Mein Name ist Julia Ross

Second-feature concerns a young woman in London desperate for a job, happy to accept live-in secretarial position with an elderly woman and her son. Thrillers about people being held in a house against their will always make me a little uneasy--I end up feeling like a prisoner too--but this rather classy B-film is neither lurid nor claustrophobic. It's far-fetched and unlikely, but not uninteresting, and our heroine (Nina Foch) is quick on her feet. Rehashing this in 1986 (as "Dead Of Winter") proved not to be wise, as the plot-elements are not of the modern-day. "Julia Ross" is extremely compact (too short at 65 minutes!) but it stays the course nicely until a too-rushed climax, which feels a little sloppy. *** from ****

For those who think of Dame May Witty as the kindly, slightly batty, old lady from Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, this movie requires an adjustment. Here, she's anything but kindly or batty. Instead, her son, George Macready is the loony one. Just don't give him a knife, otherwise his eyes light up and no furniture cushion in the house is safe. Now we know what he has in mind for the trapped Nina Foch if he can just get out from under Mother's domineering hand.

Really tight little woman-in-danger film that keeps the suspense on high throughout. The script never strays from Foch's dilemma. She's held prisoner in a big old Gothic house on the edge of an angry sea. They're going to kill her, but why. Her predicament makes no sense. The tension mounts as she tries one escape ploy after another, but even strangers seem against her. We begin to feel her helplessness and mounting paranoia as the world turns away from her.

Director Joseph H. Lewis took a big step toward cult status with this film and understandably so. Then too, watch Foch run subtly through a gamut of emotions without once going over the top. Witty too shines as a really intimidating matriarch who knows what she wants and how to get it if she can just keep her wacko son in line. My one reservation is the climax which seems too contrived considering the timing of the events. Nonetheless, it's a good, nerve-wracking way to spend a little over an hour, courtesy Columbia studios.

Nina Foch delivers a surprisingly strong performance as the title character in this fun little Gothic nail-biter. She accepts a position as secretary to a London society dowager (played imperiously by Dame May Witty) and her creepy son (the effete and bothersome George Macready). Before she knows it, she awakens to find herself in a seaside manor she's never seen before, where Witty and Macready are calling her Marian and trying to convince the servants and the nearby townspeople that she's Macready's mad wife. Of course this pair can only be planning dastardly deeds, and even though we know Julia has to eventually escape her trap, director Joseph Lewis builds real suspense in answering the question of just how she'll manage it.

"My Name Is Julia Ross" has nothing stylistically to set it apart from any number of films that came out at the same time period, but I was surprised by how well it held together despite its shoe-string budget and B-movie pedigree. There are quite a few moments that just may have you on the edge of your seat, and I found myself really rooting for Julia as she caught on to the scheme underfoot and began to outsmart her captors. In any other Gothic thriller, the heroine would have swooned, screamed and dithered, waiting for her hero to come and save her. So I can't tell you how refreshing it was to have the heroine in this film use her brain and figure out how to save herself.

Well done.

Grade: B+

A mood piece, a psychological thriller in the vein of the trapped woman, and an example of betrayal melodrama.

'My Name is Julia Ross' certainly explores a lot further than it's script and it's production scale would suggest. A juicy, implausible, unoriginal, rapid and thin story which was clearly filmed as a strict b-movie production is given a very elevated treatment courtesy of the director, who ably aids the three lead actors to give decent performances in portraying their equally unoriginal characters.

But the palpable value is all in the treatment; in the surface layer of direction and photography which are able, when combined with three good turns from Nina Roch, May Whitty and George Macready, to develop a cloying tonality which expressively illuminates the subject of a betrayed and imperilled woman.

As long as the viewer is able to accept that the whole thing is a confidence trick, and is willing to lend 'My Name is Julia Ross' that supply of confidence then it delivers a marvellous melodrama mood piece in the Gothic style.

I rate 7/10 and I recommend to anyone who isn't requiring a film to make sense but is instead happy to afford artistic licence to the director. In which case it is just rosy and a nice example of making a stylish and thematically compatible film out of a streaky b-movie story and production.

An excellent little thriller ,infuenced by Hitchcock,which was remade by Arthur Penn as "dead of winter" ;an anomaly in his filmography ,his version was closer to the horror movies of the eighties, with even gore thrown in for good measure. Joseph E.Lewis 's work is in the Gothic tradition ,with its castle by the sea and its park with high gates a la "Rebecca" ;Nina Foch is efficient as the damsel in distress, who fortunately proves herself often smarter than her persecutors ;George McRead and the marvelous Dame May Whitty,terrifying under her genial comforting attitude ,give good support ;although the film is rather short (65 min) we feel that this son has remained a little boy under his mom's thumb. (as it often happens in sir Hitchcock's works) Sit back ,turn off the lights and get some scares .