Bloodline (1979) User Reviews

Dressed to Kill

[VincentElgar · 5/10 · 13 December 2005]

Following the release of Wait Until Dark (1967) and the break-up of her marriage to Mel Ferrer, Audrey Hepburn retired from the screen. By the mid 1970s her subsequent marriage, to Rome-based psychiatrist Andrea Dotti, had become strained and this is often cited as one of the reasons for her decision to resume her acting career. It may also account for the fact that her choice of material was so ill-judged.

Bloodline (1979) was Hepburn's second 'comeback' movie and appeared three years after the underrated 'Robin and Marian'. Based on a novel by Sidney Sheldon it can be compared in many ways to The Adventurers (1970). Both are based on trashy bestsellers, both feature journeyman multi-national casts, both are directed by James Bond series veterans and both benefit from the services of first-rate cinematographers – in Bloodline's case Freddie Young, David Lean's regular cameraman, who previously worked with his namesake Terence on You Only Live Twice. (Trivia note: Sean Ferrer, Hepburn's eldest son, would later work as an assistant director on Terence Young's Korean War epic 'Inchon'). Both movies were poorly received and both have enduringly awful critical reputations.

So is Bloodline that bad? Well, it isn't very good – but bear in mind that it dates from an era when the notion of 'guilty pleasures' was unknown. The movie opens fairly well with the murder of pharmaceutical magnate Sam Roffe and the inheritance by his daughter Elizabeth (Hepburn) of his Zurich-based empire. We are then introduced to Elizabeth's cousins (Sharif, Schneider, Mason) all of whom, we later find out, have reasons for wanting her dead. So far so good – but unfortunately things don't stay that way for long. There is a long, redundant (and excruciatingly poorly acted) sequence detailing the birth of the Roffe empire which really drags things down. Scenes become increasingly disjointed – at one point, following the murder of one of the company's research scientists, Hepburn yells "I want them out!", a statement which makes no sense whatsoever unless you've read the book, in which case you'll know she's referring to the security personnel who've failed to protect the murdered man. Bloodline bears all the signs of heavy cutting, indeed one source (Leonard Maltin) says that 40 minutes were added to the movie's first network showing. Even if this footage were to be restored for a DVD release, it is doubtful given the quality of that which remains, that Bloodline would suddenly turn into a masterpiece.

For a movie with a fairly reasonable budget (Hepburn's Givenchy-designed wardrobe reportedly cost $100,000, and she does look great) it looks remarkably shoddy in places (witness the back projection during the Le Mans sequence) and with a couple of exceptions (Hepburn – and Schneider, who is delicious as a Contessa de Sade-type) the performances are strictly one-dimensional. Ennio Morricone's score is effective, especially during the striking main title sequence, but is disappointingly uneven overall.

Lovers of eurotrash will lap Bloodline up, but even they may find it a bit heavy going. Recommended with strong reservations – 5/10.

I dream of James Bond

[lee_eisenberg · 5/10 · 21 December 2009]

"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.

Passable time-filler.

[gridoon · 5/10 · 2 October 1999]

This is one of those movies ("Jaws The Revenge" was another) that have a really low reputation, yet when you actually see them you find out that, while by no means good movies, they are at least passable time-fillers. Aside from Gert Frobe ("Goldfinger") being cast as a detective, there is nothing laughable about this - also nothing exceptional. The pacing is wrong; it doesn't stay focused on the mystery of the plot. But if you have two hours to waste...

Take the money and run.

[brogmiller · 2/10 · 25 April 2020]

One wonders what it is that attracts stars to a particular project. A well-written script certainly or the chance to work with a great director. At the risk of appearing cynical one can think of no earthly reason why any of these excellent actors would agree to do a film based upon a novel(I use the term loosely) by Sidney Sheldon and directed by the staggeringly undistinguished Terence Young except THE MONEY. The starry cast list would no doubt encourage bums on seats but anyone who bought a ticket to see one of their favourites in this rubbish must have felt more than somewhat deflated. Anything at all worth remembering? Romy Schneider's line whilst unbuttoning the shirt of Maurice Ronet: 'A woman's work is never done' and Omar Sharif's seldom seen comedic side. Having endured this tripe I call to mind a quote of Dolly Parton: 'It takes a lot of money to make something look this cheap'.

