User reviews

JULIE! Doris Day runs for her life in this drama about a woman with a psychopathic husband (Louis Jourdan). The story seems to start in the middle - it begins with Jourdan trying to crash his car with Julie in it because he's jealous of her talking to someone. We learn that Jourdan, who plays a concert pianist, is Julie's second husband, her first having committed suicide. Except that apparently he didn't according to a mutual friend, Cliff (Barry Sullivan). Cliff is worried about Julie living with this nut job and thinks that hubby #2 may have gotten rid of hubby #1. Determined to find out, Julie confronts him, and he admits it. Thus begins her desperate attempt to get away from him. When she finally escapes, she goes back to her old job as flight attendant on an airline.

The story hit a little too close to home for Doris Day, who didn't want to make the film because it reminded her of two earlier marriages. And possibly her third, as Marty Melcher insisted that she do it and was unhappy when she appeared friendly with Jourdan. However, thanks to the film, she discovered Carmel and Monterey and eventually made her home there. The scenery is glorious.

Day does the narration which uses the phrase "strangely disturbing" several times. It's maybe not the best movie you've ever seen but it is very entertaining, and Doris is great as the terrified woman. What a talent, and her '60s reinvention made her bigger than ever. Jourdan is quietly terrifying, and there are many suspenseful moments in the film. Highly watchable - it's a little all over the place, starting off as one thing and ending as another - but it will really hold your interest.

A thriller starring Doris Day a few years before she hit the jackpot with her string of coy sex comedies, Julie is what was known in the trade as a `jep' – a woman-in-jeopardy drama. It starts off promisingly with a spat at a country club between Day and her second husband, Louis Jourdan (the first Mr. Day, a presumed suicide, may have been his victim) that escalates into an incident of road rage. Jourdan is passed off as a concert pianist – you know, one of those unstable `artistic' types. And he fills out a startlingly up-to-date profile of the irrationally jealous, controlling spouse, alternating between murderous rages and mawkish contrition. (Since Charles Boyer launched the prototype of this sort of abusive male in Gaslight, it seems that Hollywood thought it safe to cast chiefly Frenchmen in subsequent outings.)

Julie wastes no time in setting Day to flee, with Jourdan in pursuit; her ally is old friend Barry Sullivan, who tries to smuggle her safely from Carmel to San Francisco. But Jourdan, who apparently missed his calling as an international master of intrigue, proves too smart for them and manages to get himself, gun in trenchcoat, aboard a cross-continental airliner.

Julie, you see, used to be an airline stewardess, and here is where the script's credibility ultimately crumbles. As the movie prepares to come in for a landing, it abruptly shifts gears, leaving behind the dark psychological drama of the noir cycle for the purely mechanical thrills of an Airport. And so what at first seemed daring – revealing Jourdan as a woman-hating psycho without a tedious buildup – turns into a time-saving gimmick to place Day as swiftly as possible behind the controls of an airplane. And so what started out as a psychologically astute study of obsession descends into the merely routine.

The writer-director (and producer of many other films, although not this one) Andrew L. Stone was only nominated once for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, and he was very proud of this one. I worked for Stone in the mid-1970's, and he looked back at "JULIE" as a piece of his finest work.

The maniacal husband-as-stalker was a new kind of character for films in 1956. The honest discussion of how law enforcement often failed 'women in jeopardy' brought up issues which only became widely discussed in the 1970's.

Doris Day plays the role of a terrorized wife trying to escape from the husband who is trying to kill her, and this is such a well-done treatment of the subject that even jaded audiences today respond to it.

The climactic scene in which Doris Day lands the passenger plane with help from the control tower is riveting, because it is based on fact. Andrew L. Stone was an exhaustive researcher, and you can be sure every detail of that scene was checked and re-checked. It would have happened in real life just as you see it on the screen.

