Lady Ice

Jennifer O'Neill is a top-end jewelry fence in Florida. When a pricey set of hot rocks goes through her hands, insurance investigator Donald Sutherland is on the case. Sparks fly between the two.

The production of this film was clearly inspired by THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. This movie, however, lacks all the heat and style of that earlier movie. There's little chemistry between the two performers, the music is 1970s chick-a-boom, the camerawork by Lucien Ballard is workmanlike but unimaginative, and director Tom Gries largely wastes a good cast that includes Robert Duvall Patrick Magee and Dana Elcar. All the performances are minimalistic, with insurance executives empty suits saying banal lines as if they are of great import. Sutherland has a few flares of humor, Miss O'Neill is exceedingly lovely, but it's an uninspiring movie.

Though there were times when I enjoyed Donald Sutherland's cheeky, rebellious, style of characterisation, for the most part I never really understood why he was such a success. Versatile he isn't, and here though easily stealing the limelight, he does very little with a weak plot, a thinly spread story and a co-star who smiles a lot! He is insurance investigator "Andy" who robs a gangster of a necklace which he then uses to try to lure "Paula" (Jennifer O'Neill) into disclosing her secrets as a highly effective jewel fencer. Of course, she isn't that dumb - even if she is the crook in question, and so for the next ninety minutes we plays a sort of cat and mouse game between the two that errs all too often on the side of predictable romance. It's all rather flat and by-the-numbers with an underwhelming Robert Duvall and an out of sorts Patrick Magee both failing to add much lustre to this not very shiny drama. It's got made for television written all over it, and I was frankly rather bored by it all. Maybe fans of Sutherland might enjoy it to complete a list, but it has little else to recommend it, sorry.

Dr. Bombay is wrong about this film being made for TV.

It was always intended to be a feature, produced by the General Electric subsidiary, Tomorrow Entertainment. It suffered along the way from problems with the script and was delayed several times.

Alan Trustman, a lawyer and the author of the film, remained mostly in Boston during development, which hindered the process of fixing the script.

While Tomorrow Entertainment did indeed produce many fine TV movies, Lady Ice was one of two features developed by the company. The other was Gravy Train, a bit of cult classic. After the limited success of these films the company concentrated on TV movies.

As stated by other reviews, this is strictly a watch for Jennifer O'Neill fans.

This feels like someone wanted to do a modern detective noir along the lines of Elliot Gould's The Long Goodbye, Gene Hackman's Night Moves etc, with intrigue, ambiguous characters, sexual tension, suspense and the usual twist, turns, red herrings and chicanery that a good 70s crime film needs.

However someone forgot to tell the writer that most people don't have a clue about the goings on in high stakes insurance investigations, and that other than being very convoluted it's also incredibly dull.

Coupled with the film feeling like an episode of Columbo, with Donald Sutherland as your cocky overly sure of himself investigator (Though he is enjoyable to watch), the film misses the mark by a long long way.

Robert Duvall takes a small turn, and makes you wish he filmed a few more action thrillers and reminds you to rewatch the Outfit, Killer Elite, and The Eagle Has Landed.

Jennifer O'Neill is stunning and probably the main reason you'll watch the movie, possibly the reason it got made. If they put out a directors cut with 30 mins extra of her driving the Ferrari or Maserati then I'd definitely queue up to buy it.

Very light entertainment, something to stare at.

Jennifer O'Neill became a star as the distant object of Gary Grimes' voyeuristic attention in the wonderfully nostalgic Summer of '42. That film showed that she could be captivating when viewed from afar, but her career went off the rails while she was still in her twenties owing to a shortage of technical chops. Simply put, she had the looks of a movie star but not the presence. Here we see Jennifer driving around Miami in a 1970 Maserati Ghibli, taking a late night swim, sunning herself in a bikini, flying off to the Bahamas... Mansions, speedboats, planes and jewels provide the rest of Lady Ice's eye candy. It's all very appealing to look at, but herein lies the problem. The movie is all surface gloss with nothing underneath to drive the wheels. Someone forgot to tell the producers that heist movies are crime thrillers, and crime thrillers are plot driven. They need tight pacing, high stakes, plot twists, none of which appear in this film. The only action is provided by a little routine fast driving. Otherwise, everything meanders along in predictable fashion. Some greedy people are interested in some jewels. No surprises here. The producers could have recut Lady Ice as a four minute music video or an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and lost nothing.