One wishes every single copy of it would magically disappear

[M. David · 27 March 2003]

When "Bloodline" was released in 1979, a major magazine review pointed out that in the course of the story, ostensibly for failure to pay a gambling debt, a character's knees are nailed to the floor. The critic then went on to say, `This is what Paramount Pictures is going to have to do to get audiences to sit through this picture.' There aren't enough negative things to say about this abomination of a movie. The meandering, incoherent story is hampered at every turn by ludicrously bad production values. The direction, the inept blocking of the scenes, the lighting, the sets – in every case conspires to make the results look cheap and hollow. The movie is really a miracle of dreadfulness. The following is one of thousand small crimes against cinema throughout the picture: There is an explosion in the street. This is conveyed by a flash of light on the actors in the scene and a sound effect. The next shot, meant to be the view of the street from the window, is a still photograph beneath which someone is apparently waving a lit piece of paper. Just before the cut from this scene, the photograph actually starts to buckle from the heat of the flame. And the filmmakers left this in the film! The real crime against cinema is the fact that the name of Audrey Hepburn is associated with this repugnant film, a monstrosity so putrid, one wishes every single copy of it would magically disappear.

No more than a R-rated nighttime soap...stars collect a paycheck while looking baleful

[moonspinner55 · 1/10 · 3 July 2017]

Audrey Hepburn returned to Hollywood in the late 1970s to much fanfare...but once her return movie, "Robin and Marian", was finished, Hollywood didn't know what to do with her. Throwing money her way to get the Audrey Hepburn name on a film product seemed to be the industry's answer, and Hepburn collected a $1,000,000 paycheck (plus profits, though I doubt there were any) for this adaptation of Sidney Sheldon's bestselling novel. It all must have looked good expense-wise, but one has to wonder if she even read the script. It's a pallid whodunit: pharmaceutical titan is killed in a mountain-climbing accident; his daughter, though left out of the industry-loop for most of her life, decides not to sell out and run the empire herself. This is disconcerting to her greedy relatives on the board of directors, who had hoped to reap profits in their boss's absence. After a police inspector deduces the billionaire was actually murdered, and the daughter's brakes go out on a winding mountain road, it becomes clear to her there's a fox in the henhouse. Boring mystery is 'spiced up' with a snuff-film subplot involving the killer, a bald, naked strangler and some unfortunate prostitutes (and which, like many of the story threads, is never resolved; this movie doesn't end, it just stops). Hepburn is lovingly lighted and, though she's rail-thin, is the sole bright spot in this catastrophe. Ben Gazzara, James Mason, Omar Sharif, Gert Fröbe, Romy Schneider, Irene Papas and Beatrice Straight are all wasted. Terence Young directed, bringing absolutely no personality to the job. Talented writer Laird Koenig did the adaptation, which is humorless and without a shred of suspense. The finale seems to be an homage to Hepburn's classic "Charade", but here the staging is so static and clumsy it doesn't come off. Rightfully regarded as one of the worst films of Hepburn's career. * from ****

An absolute mess

[hexensnacht · 2/10 · 16 August 2008]

Exactly what anyone was thinking during the making of this movie isn't actually clear as the movie has no idea what it's trying to be, or the audience it's trying to attract.

The list of well known actors coupled with the story line of inheriting a multi-million dollar company (ie. instant wealth) read like a trashy $2 novel, which is what I'm assuming this whole thing was based on, but then they thrown in a snuff-movie sub plot with splashes of nudity. It's like they have one aspect to get in the 70's era middle aged tabloid mag reading women, and then the other so that their bored husbands will have something to oggle and remember the movie by as well.