Stone kept a collection of 'true crime' magazines dating from the 1930's in his office library, and he had dozens of plot ideas for thrillers like this one. However, he had always been his own boss and not a 'studio man'. Hollywood didn't give him big budgets, and he never had the opportunity to continue his career as Hitchcock did. Mentally sharp through his 80's, Stone spent the last decade of his life trying to put deals together to make movies that never got off the ground. Our loss.

"Julie" starts out as a mass of tension, (other than the ridiculous rear-projection car scenes where everyone turns the steering wheel in wrong directions!) packing an intense amount of story in the first 40 minutes. By the second act, when the pace slows down, all the previous scenes seem too condensed for comfort. One scene in the beginning of the film is especially intriguing: Lyle practices his piano piece while Julie lays on the couch. Watching his hands dance over the keys, and the beautifully framed shot of him against the open window is truly surreal, almost too profound for a film of this type.

The third act, all about Doris Day landing the airplane, feels like an entirely separate movie. With the loss of the human threat after her, it stops being a thriller and becomes the tag ending of an action blockbuster. "Julie" has uneven bursts of calm and nail-biting tension, all in all a strange combination with its own memorable moments.

I was disappointed that Doris Day only sang one song for this movie and it was played and over by the end of the opening credits. The road rage scene was exciting, but if you've ever driven on a winding road like that one in Monterey/Carmel, you know there would be no way to avoid going off the road in that situation.

The story was pretty good though. The wife who fears her husband will kill her and the police cannot help her without any evidence. She tries to get away, but he figures out every move she makes and it all comes down to a climatic ending.

I think the plane landing was done well. Doris Day was very convincing in her role. I really enjoyed her as an actress for this movie, when I normally think of her as a wonderful singer.

In 1956 Doris Day was cast in Julie between two of her best pieces of work, the highly dramatic Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much and her best musical The Pajama Game. Usually those two films are either or both listed on Doris Day's top ten. Julie never is.

There was nothing new by 1956 in leading ladies marrying psychopaths, Ingrid Bergman had done it twice already in Rage In Heaven and in Gaslight. But both of those films were intelligently done while Julie goes into the hysterically melodramatic.

Doris is cast in the title role in Julie as a woman with an obsessively jealous second husband in Louis Jourdan. Louis married Doris after her first husband committed suicide and about all there is to recommend him is that he's a great concert pianist. But after another pathological outbreak Day seeks some solace with an old friend in Barry Sullivan. And she's determined to leave Jourdan and give him the slip.

But Jourdan is one grimly determined psychotic. When she returns to her old job as an airline stewardess, Jourdan stalks her and ends up on her first airline job. After that things get real interesting over 15,000 feet.

Julie actually won two Academy Award nominations, the first for original screenplay. Impossible for me to believe but as Casey Stengel used to say in baseball, you can look it up.

The second Oscar nomination was for Best Original Song. That year Doris came out a winner of sorts because while the title song Julie didn't win Doris came home a winner with Que Sera Sera, a much better song from a much better film.

The over the top melodramatics throughout the film made what could have been a spine tingling climax into something quite camp and quite laughable. I won't reveal what the midair climax is, but just to say that it could have worked under different circumstances.

For never knowing about this movie, I was quite surprised, it was a well made, suspense drama, thought it was better than what I was anticipating. Worth watching !

This film should have been better, with Doris Day and Louis Jourdan showing promise as the "terrified wife on the run from deranged husband." I did not care for the gasping, breathless, overly dramatic voiceovers from Ms. Day - I can't believe they asked her to do these; they spoil the dramatic acting performance on the visible screen. Mr. Jourdan is fun as the psycho husband, but he is give some silly stalking things to do - like, he sets off a tape recorder of his manic piano playing in a car outside Ms. Day's window?

Imagine what Alfred Hitchcock would have given Jourdan and Day to do... The ending doesn't work for me - I would have liked, instead, a suspenseful confrontation between Day and Jourdan to end the film; perhaps, with them alone in the cockpit - having a dramatic confrontation while the fate of the airplane's passengers hangs in the balance!

