Why did Audrey Hepburn star in the most critically panned film of 1979?
In short: Audrey Hepburn returned from an eight-year hiatus for the thriller Bloodline, a project that critics savaged as the worst film of the year. Despite her star power and a massive production budget, the film struggled with a convoluted plot and a tone that failed to capture the intended lurid excitement.
Released in June 1979, Bloodline was an adaptation of Sidney Sheldon’s 1977 novel. The film follows Elizabeth Roffe, an heiress to a billion-dollar pharmaceutical empire who becomes the target of a murder conspiracy after her father’s death. The narrative is a dense web of power struggles, board-room greed, and a bizarre subplot involving a serial killer who films his crimes on Roffe-branded stock. Director Terence Young, known for his work on early James Bond films, struggled to balance these disparate elements, resulting in a production that critics found both sordid and dull.
The film is notable for being the only R-rated project in Hepburn’s career. Her casting was a significant departure from the source material; the character of Elizabeth was originally written as 23, but the role was rewritten to accommodate the 49-year-old actress. Paramount invested heavily in the project, paying a record-breaking $1.25 million for the book rights and matching that figure for Hepburn’s salary, plus a percentage of the box office gross. Despite this investment, the film earned only $8.2 million during its original U.S. theatrical run.
Critical reception was overwhelmingly negative. Reviewers like Roger Ebert labeled it the worst movie of 1979, while others, such as Gene Siskel, expressed confusion over why an actress of Hepburn’s stature would participate in such a project. The film’s reputation for being 'trash' or a 'torpid turkey' persisted for decades, with the film remaining unavailable on DVD. It was only in September 2024 that the film saw a modern home media release, with Vinegar Syndrome issuing a Blu-ray set containing both the theatrical and extended television cuts.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Bloodline (1979 film)
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