For starters the editing of the movie is terrible. Scene's just happen, and then are followed up by completely different scene's in different locations. At the start of the movie they actually tried to provide some flow to the story, but by about a third of the way through no attempt to portray any sort of time scale or transition between scene's is provided.

Audrey Hepburn, the main draw card for the movie, is treated almost like a child actor in this. The film tries to re-live scene's she's played out in older movies when she was much younger: eg. when she jumps onto the bed to make a phone call only to find that the phone is dead. This might have worked if the film was a light hearted music love story like the films which made her famous, but this was meant to be during a dramatic and dangerous scene, so it just ends up looking extremely staged and comical (bordering on silly). The one saving grace is that you get to hear her call Ben Gazzara a 'bastard', which in her distinctly European tongue sounds just gold. So roughly, the movies lead actress's high point is when she calls another actor an expletive. Not exactly star studded cinema here.

The biggest gripe I have with ANY of the acting in this movie is how no one actually says anything to anyone. People are dying, mullions are being lost and a huge global enterprise is crumbling .. but everyone DEMANDS that they speak about things 'later'. Why did the brakes fail ?? .. I'll tell you later. When are we going to make a decision ?? .. we'll do that later. Who's the killer ?? .. I'll tell you later.

For people who are fearing for their lives they certainly seem to have more important things to do then actually work out what the hell is going on around them. 'I'm sorry I'm too rich to die now, please kill me later on when it's more dramatic'.

Then we come to the movies snuff-p0rn sub-plot. Exactly what the hell is going on in these scene's is hard to say. They contain NONE of the major actors and so look like they were tacked onto the movie in the editing stage, and seem to happen only through-out the course of the movie to keep some sort of 'threat' level present since the actors are so busy worrying about minor things that the audience might forget that DEATH AND MURDER is actually occurring.

The whole point of the snuff-movie sub-plot it seems is to show that one person is, in fact, the killer. But this, in fact, makes almost no sense since the supposed killer didn't actually kill any of the women, and thus far no one has even been able to pin any of the other deaths on him either (or anyone else). So he's shot because he has a red ribbon in his hands.

'Inspector can you prove this man killed anyone or actually did anything bad ?'

'No your honour but out of all the circumstantial evidence I've collected and been bam-boozled with, this guy's right at the top of the list.'

'Good enough for me Inspector, your free to go. Please feel free to shoot anyone else you think could possibly have maybe done something.'

If you really feel it warranted that you MUST watch this movie, please look out for the following highlights of cinematic and acting glory : 1. Audrey Hepburn sitting on a bouncy seat in a studio while a car crash scene plays out behind her (hilarity on a grand scale) 2. The Inspector talking with a computer .. again and again and again .. all of which is inconclusive.

3. Ben Gazzara displaying his obvious American-ism to Europeans by saying 'Jesus' at inappropriate times.

4. Really bad stock footage of an old F1 race edited seamlessly (cough) into the movie with the volume cranked up to 11.

5. The Inspectors hilarious attempts to hold a rifle during the final climactic scene (seriously, you can see the fear of god in the eyes of the police officers standing around him) 6. The 'building burning' scene which looks like a photo with a match under it.

7. The fact that the entire building looks like it has exploded and burnt down the previous scene / photo .. yet no one seems to really care in the following scene's.

8. The snuff-movie sub plot which makes no sense and seems to be the movies only real talking point (both for it's strange inclusion and for the way it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to everything else that's going on).

9. The cut scene's to Roffe's senior's early life .. which just sort of 'happen' to a back ground of Audrey walking around an old castle looking confused (I was looking confused after watching that scene as well though).

10. The 'over this way there's much the same' comment from Ben Gazzara during Audrey's tour of the drug factory (The actor summed up a pointless scene even before the audience had a chance too).

