Julie (1956)

Directed by Andrew L. Stone. Starring Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, Barry Sullivan, Frank Lovejoy, Jack Kruschen, John Gallaudet, Jack Kelly, Ann Robinson, Barney Phillips.

Remarried widow Day becomes suspicious (if not outright terrified) of her jealous second husband (Jourdan); maybe because he presses her foot down on the car accelerator and won’t let up until they’ve nearly died a dozen or so times? She also becomes convinced that he even killed her first husband, as if that was ever in doubt. Overwrought suspenser never really gets going, too often talky and constantly interrupting or dragging out the tense moments; there’s soap opera-style melodrama through the roof, but it falls short on camp value. Day’s terrorized damsel-in-distress has pluck but she’s dull even when she springs to action; Jourdan is one-note, though that’s partly to blame on the film itself, which starts with him already heading into psycho mode, robbing the audience of a chance to see what she saw in him in the first place and just why he is so obsessed. Does get credit (shame?) for starting the trendy sub-plot involving a stewardess being forced to land an airplane.

39/100