Roger Ebert didn’t mince his words on a forgotten Audrey Hepburn thriller

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You have to wonder what Roger Ebert would have thought of the streaming era. He’d probably implode at the sight of something like Kevin Hart’s “Lift” or the Russo brothers’ ultra-costly disaster that was the “Electric State.” Likewise, it’s a shame we never got Ebert’s point of view the Netflix “365” trilogy that IMDb users consider one of the worst of all time. With these shocking examples of cinema’s decline in mind, it’s hard to imagine Ebert seeing an Audrey Hepburn film and “crying for cinema,” but in 1979, that’s exactly what happened.

Hepburn only made four films after retiring from show business in 1967, and none managed to recapture the magic of her early projects. Although she might not have been able to match John Travolta, the king of films 0% Rotten Tomatoesthe luminous and effortlessly graceful star of classics such as “Roman Holiday” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” has certainly managed to add a few duds to her filmography. According to Ebert, “Bloodline” was the most egregious.

The film saw Hepburn team up again with her “Wait Until Dark” director Terrence Young, who, in addition to overseeing 1962’s “Dr. No” and directing some of the classic James Bond films, also contributed to some of the the craziest moments from the banned Bond Laserdisc commentaries. The man without whom Sean Connery’s 007 would surely have failed He’s also the man who tempted Hepburn out of retirement to make an absolutely stinking movie. At least that’s what the critics say who savaged “Bloodline” when it was released in 1979. However, no one seemed as disgusted as Ebert.

In 1976, Audrey Hepburn made her comeback to the cinema, alongside Sean Connery in “Robin and Marian”. Roger Ebert was impressedwriting that Connery and Hepburn “project themselves as wonderfully complex, loving and tender people; the passage of 20 years has given them grace and wisdom.” It would be three years before Hepburn made another film, but this time Ebert was not as complimentary. In fact, he was as critical as he had ever been, which is saying something considering he came out of a controversial ’80s historical film that he said left him “depressed.”

The only R-rated film Hepburn ever made, “Bloodline” was adapted by Laird Koenig from Sidney Sheldon’s 1977 novel of the same name. It saw Hepburn play Elizabeth Roffe, who inherits the billionaire Roffe & Sons Pharmaceuticals empire after the death of her father. Soon, Inspector Max Hornungit (played by Gert Fröbe of “Goldfinger”) discovers that Sam’s death was a murder, and everyone around Elizabeth becomes a suspect, including her new husband, Rhys Williams (Ben Gazzara). The heiress then becomes the target of a serial killer who has murdered several women across Europe, none of whom Ebert really liked.

In his review of “Bloodline,” collected in his 2000 book, “I hated, hated, hated this movie.” Ebert declared the film “the worst film of 1979.” The most complimentary thing he had to say was that when Hepburn first appeared on screen, “the theater went silent as everyone once again absorbed the fact of her extraordinary beauty.” He then added: “And then the theater goes silent, as everyone absorbs the astonishing magnitude of the artistic stupidity that the script has inflicted on it.”

In his review of “Bloodline,” Roger Ebert was relentless, denouncing the way the film seemed obsessed with “the rapidly declining favorite fictional subject of the ’70s: the woman in danger.” Ultimately, the reviewer called the film “reprehensible”, in what was arguably one of his most scathing reviews. “Bloodline” must have really struck a chord in that regard, because Ebert also dismissed Chris Evans and Jason Statham’s awful 2005 film as “dreck.” and wrote that he “hated every stupid minute of Hervé Palud’s ‘Little Indian, Big Town’.” But even after his written review of the film, he was not finished denigrating Terrence Young’s thriller.

When Ebert and Gene Siskel reviewed the film for an episode of “Siskel and Ebert”, they were just as negative. Siskel lamented the “disgusting scenes of naked women being strangled” and called the film “sordid” and “trashy”. But Ebert was eager to go even further, stepping in after his colleagues’ advice to say he was “totally appalled” by “Bloodline” and asking:

“Who did they think they were making this movie for? I mean, the Audrey Hepburn fans who came to see The Wardrobe are going to be appalled by the violence. No fan of violent movies would ever go see a movie like this, I hope. […] it’s about which audience will hate the film the most.”

In fairness, Ebert and Siskel aren’t the only ones who hate this movie. Vincent Canby The New York Times considered “Bloodline” to be “often laughable” even though it had “no sense of humor”. Gary Arnold from The Washington Post dubbed the film “one of the most superficial murder mysteries ever committed to madness.” But no one had the same seething hatred of “Bloodline” as Ebert.