Wastes a lot of talent

[bschneid76 · 1/10 · 26 July 2005]

I checked this film out because I had read how terrible it was. And it was terrible. It seems to be that with the amount of talent that was wasted in this film, that somewhere something good could have come about it. But the dialogue was so laughable, and poor Audrey Hepburn looking very foolish. The end of the film is lifted (in bad taste) right from another Hepburn film called Charade. At the end you have no idea what is going on, or why the building is on fire, or why people are dying left and right. Ben Gazarra, James Mason, Beatrice Straight and Heburn are all wasted. Find another murder mystery instead of this clunker.

Amazingly bad...

[nickrogers1969 · 3/10 · 18 June 2009]

...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!

Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara and a stellar cast!!!

[theblairs · 7/10 · 21 August 2006]

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.

what about a special and remastered edition? -Paul

[paulmarthinessen-1 · 3/10 · 26 May 2005]

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.

audrey and romy

[Bardotsalvador · 8/10 · 5 July 2010]

This movie is not a good one but a very special movie to me is not only the mature Audrey Hepburn in this one but is the very beautiful and fantastic Romy Schneider any movie with a cast like this should be better but doesnot matter you will love it , plus is Maurice Ronet a major international star he too die young, Romy at this time was a big international super star and one of the most beautiful women in this planet i am sorry for Audrey but i love Romy much more sadly she die young and have a tragic life, Romy was mainly an European star at this point but what surprise me the most is that many of the people written a review doesn't mention her name please she was as beautiful and important as Audrey Hepburn was

Bloodline:The 155 Minute TV Cut.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 11 September 2014]

Taking a look at IMDb's Classic Film board,I noticed that a fellow poster was talking about a very interesting sounding title that was Audrey Hepburn only R-Rated film! Getting to the end of the review,I spotted a mention to a 150 minute TV cut of the movie.Tracking down the uncut version of the film online,I soon got set to discover where the bloodline runs to.

The plot:

With her dad having recently died in a skiing accident, Elizabeth Roffe finds out that she has been appointed as the head of her dad's major pharmaceutical company. Meeting the board of directors,Roffe is told that the business is too heavier burden for her to carry,and that it would be much better if she allowed the board to run the company for her.

Seriously considering the boards take over,Roffe gets a sudden shot of determination,when she discovers that the company has been working on a pill which will extend life.Shortly after Roffe has given the decision,the breaks in her car suddenly break down,which leads Roffe to fearing that her dad's death was far from an accident.

View on the film:

Spanning half a dozen capitol cities and a 2 and a half hour running time,the adaptation of Sidney Sheldon's novel by Laird Koenig spends the first hour setting up the glamorous business world of Roffe,which whilst allow for the exotic locations to be fully displayed,does lead to the movie feeling rather slow-paced,and also being drained of any satirical bite about a board of directors being more than a little desperate for power.Cutting into the Giallo sub- genre,Koenig does very well at building a sinister mood around the mysterious killer,with the murderers obsession with snuff footage being used in a rather daring manner.

Taking advantage of the movies huge locations,director Terence Young gives the movie a striking elegance,as Young uses sweeping shots to show the endless towers that Roffe is surrounded by.For the Giallo elements of the title,Young reveals a surprisingly unflinching eye towards the stylish scenes,with the killers use of snuff footage allowing Young to give each of the scenes a raw,rustic sting.

While she openly admitted to being far from happy about only discovering the snuff element in the film half way into its shooting, Audrey Hepburn gives a fine performance in her reunion with Young, (who she had worked with on Wait Until Dark)with Hepburn showing Roffe to really enjoy the glamour connected to a major job,but also having a real determining to show that she can successfully run a business ,and that Roffe is far from just being a "pretty thing".

Surrounding Roffe with knives behind their back, (in one case literally!)each of the board members give excellent eerie performances,with James Mason giving a wonderful out of breath performance as the egotistical Sir Alec Nichols,while the stunning Claudia Mori gives the title a shot of sass as the mistress waiting for her payment.After Young missed the chance to work with him by not directing Goldfinger, Gert Fröbe gives a terrific,wacky performance as Inspector Max Hornung,who is investigating where the blood-soaked bloodline runs to.

