Mainly for Day fans who are tired of her musicals and rom-coms.
