Bloodline (1979)

BLOODLINE (1979) *
Bloodline, a.k.a. Sidney Sheldon’s Bloodline, tries its hand at several fiction genres and fails mightily at every single one of them.

Let’s see here, we have the always popular Woman in Danger, murder mystery, police procedural, and the film adaptation of a literary potboiler that revolves around the rich and the shameful, predominantly shameful anyway, in lush international jet set surroundings. It also throws in a snuff film style murder every 30 minutes.

The great British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-93) proves to be the only redeeming factor at play during Bloodline and she’s responsible for the one star rating. She brings a touch of class to the proceedings. At that point in her career, Hepburn rarely did movies and focused more of her time on her family. Considering the dubious nature of Bloodline, her first and only R-rated movie, she should have devoted even more time to her family. After all, Hepburn made her fame in such films as Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and My Fair Lady, productions far removed from the cheap thrills and tawdry exploitation that Bloodline tenders at its best and worst. Hepburn and Bloodline director Terence Young made the 1967 psychological thriller Wait Until Dark and that’s much, much, much better and way, way, way more suspenseful than Bloodline.

Maybe, just maybe I have an instant great distaste for adaptations made from the fiction of such writers as Sheldon (1917-2007), Harold Robbins (1916-97), and Jacqueline Susann (1918-74), who are said to have authored popular novels or works better understood by the unwashed masses than the snooty literary critics. I have not read their work, but having watched Valley of the Dolls and Bloodline, both trashy productions, I’ll stick being to a snob, thank you very much. Anyway, I can’t read a single word of anything else until I finish Crime and Punishment.

Since it wants to be classy, Bloodline comes hyped as a thriller rather than a horror film, but there’s not a single thrill to be had regardless of genre classification. Hepburn plays Elizabeth Roffe, a pharmaceutical heiress who becomes the next in line for murder after her father’s murdered in the film’s opening scene. Like her father before her, Ms. Roffe doesn’t want her company’s stock to go public and this creates incredible friction with her three cousins who mostly provide the rich and shameful portion of the program. All roads lead to the obligatory denouement, and I should have taken a detour.

In fact, I did just that because at regular intervals during Bloodline, I kept distracting myself with other movies. For example, almost every time I saw Gert Frobe’s Inspector Hornung, I desperately wanted him to say (just once), “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” Instead, Hornung spends most his screen time discussing the case with a talking computer. Ben Gazzara seems like he’s under sedation throughout Bloodline and I could not believe this was the same actor who gave us such lusty characters in Anatomy of a Murder and Road House. Meanwhile, I still occasionally debate within myself which one’s worse between Bloodline and Oh Heavenly Dog, both turkey bombs featuring Omar Sharif. Yes, I don’t hate myself.