Poorly made junk...

[JasparLamarCrabb · 1/10 · 26 April 2008]

Surely this has to rank as one of the most ill-conceived, poorly made films in Paramount Pictures' history. Audrey Hepburn inherits control of a pharmaceutical company after her father dies and the firm's board members (her cousins) close in and try to convince her to go public, thus making them all rich. When that fails, one of them tries to kill her. Unless Hepburn's family is some sort of creepy version of the UN General Assembly, this is a very oddly cast group of characters...James Mason (British) is married to degenerate gambler Michelle Phillips (American), Omar Sharif (Egyptian, playing an Italian) has a wife and mistress as well as two sets of children. Irene Papas (Greek) plays his wife. Romy Schneider (Austrian) is the jet-setting race car driving cousin married to failed businessman Maurice Ronet (French). They all have various fetishes with one even into snuff porn films. The acting is pretty bad, with Mason really debasing himself. Phillips' role seems to have been left largely on the cutting room floor and Sharif appears to be playing the film for laughs. Ben Gazzara plays Hepburn's husband/business partner and he emerges unscathed. Hepburn is given a minimal amount of inane dialog, but the poor editing makes some of her scenes seem really silly. Despite having DR. NO and FROM Russia WITH LOVE to his credit, the director Terence Young proved to be a very bad filmmaker. Was he putting this junk together with his eyes closed? The kinky music score by Ennio Morricone is fun however completely out of place.

Wait until lark

[dbdumonteil · 15 March 2009]

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.

Different Dress/What's with the porn?

[SL80KE81 · 1/10 · 5 January 2004]

Audrey Hepburn wearing two dresses in the same scene and three scenes depicting the making of SNUFF films that have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film. NOTHING!!!! A pitiful film made by lazy film makers! In 1979 it was the worst film I'd ever seen and 24 years later nothing has changed.

'Wait Until Dark' is better

[HotToastyRag · 3/10 · 27 June 2018]

Hooray, it's another Wait Until Dark! Audrey Hepburn stars in another thriller, where three men are out to get her, and she has to unsuspectingly save herself and her fortune. This one isn't as good, though, but if you like to see an older Audrey defending herself, you can put the kids to bed and watch this one. A recurrent side plot of the film is the dirty business-no pun intended-of making snuff films. If you don't know what those are, don't research them and don't rent this movie.

Audrey's mogul dad dies at the start of the movie, and she finds herself a target because of her stock in the corporation. Ben Gazzara, James Mason, and Omar Sharif all stand to gain if she relinquishes her inheritance. Which one is behind the threats? Well, with two veteran villains among the suspects, it's a toss-up between Ben and James, so you'll be on the edge of your seat until the end.

Omar Sharif serves at the much-needed comic relief, believe it or not, and his scenes were my favorites in the movie. He has three daughters with his wife, and three sons with his mistress, and while he juggles both families, his mistress constantly threatens to expose his second to his first. Unless you like seeing how everyone aged, though, you might want to just rent movies where they're younger. The few funny scenes Omar has doesn't really make the entire movie worth it.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to nudity, violence, and graphic sex scenes, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

Audrey Hepburn's Mistake

[midwestguy-04174 · 3/10 · 13 November 2016]

I've always had a special place in my heart for Audrey Hepburn and I admire her work. However, I just can't understand why she made this movie.

I've watched this movie three times and on each occasion I found it almost impossible to watch. It's just so disjointed, redundant, and ridiculous. The last time I watched it I tried very hard to give it one more chance but to no avail.

One would think that all the big name actors would give it a boost. However, this cast turns the movie into one big "Who's Who" of WASHED-UP actors: Omar Sharif, Romy Schneider, Maurice Ronet, Irene Papas, AND unfortunately Hepburn herself.

