Madame Bijoux

Is this a great movie? Well, no, it's not. But what's really amazing here is that we are able to see it at all. Thanks, Prime! As a kid in the 70s and 80s, and continuing on as a young adult into the 90s, I was pretty sure I had watched just about every action/adventure/cops&robbers flick that came out between 1960 and 1995. At least the ones that had any kind of a star. I had never even heard of this one until I saw it available included with Prime. It's the kind of movie I would have loved as a kid. At this point, I'm sophisticated enough in my judgement of a film to realize that this one is a mess. And while many of the plot points don't seem to make a lot of sense, the film moves along steadily towards what you imagine will be some kind of an interesting conclusion. The ending, along with many other parts of the film is a bit strange, but somehow satisfying. Not much of this movie goes as expected. It's uneven, but it does keep you more interested that a standard formulaic offering. I really enjoyed the performances of the three main stars. Donald Sutherland is sure fun to watch, even if the character did something no real person would ever do about every ten minutes. Jennifer O'Neill has a great energy in every movie I've seen her in. Robert Duvall! He was super solid in a movie where everything else was kind of all over the place. To really enjoy a movie like this, a big part of it has to come from just wanting to see what was going on in the business in 1973. What did the world look like? How was everyone dressing? What were they driving? What were these actors doing in between making really good movies? If you've got an inquiring mind, and really want to know, check this movie out. If not, try something from the 90s.

Andy Hammon (Donald Sutherland) steals a diamond necklace from a criminal type. He's a newly hired mechanic working for Paul Booth. He gets fired after flirting with the bosses' daughter Paula Booth (Jennifer O'Neill). They get into a car chase and he offers her the $3M necklace. It turns out that the Booths are fences working with Peter Brinker (Eric Braeden). Police detective Ford Pierce (Robert Duvall) is frustrated with Andy Hammon who is actually working with the insurance companies looking to collect his 10%.

It's a lot of Florida. It's a lot of sunshine and water. It's trying to be a stylish thriller. It seems to be spending a chunk of change. Sutherland seems to be playing around with the material. It has the potential but it ends up as a muddle. There are questionable choices all the way through the movie. I don't know why they are measuring the jewels in a moving RV other than injecting some unnecessary action. I don't know why the plot goes from Florida to Chicago. I'm never certain what is happening at any one time. I look up director Tom Gries and am not surprised that he is mostly a TV director. He's trying to give the visual style but doesn't have the skills to pull it off. That's the movie in a nutshell. It's trying to be a flashy big budget thriller but it doesn't have it.

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.

Sultry O'Neill fresh from her career defining role in 'Summer of '42' plays the spoiled, enigmatic but emotionally aloof daughter of a wealthy British magnate (Magee, whose character disappears midway through the picture) being covertly pursued by tenacious insurance investigator Sutherland until she eventually succumbs to his easygoing charm.

Attractive cast, an array of classic fast cars (and some spectacular car chases) and location photography (Miami, Nassau) elevates a convoluted plot that requires close attention to follow. Duvall is solid as the special agent reluctantly co-operating with rogue Sutherland (who's only after his 10%), Cypher is O'Neill's overbearing fiancé and co-conspirator, whilst Braeden shows up late in the picture in what turns out to be a minor role as an international jewel launderer (he also momentarily looks at the camera in the scene where he's seen walking away from Sutherland following the pool encounter). Sharp eyes will also spot Dana Elcar in an uncredited appearance as one of Sutherland's employers just before sunset.

Despite likeable performances from the beguiling O'Neill, charismatic Sutherland and a fine score by composer Botkin, director Gries' high concept crime caper doesn't always seem to know its destination nor are the motivations of the characters always clear. O'Neill's character displays a highly uneven temperament which seems to be deliberate, but it does make her behaviour in certain situations difficult to fathom (I'm not sure what was happening in the scuba diving scene for instance). There's a scene in with she explains herself as being 'fragments' of different personalities which is perhaps reaching for some psychological explanation, but it's awfully vague. Anyway, despite being unusually complex to read, she's still a specimen to behold.

Jazzy and energetic, it's got all the elements to be a success, but sadly lacks coherency, and is tonally too erratic to fulfil its significant potential.

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.