Bloodline (1979)

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 then '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. The 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 Audrey Hepburn's career. * from ****

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.

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

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.