I hate to say that. Yes, she is a legend. Yes, she is an icon. Yes, she is loved. It's sad, but she was washed-up as an actress by 1967. Every movie she made after "How to Steal a Million" in 1966 is nearly impossible to watch, especially "Two for the Road" and this flop. That includes the critically acclaimed "Wait Until Dark" in my opinion. Even "Robin and Marion" just doesn't come together.

"Two for the Road" has got to be the most over-rated movie ever. Torture! Pure torture! The only thing good about it is the music by Henry Mancini.

I don't know if it was the material, her co-workers, the changing times, or what. It is sad, but somewhere along the line Audrey lost the magic. Bloodline was the final nail in the coffin.

We love you, Audrey, but someone must have lied to you.

A mess!

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 10 September 2021]

You may have realized, by now, that I love when great actors get caught up in making bad movies. Olivier in The Jazz Singer? Elizabeth Taylor in The Flintstones? Bruce Willis, Al Pacino and Robert Deniro in everything after 1995?

Amazingly, Audrey Hepburn avoided making a horrible movie until very late in her career as she essayed the lead in this Sidney Sheldon adaption. Sure, Jacqueline Bisset was to play the lead, but the much younger role of Elizabeth Roffe in the novel was rewritten to accomodate the star. Also, John Frankenheimer was originally set to direct, but left the project to work on Prophecy - imagine something being so bad you'd rather make that movie - and being replaced by James Bond director Terence Young.

When Sam Roffe, President of Roffe & Sons Pharmaceuticals, dies in a climbing accident, the entire company goes to his ingenue daughter Elizabeth, which is strange as Hepburn was fifty when this came out. Everyone on the board is a suspect, including the man that Elizabeth has just married, Rhys Williams (Ben Gazzara). There's even a Man in Black!

This sets off a chase across Europe with a murderous snuff movie making maniac killing to the sounds of Ennio Morricone, just like any number of giallo we've enjoyed. Except this movie has people like James Mason and Omar Sharif in it and cost $12 million to make in 1979, which would be around $43 million today.

Supposedly Hepburn was in the throes of her second divorce and needed money, so she couldn't walk once she realized that she was in a movie where a race car driver burns alive using real footage, so this is kind of snuff within snuff. She honored her contract and made $1 million plus a percentage of the gross, so she made a million dollars.

Audrey, I am so, so sorry...

[MissSimonetta · 3/10 · 14 January 2020]

I know I rag on modern movies a lot, but if you ever need reminding that "the good old days" could suck too, then look no further than BLOODLINE, a bloated overpriced mess and easily Audrey Hepburn's worst film. GREEN MANSIONS and WAR AND PEACE often get nominated as Audrey's worst, but those movies were coherent and coherence is a virtue which eludes BLOODLINE entirely.

The biggest problem is the script. It starts out with a good enough hook: the head of a big pharmaceutical company is murdered and his estranged daughter Elisabeth (Hepburn) takes the reigns, both unsure of her business savvy and nervous about all the enemies she's just made in not selling the company to them. Now, someone is trying to kill her to get all her money and she must try to find out who it is. So far, so good.

Then it becomes a mess: we get subplot after subplot-- Omar Sharif is trying to hide his angry mistress from his wife, Romy Schneider is blackmailing everyone and batting big bedroom eyes everywhere, weird flashbacks showing how Hepburn's father became a medical genius in the Jewish ghetto, and then-- oh yeah-- there's a man in a hat making erotic snuff films, murdering sex workers.

What did you say? What does that have to do with Hepburn trying to find out who to trust and who not to trust while evading assassins? Only heaven knows, because to me, it feels like the subplot was thrown in for cheap titillation-- the scenes are graphic and sleazy. (Apparently, Hepburn had no idea about their inclusion and was upset when she discovered they existed too.)

There's no flow to any of this. Scenes begin and end abruptly. They are largely people in rooms talking, with little in the way of interesting subtext or action. The whole movie feels like wheel-spinning, over and over, with Hepburn being hustled from place to place, confused and rather passive most of the time.