***** Julie (10/17/56) Andrew L. Stone ~ Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, Barry Sullivan

Doris Day plays the title character, Louis Jourdan her jealous husband Lyle, and Barry Sullivan is her friend Cliff who tries to help her the best he can concerning Lyle's possible actions. We find out early enough what happened to Julie's previous spouse and so the chase begins. Having just watched several airline disaster movies including the entire Airport series, I had a need to watch this one because of the climatic scene when Ms. Day's character-who's a stewardess-is forced to fly a plane, which anticipates nearly 20 years later Karen Black's situation in Airport 1975. Since I don't want to reveal any more of the plot, I'll just say that Julie was an excellent thriller. This was one of Ms. Day's most underrated works, that's for sure!

Doris Day had a few "damsel in distress" roles in her movies, but none requiring her to be quite as stressed out as "Julie". Trouble is the film is a bit too overwrought for comfort with Miss Day being pursued throughout by a maniacal husband (Louis Jourdan) whose only problem is he loves her to death--literally!! And not a single supporting character to give us a few laughs.

The last half-hour aboard an airliner where her husband has managed to become one of the passengers, is the best part of this neat little suspenser. Although all the usual cliches are present in the script, the terrified Doris manages to look convincingly cool and confident as she handles the controls of the airliner for the story's somewhat pat climax.

Louis Jourdan makes the husband look like a really jealous and possessive heel, aside from being a maniac--and since Doris Day reveals in her autobiography that she married a couple of these early on in her career--perhaps that helped her give a very credible performance. Not that she was any slouch in the acting department on a few of her other "damsel in distress" roles--STORM WARNING, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME. Let's forget the phony, overly fabricated MIDNIGHT LACE. Here she gives a strong and sincere performance as a terrified woman.

Barry Sullivan gives excellent support as a friend who tries to help her when the police admit they can't do anything. Frank Lovejoy is also fine as a detective.

I can't say much for the title tune, "Julie", heard only during the credits and then quickly forgotten by me. To my surprise, it was nominated for a Best Song Oscar--so what do I know??

If you're a Doris Day fan, you'll find this suspenseful even though it takes itself much too seriously. There's not a hint of humor throughout the entire proceedings, not a single moment of relief. It's all very, very intense, whereas some humor would have helped.

Of course, there are always those who will laugh at the plot itself. It is, after all, a bit unbelievable by the time stewardess Day takes over the controls. It's to her credit that she makes it look real.

The same year Doris Day showed her serious dramatic acting talents in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, she acted alongside her friend Louis Jourdan in Julie. It's a fantastic, tense thriller, so if you haven't seen it yet, rent it this weekend for a very enjoyable movie night.

It's always fun to watch two beautiful people up on the screen, and Doris and Louis make a beautiful couple. Then again, she looked fantastic with Jack Carson, Howard Keel, and Rock Hudson, so she's just one of those magical actresses who looks wonderful with all her leading men! In any case, the two leads play a married couple with secrets beneath the surface. It's not hard to imagine Louis Jourdan with a bad streak, and he's just as scrumptious in this role as he is in his other bad-boy roles, like The Best of Everything and Dark Journey. Both he and Doris give solid dramatic performances, and writer and director Andrew L. Stone handles his story with a careful and tense hand.

Will Louis's jealousy and temper get the better of him-and the worse of Doris? Find out by watching Julie and holding onto the edge of your seat. Depending on how new your relationship is, you might not want to watch this one with your sweetie pie, but since you'll both have plenty of eye candy to look at, it might just be the perfect late-night date movie.

Doris Day is a genuine movie star, though many of her films from the 1950s ("April in Paris", "Lucky Me", etc.) were too insufficient for even Day to rescue them. Her manager-husband Martin Melcher produced this melodrama for Doris personally, yet it's another disappointment, one without any hint of good humor and a wayward woman-in-jeopardy plot that doesn't quite hang together. Despite being on the run from a psychotic husband (a remarkably menacing Louis Jourdan), stewardess Day keeps her cool and even manages to fill in at work one night when her airline needs her. Of course, her crazy, murdering spouse is on the plane too, leading to a conclusion that is so over-the-top it may garner some unintended laughs. The cast retains their dignity but, despite a few suspenseful moments, the picture is a minor one. We do get to see a different side to Doris Day, however; rather blasé and aloof, she fits right in with the movie's pseudo-noir toughness. **1/2 from ****

Completely overwrought, absurd meller. One of Doris' worst through no real fault of her own.

