Mon 9 Jul 2012
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: JULIE (1956).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Suspense & espionage films[7] Comments
by Walter Albert
JULIE. MGM, 1956. Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, Barry Sullivan, Frank Lovejoy, Jack Kelly, Ann Robinson, Barney Phillips, Jack Kruschen, John Gallaudet, Carleton Young. Screenwriter-director: Andrew L. Stone.
I must admit that I have never been fond of those damsel-in-distress films in which an anxious heroine (her brow is usually creased), married to a homicidal maniac, is so enamoured of her prospective murderer that she can’t bear to take the most elementary precautions to protect herself.
A typical example of this genus horribilis is Julie, starring Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, and Barry Sullivan. Day plays an airline stewardess who loses her bearings when she’s on the ground and marries handsome psycho Jourdan after her first husband dies under circumstances which are only mysterious to her.
Barry Sullivan plays the attentive other man hovering protectively around Julie with little success in persuading her that her husband is up to no good, again. Eventually, Julie is alone in an apartment to which Jourdan has traced her and when I unexpectedly had to leave the room, she was pacing nervously while the camera cut frequently to shots of Jourdan closing in.
When I returned, to my surprise I found that Julie, with grim but plucky determination, was attempting to land a very large plane. The pilot was nowhere to be seen, the co-pilot kept lapsing into a coma from which an attentive man (not Barry Sullivan) kept reviving him, and a phalanx of air controllers was giving landing directions from the flight tower of an airport which she was probably in imminent danger of demolishing.
In line with my policy of not revealing endings. I will draw a discreet curtain over the remaining action.
Vol. 7, No. 2, March-April 1983.
July 9th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Strangely enough, all I’ve seen of this movie is the ending, which I thought was well done and suspenseful, if not entirely believable, and (maybe an even bigger if) you haven’t seen it done before many times since. (I hope that sentence makes sense.)
On the other hand, I’ve watched the video clip I included, and I see no big rush to find a copy of the entire film on DVD. (It was released by Warner Archives late last year.)
July 10th, 2012 at 12:17 am
Discreet curtain…LOL !
The Doc
July 10th, 2012 at 1:25 am
If anyone does want to see the ending, I’ve found it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXDfnvyn3q4
July 10th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
I seem to recall some movie where the pilot & co-pilot got sick and the Stewardess (excuse me: Flight Attndant!) had to fly the plane and it took almost the whole movie for her to get it off the runway. Or am I remembering it wrong?
July 10th, 2012 at 4:13 pm
Karen Black tries to land the jetliner in AIRPORT 75. Not sure it’s the one you mean because in AIRPORT 75, a private plane has impacted the passenger jet just aft of the cockpit killing the co-pilot and blinding the pilot….
July 10th, 2012 at 5:01 pm
A piece of Trivia, thanks to IMDB: “This film is listed among The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson’s book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE.”
The comments left by other viewers on IMDB are all over the place. Many liked the ending, others didn’t. Some remarked on how authentic the landing was. I don’t remember the one you’re referring to, Dan. Karen Black’s version is the one most people remember.
What I wonder, though, if Doris Day was there first.
July 10th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
ZERO HOUR! (1957) — written by Arthur Hailey 13 years before the seminal AIRPORT — is probably the movie Dan is thinking of. The entire flying crew suffers from food poisoning and an ex-Air Force pilot who hasn’t flown since WW2 and is saddled with emotional problems is called upon to land the plane. It was the inspiration for AIRPLANE! Both films feature lead characters named Lt. Ted Stryker – the ex-air force guy.