Director Terence Young had worked with Hepburn twelve years previously on WAIT UNTIL DARK, a superb slow-burn thriller that remains as chilling as the day it was released, which is why I think he was hired here to work similar magic and bring in the big, big money WAIT had grossed in '67. Considering he is most known for his work on the early Bond movies, the studio likely also thought he would fit the international intrigue elements of the story like a glove. But when the story is a mess, even Orson Welles isn't going to be able to save your movie. I've seen people on here claim Young must be a bad director, but I blame the material-- a viewing of WAIT UNTIL DARK shows he could make a one-room movie absolutely compelling, but that movie had interesting characters, inspired camerawork, and rising stakes. BLOODLINE just chucks its cardboard creations from scene to scene, hoping spooky lighting and spooky music will make us care.

What makes BLOODLINE all the more terrible is that the movie, not content to bungle its own original material, rips off earlier, successful Hepburn vehicles without understanding what made them work. It tries making Elisabeth a sadder version of Regina from CHARADE, but without the wit or spunk that made her interesting. The romance with Ben Gazzara's character, who Elisabeth is unsure whether or not she should trust, is a pale imitation of the similarly tense romance with Cary Grant in CHARADE, only without the chemistry or danger that made that pairing so memorable. Gazzara is about as appealing as white rice and you never get why Elisabeth is so crazy about him either.

The ending scene steals from both CHARADE and WAIT UNTIL DARK at the same time: Hepburn alone in her house, the phone lines cut, the lights out, Hepburn threatened with fire, then forced to decide between who to trust. Only in WAIT UNTIL DARK, the darkness worked because the blind Hepburn was leveling the playing field so her attackers, unaccustomed to the dark, could not find her easily in the apartment she knew so well-- an empowering and emotionally significant development-- whereas here it's just cheap suspense. And in CHARADE, when Hepburn must choose between going to Walter Matthau or Cary Grant, she's bonded extensively with both men over the course of the movie, so of course, we understand her anxiety and hesitation in going to either once she knows both might have reasons to want her dead. She doesn't have that intimacy with James Mason here and she's barely ANY chemistry with Gazzara, so it hasn't even an eighth of the impact of the original scene.

BLOODLINE was Hepburn's second attempt at a comeback vehicle, but audiences didn't take. The movie flopped. Hepburn would make sporadic appearances in movies throughout the 1980s, but otherwise, her heyday as a leading lady had long passed her by. It's a shame, because with the right material (aka not flaming trash) Hepburn could have excelled. She is still charming and lovely, and her acting skills had matured considerably since ROMAN HOLIDAY. Both she and her fans deserved better than this sleazy potboiler, but oh well. We'll always have her classics of the 50s and 60s.

Audrey Hepburn goes R-rated

[Petey-10 · 6/10 · 18 April 2012]

Sam Roffe of Roffe & Sons Pharmaceuticals dies.His daughter Elizabeth takes over the business.The cause of her father's death turns out to be a murder, and Elizabeth's life is also in danger.Bloodline (1979) is directed by Terence Young.It's based on Sidney Sheldon's 1977 novel.The movie has pretty handsome cast list, which should be a guarantee for a better movie.There's Audrey Hepburn in the lead playing Elizabeth Roffe.This is actually the only R-rated movie she ever starred.Recently deceased Ben Gazzara plays Rhys Williams.James Mason portrays Sir Alec Nichols.Claudia Mori is Donatella.Irene Papas is Simonetta Palazzi.Michelle Phillips plays Vivian Nichols.Romy Schneider plays Helene Martin.Omar Sharif, who turned 80 this month, plays Ivo Palazzi.Gert Fröbe portrays Inspector Max Hornung.Ennio Morricone is behind the music.The movie doesn't have anything too memorable.The moments at the villa in the end are pretty suspenseful, but it's too little too late.

Roffe Family Values

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 23 October 2016]

Bloodline opens with the billionaire founder and president of an international drug conglomerate being shot off an Alp. It goes further downhill from that.