One issue is raised, the defenselessness of women against abusive husbands in the fifties since restraining orders weren't available at the time, and then quickly dropped since they wouldn't have the same movie with that in place. Aside from that the film is a soapy study in preposterousness. It depends on how you look at it, if you're looking for a superior motion picture with a quality script and social value..forget this.

However if what you seek is a lurid cinematic equivalent to clutching your pearls for ninety minutes and you need a good laugh at absurd situations...this will be right in your wheelhouse. Doris truly gives it all she's got maintaining a level of hysteria throughout which completely fits the tenor of the film. If you're a Doris fan you'll enjoy the movie but you've been warned.

I thought the film was an average film with decent though not superb performances. The screenplay held your attention because of the nature of the story. However, I am amused how the script/screenplay of this film got nominated for an Oscar. Do people confuse interesting subjects for good scripts? And the nomination for best song? I must have no ear for music...Many Oscar nominations have been unusual--these are two of them.

Many have critiqued this film and even gone as far as to hint that her producer husband- Melcher was attempting to ruin her career through the production of this film.

I thought the opposite. I enjoy seeing Doris Day not in "That Touch of Mink" or some other such fluff. She had so much more to offer, and could have been so much better in suspense and psycho-drama roles.

Louis Jourdan is also surprisingly menacing as the obsessive husband. There are some initial scenes filmed at the picturesque and haunted beaches of Monterey. The distorted cypresses, the 50's modern Frank Lloyd Wright styled homes.

I enjoyed the off-beat nature of her performance and appreciated her more in these type roles. "Move over, Darling" with James Garner and other such nonsense were so much beneath her. We can see how she is capable of projecting drama and drawing in the audience even during the final improbable scenes as the plane touches down. The storyline here is paralleled in "Sleeping with the Enemy" and other similar themes. Worth seeing for Doris Day alone. 8/10.

When a woman shows up at the police station and tells them that her husband is planning to kill her and there's nothing they can do... That was the state of things when Julie discovered that her current husband killed her first husband.

The cops even listed the names of women who'd been murdered by their husbands in the past few months! THAT was terrifying!

Thankfully, women now have some methods for intervention in dangerous cases like this, though it's not perfect even now.

The airline did not have any procedures in place for emergencies, either. Boy, have we come a long way!

I'm a huge Doris Day fan, but didn't feel this one was as good as many others she's done. However, I hope people saw it and worked to change legislation.

If you are a Doris Day fan, this movie is for you. If you're looking for a suspense thriller you are going to be let down. "Julie" is too melodramatic to be suspenseful Jourdaine is a little too over the top as as her psycho husband The plot is all over the place and that adds to the confusion. Doris is her same old spunky self and does what she can with the script. There are some familiar faces with on screen Frank Lovejoy, Barry Sullivan Jack Kelly and others. There are a few coincidental scenes that may bring some unintended laughs. and the ending is so overwrought that it becomes hilarious. Also in the the driving Doris, Louis, and Barry turn the steering wheel so much{even when the rear projection shows them traveling in a straight line that they would be into the trees under normal conditions. Still isn't not a horrible film that you may find amusing and for Doris fans it's a must.

While Doris Day will be forever remembered for her sweet films and comedies, she occasionally made dark films like "Midnight Lace" and "Julie". As for "Midnight Lace", I wasn't very impressed with the movie...but "Julie" is a terrific and tense thriller...and one of Day's best.

