Stock Offering

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

SIDNEY SHELDON'S BLOODLINE

Directed by Terence Young Screenplay by Laird Koenig

This movie consists almost entirely of shots of people getting on and off private jets or limousines. The actors are also frequently seen entering rooms and offices that are meant to pass as the haunts of the rich and powerful but actually look rather tacky. When the film finally gets around to dialogue, it is mostly about the advisability of making a public stock of ering for a family-held pharmaceutical house -- a topic whose entertainment possibilities are soon exhausted. All but one of the unappetizing characters are in desperate need of liquidity, and one of them has bumped off the firm's founder, who was a holdout against going public. Now the villain keeps making inept attempts on the life of the founder's daughter (Audrey Hepburn), who has succeeded to the presidency and to her father's no-sale policy.

This plot is not so much developed as witlessly reiterated. For comic relief we are offered a detective whose sublime faith in computers is never rewarded by solid leads. We also get a hired killer who indulges in kinky sex simply because such escapades are an obligatory part of Hollywood packages like this. One expects fantasies in the newish jet-set genre (The Other Side of Midnight, The Greek Tycoon) to be unfelt, but it is always a little surprising to find them so poorly observed. Almost any of the gos sip columns that provide the raw material for these films are more amusing, and more professionally managed. One suspects that there is a better story in he agentry that got Novelist Sheldon's name worked into the movie's official title than in anything that is actually up there on the screen.

-- Richard Schickel

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