The deceased's daughter is Audrey Hepburn who now is in charge of the family owned business and she is being pressed by other family members to have the corporation go public. The family is Jewish and they seem to bare no small resemblance to the Rothschilds. This issue about whether to start going public with their stock is what got Dad killed. He refused to do it and when she does likewise, Hepburn also is targeted.

Sounds like a straightforward enough story, but the telling of it was botched beyond belief. There are a string of snuff murders of prostitutes being investigated by the same inspector, Gert Frobe, who is investigated Dad's murder, in the film just to give it exploitation value. Also a rather needless flashback to the father's younger days and the founding of the company.

A really great cast is wasted here. Making the film somewhat bearable in his scenes is Omar Sharif, one of the cousins and board members whose philandering ways have made him a legend of sorts. Looks like Omar's determined to repopulate Europe all by himself.

The climax involving a burning villa in Sardinia is exciting enough. But you have to endure a lot of boredom in Bloodline to get there.

Example movie from an end of an era!

[altea · 8/10 · 11 January 2009]

At the end of the 70's making a movie in Hollywood and Europe was not easy! Looking back one can see that an era of old movie making was coming to an end and a new era was starting! In Europe with the downfall of European cinema, and especially Italian movie making at Cinecitta, movie producers were forced to make movies with actors from different countries as it was in this case like Romy Schneider and Gert Fröbe for Germany, Audrey Hepburn and Ben Gazarra for US, Omar Sharif and Irene Papas for Greece and Egypt,... if they would like to sell their movie. Movies were not made in first instance for the cinema's anymore but for the commercial television stations that started to pop up everywhere over Europe due to the end of state television in a lot of European countries. In Hollywood, it was also the end of era around 1979. Producers, actors, actresses that made it big in the 50's-70's period were getting older together with their audience and it was getting more difficult to find good material for them. Classic stories are those of for example Rock Hudson, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Liz Taylor, Richard Burton,... On the other hand new actors, directors and producers were entering the field like Spielberg with Jaws focusing more on the action cinema than the character driven story or actors. From that moment on it was down hill for old school movie making. The death of classic cinema came with the introduction of CGI where we are today with almost only action cinema. Other movies are hardly ever made. So in this light the movie Bloodline is a prime example of a movie at the end of the golden era of Hollywood with classic actors like Hepburn, Mason, Schneider, Sharif, Papas, Fröbe...

A Thriller Without Thrills

[richardchatten · 3/10 · 10 October 2020]

A package not a film.

The most surprising aspect of this jet-setting farrago is that Audrey Hepburn's outfits weren't by Givenchy. Superficially the plot initially resembles 'Charade', except it's the murder of her father rather than her husband that sets things in motion; and the climax recalls the same director's 'Wait Until Dark' (unfortunately without Henry Mancini's score). The preponderance of zooms and pans employed by three-time Oscar-winning cameraman Freddie Young is the most obvious evidence that his heart for one wasn't in this nonsense; while his 'Lawrence of Arabia' star Omar Sharif hams outrageously during his brief role. (Although a far superior director had done a more tiresome job thirteen years earlier when he co-starred Audrey Hepburn with Sharif's 'Lawrence of Arabia' co-star in 'How to Steal a Million'.)

You may not care, but with saturated colours worthy of Ozu, an extraordinary international cast (albeit plenty of them sloppily post-synced, including Maurice Ronet sporting a moustache that constantly made me confuse him with Jean Rochefort), expensive foreign locations and a Morricone score poured over it, it's a good enough excuse to again postpone clearing out all those old newspapers.

For any True Audrey Hepburn fan, this movie should make you sick.

[AH-54 · 8 August 1999]

It was said that midway through shooting "Bloodline" Audrey Hepburn finally realized what a horrible and degrading movie this was going to be and desperately wanted to get out of it, but she was under contract and had no choice.

When you see this movie you will realize exactly why she felt so bad about making it. The absolute only reason to watch "Bloodline" is to see how Audrey Hepburn aged like fine wine.