The story begins in the Monterey, California area. Julie (Day) is a widow who recently married Lyle (Louis Jourdan). However, the honeymoon period in this marriage is short and soon Lyle begins bullying and physically abusing Julie. He also lets it slip that Julie's first husband did not kill himself as everyone believed but HE murdered him. Now Julie is rightfully scared to death of the man, but she's no dummy and soon she escapes and seeks the help of the local police...who are completely useless and unsympathetic. After no help whatsoever, with the help of a friend (Barry Sullivan) she makes her way to San Francisco. There, the police are more sympathetic but are also unable to do much as Julie has no evidence that her husband is a maniac...but they don't just drop the case. They keep an eye on her....and Lyle is determined one way or another to kill her. What happens next is truly amazing but I'll say no more as I don't want to ruin the suspense.

The story is very good from start to finish. Some might hate that some of the police don't seem to care about Julie...though for that time period, this is sadly realistic. An amazing film and one that really haunts you. Terrific and tense from start to finish.

Julie moves along at breakneck speed to its bizarre ending in an airplane, in some ways reminiscent of 911. Within the first few moments of the film Doris Day is running from her murdering jealous husband well played by Louis Jourdan as Lyle, an unbalanced concert pianist. The opening is set in Carmel, CA, and the film would have been a whole lot better if it had stayed there but instead it shifts to San Francisco. The opening scene, with the crazed Lyle pressing his foot on his wife's as she's driving, and thus accelerating the car is terrific, as he has his arm around her, not looking at the road, only at her, and she's in a panic, trying to control the gigantic two-toned Chrysler on the twisty road, unable to decelerate, an unwilling student in some kind of speed driving lesson. As she has enough of this she decides to resurrect her previous career as an airline steward, but Lyle follows her wherever she goes. This relentless chase is comically narrated by Doris Day. The film starts losing energy, and the final climax, which is supposed to be exciting, is badly done.

'Julie' did have potential. Doris Day (my main reason for seeing it, with the film being part of my completest quest, watching the films of hers not yet seen) was an immensely talented performer, especially good in comedy and musicals and some of her dramatic stuff was good too. The cast is a talented one and am also a fan of thriller dramas.

While there are a number of good elements, it is agreed that 'Julie' is an uneven film. Frustratingly so. One of those films that starts off quite well and has one particularly riveting scene but later becomes a film of two or three sections that starts to unravel in the middle and then feels like a completely different film by the end. It does seem like this is the general consensus regarding 'Julie', but my honest feelings were actually exactly the same before reviewing it and hearing of its reputation.

Day looks radiant and is utterly convincing here, one of her better and more natural and never over-acted dramatic performances despite the film being one of the weaker dramatic films she starred in. Louis Jourdan is chillingly psychotic as the villainous husband, and there are perfectly pitched supporting turns from Frank Lovejoy and especially Barry Sullivan. Most of 'Julie' is well made, having a noir-ish look that gives the film so much atmosphere, while there is some above competent direction of Andrew L Stone.

Stone's direction particularly shines in his speciality for filming dramas in situations that happen in real life with props of great authenticity. Leith Stevens does provide some atmospheric music. 'Julie' does have some genuine tension and suspense and its most memorable and most famous scene, the plane landing scene, is riveting and its most memorably regarded scene for very good reason.

However, am going to be one of those people who will respectfully but strongly disagree with the Oscar nominations for best original script and best song, both to me among the most undeserved in their respective categories. Personally found the title song, even with Day singing it beautifully (as always), instantly forgettable and un-fitting with the rest of the film. Day has had far better songs in her career. Similarly, the dialogue a vast majority of the time was banal and overwrought.

Most of the film looks good, but not so at the beginning with some noticeably cheap and distracting rear-projection. It is the story where 'Julie' most falls down. It is wildly and frustratingly uneven, with seriously draggy pacing issues in the middle and the tension and suspense becomes replaced by over-the-top melodrama, repetition and implausibility that goes beyond ridiculousness at worst.

In conclusion, could have been frightening but instead makes the viewer annoyed at how such a potentially good film falls apart as much as it does apart from redeeming itself with that aforementioned memorable scene. 5/10 Bethany Cox