Julie

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Buy This Item Julie by MGM (Warner)  Available from Amazon  $19.98  on 8-26-2008     I highly recommend this 1950's Doris Day thriller directed by Andrew L. Stone who also wrote it and it was nominated in that category for an academy award at the time. Frank Lovejoy gives a great supporting performance as a San Francisco detective and Louis Jordan delivers as the heavy with great panache. Suspenseful throughout with a brilliant ending. Reader Reviews 1956's "Julie" stars Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, Barry Sullivan, and Frank Lovejoy. Parts of the plot aren't exactly brimming over with realism, but this black-and-white thriller/suspense drama remains one of my favorite Doris Day pictures. Doris portrays "Julie Benton", a woman who suddenly realizes her husband is a murderer. Jourdan plays the obsessive husband, who (it seems) will go to any lengths to track down and do away with the scared-stiff Mrs. Benton. Both Day and Jourdan do a nice job in this film, IMO, but Sullivan is a tad bit on the "cardboard" side here (playing a friend of Julie's who tries to get her out of harm's way). Jourdan, though, is quite creepy and believable as "Lyle Benton", whose "bent on" (~wink~) seeing Julie suffer. Doris is an airline stewardess/hostess/flight attendant in "Julie", and actually participated in a three-week training course for flight attendants in preparation for making this movie. The climax of the film has Julie being forced to take the controls of her pilot-less commercial airliner. It's all a bit far afield from reality, but great fun anyway. The most (unintentionally) hilarious portion of the final reel is, in my opinion, when we see the air-traffic controller who's "talking Julie down" standing right out there on the runway as Julie brings in the heavy Douglas DC-6 propliner! The controller is standing just outside his airport vehicle, tied to it via a long microphone cord, right on the runway itself, as he's talking Julie in. It just struck me as hysterical, and certainly "dates" the available technology of the era. If that situation were to occur today, I'm doubting that a man would need to PHYSICALLY stand on the runway, without the aid of any radar scope, in order to help the amateur pilot bring the plane in. :-) "Julie" sports some very nice photography. Some excellent Northern California scenery can be seen in the movie. The film's original publicity materials, distributed at the time of the film's release in late 1956, boasted that 120 'Live' sets were used on 48 different shooting location sites during production. The haunting theme song ("Julie") is sung by the film's heroine (Doris Day) as the opening titles roll. That title song fits the mood of the movie perfectly. Some Doris Day and "Julie" Trivial Tidbits: >> Doris Day was born "Doris Kappelhoff" in April 1924. She was 32 when "Julie" premiered in theaters on October 17th, 1956. >> Doris was in approximately 40 feature films during her movie career (which began in 1948). She made "Julie" in between two of her other memorable films -- Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956) and "The Pajama Game" (1957). Doris finished up a busy decade of the 1950s with possibly the best role/movie of her career -- as "Jan Morrow" in 1959's "Pillow Talk". >> Keep an eye open for veteran character actor Barney Phillips in a supporting role as a doctor in "Julie". In fact, Barney helps Doris fly the plane in the final act (as he keeps an eye on the instrument panel while, at the same time, trying to keep the co-pilot alive)! Talk about performing double-duty! LOL! You might recognize Phillips from a ton of other roles that he had in many TV shows and movies. He was the "Martian" (with a third eyeball) in a classic episode of "The Twilight Zone"; a cop on "The Dick Van Dyke Show"; a vicious escaped convict on "The Andy Griffith Show"; and a Sergeant in "Adam 12"; plus hundreds of other small parts. >> The name created for the fictional airline that Doris Day works for in "Julie" is "Amalgamated Airlines". The "red-eye" flight in the movie was "Amalgamated Flight 36". MGM/UA Home Video produced this VHS video of "Julie". Running time is 97 minutes. Video aspect ratio is Full Frame (1.33:1). Audio sounds pretty good via the Hi-Fi Mono soundtrack. A Final "Julie" Recommendation...... If you want to see the lovely Doris Day in a fairly-entertaining drama/thriller (and hear her belt out the title song, to boot, via that beautiful and always-enchanting singing voice), then place "Julie" into the VCR. It's definitely worthy of a look-see.

Julie Available from Amazon Price: $19.98 Updated on 8-26-2008.

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