My Blood Runs Cold (1965)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

***SPOILERS*** Somewhat strange and ridicules story of love and reincarnation that spans something like 100 years with 29 year old former teenage heartthrob Troy Donahue as the mysterious and at the same times freaked out and delusional Ben Gunther. It's Ben who literally runs into-with his motorcycle- pretty and filthy rich Julie Merriday, Joey Heatherton, while zooming along the Pacific Highway at 120 mph. As if it were fate or a sign from heaven Ben realized that Julie and him were lover back in the 1870's who ended up killing themselves-Like Romeo & Juliet- when their parents disapproved of them getting married to each other.At first Julie thinks that Ben is suffering from brain damage due to his accident but in time he proves to her that his crazy statements about him knowing her in a past life are legit. That by providing evidence like photos and trinkets of his romance with Julie 100 years ago when she was actually her own great-great-great grandmother! It's Julie's dad Julian, Barry Sullivan, who sees Ben as a both fraud and gold digger who tries to get Julie to stop seeing him only to have her end up eloping, in Ben's boat,to Mexico with him to get married."""SPOILERS***The truth about Ben's true identity slowly comes to the surface together with two of his victims who he strangled to death and dumped into the Pacific Ocean. With the fact coming out about Ben being an escaped inmate from a hospital for the criminally insane he tries to kidnap Julie only to have the local police as well as Julie's former lover and fiancée Harry Lindsey, Nicolas Coaster, try to rescue her before he does her any harm. In the end it's Ben who does himself in-in knowing that the jig is up- by jumping some 200 feet to his death in order to avoid ending up locked up for life in a mental institution or being strapped into the San Queinton gas chamber for multiple murder.P.S This film -"My Blood Runs Cold"- turned out to be the last major movie that Troy Donahue was to star in before his film career hit rock bottom co-staring in such low budget and forgettable films like "The Cock Fighter" and "The Chilling" before dropping out of sight altogether. Troy in the end ended up broke and homeless sleeping on a park bench in New York City's Central Park and dying of a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 65.

I put chiller in quotes, because this is just not thrilling or chilling in any way, It needs to be edited down (almost 2 hours for a thin plot), and the writing and the direction needed to be scaled back -- too much scenery chewing and yelling.But there are some fun compensations.The director, William Conrad, was better known as a radio actor, and the small parts of this movie are filled with veteran radio performers: Jeanette Nolan, Howard McNear, Ben Wright, Barry Sullivan, and even Conrad's voice turns up as the helicopter operator towards the end. If you listen to old radio shows, this is a bit of a treat.The fashions are....well, Jeanette Nolan must be seen to be believed. Her hair is tortured into some demented structure in every scene. One dinner scene has her sporting a tower of hair that Marie Antoinette would have envied. Then there is the part where she has her hair in braids like a coronet, this is the scene where she stays up all night long to make sure that her niece is okay. Bright and early, the next morning, her hair is piled up like a castle battlement with curls and ruffles with an incongruous pony tail sticking straight out the back. When does the woman find the time to do her hair? Does she have a fully staffed beauty salon in her bedroom, or does the long suffering butler (the only servant we ever see) do the hot curler thing in addition to everything else? Her costumes are also flowing caftan like things made of satin. Who really dressed like this? Sorry to go on so much about the clothes and hair, but it was absolutely fascinating, in a bizarre way.

Cookie Cutter Supernatural Thriller that Reeks of Anthology TV, like "The Twilight Zone" or "Thriller". Popular Shows in the Late Fifties and Early Sixties. Troy Donahue who was Almost but Not Quite a Major Hollywood Star that Shined for a Few Films and then Burned Out on TV Gigs and Booze. William Conrad Directs without much Enthusiasm and the Movie Suffers from Bland Cinematography, Sets, and Dialog and is only the Least Bit Interesting Outdoors.Joey Heatherton was a Cutie that Never Attained a Long Career but was a serviceable Actress with a High Pitched Voice and a Highly Curvaceous Body. Barry Sullivan Chews the Scenery Playing the Domineering Father and Cutthroat Capitalist. He Thrashes about and Yells a lot, but is still Upstaged by Jeanette Nolan as a Sympathetic and all Knowing Aunt. Nicolas Coaster is the Third Wheel of the Reincarnation Romance between Troy and Joey and it's a Pretty Good Performance.But its all so Routine without as much as a Boo and the End Chase Scene goes on Forever where Nothing much Happens and is very Predictable. Overall, the Movie Barely makes Passable Entertainment, with just Enough Talent hanging around the Set to make this Watchable, but In the End it is a Styleless and somewhat Silly Misfire.

Troy Donahue must have been sick and tired of his parts of nice good-looking boys ;his attempt at a troubled character is certainly laudable,for who could believe he is able to do so very bad things?The problem is the prologue which promised more than we are given :the picture imitates a tapestry,giving the feeling of something of long ago ;and there are four lines of a poem by a poem by Byron ,which finally doesn't bring anything to a plot which steals from " portrait of Jennie" "Vertigo" and "Pandora" -hasn't Donahue got a ship?- to name but three ,but there is more.There's even a "love story" side for the girl's dad is a rich man whereas the blond boy has ,it seems ,no penny to his name .After three or four melodramas (the best of which is arguably "Parrish" ),it was a good idea to cast this good -looking actor in a disturbing role:at the beginning of the movie,and at least in the first half ,the audience does believe he is a romantic man who lives in the past and comes back (from the dead?) to claim his one and only love.But things go wrong in the second part in which the director seems not able to build an eerie magic atmosphere ;the final chase is the easy way out and the final pictures do not even try to disturb the viewer a little bit.