Watch My Name Is Julia Ross For Free

Crappy film

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This Gothic noir, with its story of a woman-in-danger who's trapped in a creepy mansion, seems to inhabit the same territory as Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940) and George Cukor's "Gaslight" (1944). Unlike its predecessors however, it's a low-budget offering with a relatively short running time. It's fast-moving, suspenseful and full of snappy dialogue and features a cast of colourful characters who are involved in a particularly evil conspiracy. Director Joseph H Lewis' reputation as a talented filmmaker was cemented by the great commercial success that this movie achieved and his skills in creating a brooding atmosphere and making effective use of close-ups is especially apparent in this tense melodrama.Julia Ross (Nina Foch) is a young lady in London who, after a short period of ill-health, finds herself three weeks behind on her rent and out of work. When she sees a newspaper advertisement for a new employment agency, she immediately goes to visit the agency's office and is interviewed by the rather severe-looking Mrs Sparkes (Anita Sharp-Bolster). After establishing that Julia doesn't have any family ties or a boyfriend, Mrs Sparkes decides that she would be suitable for work as a live-in private secretary to her client, Mrs Hughes (Dame May Witty). Mrs Hughes subsequently approves the appointment and at her insistence, Julia moves into her new employer's house that evening.Next morning, Julia wakes up in a strange bedroom in a mansion overlooking the sea in Cornwall and is told by Mrs Hughes and her son Ralph (George Macready) that she's Ralph's wife Marion and when Mrs Sparkes appears to be working at the house as Mrs Hughes' housekeeper, Julia becomes extremely alarmed and recognises that she's being held prisoner. When Julia protests about her situation, no-one takes any notice because the staff have all been told that she's recovering from a mental breakdown and her numerous attempts to escape all end in failure.Despite the treatment that she's subjected to, Julia never doubts her own sanity or her identity and is reassured in these matters when she discovers a secret passage and overhears Mrs Hughes and Ralph discussing their plans to murder her as part of a scheme to cover up a previous murder. Julia's only chance of escape then seems to rest in her own ability to outwit her captors.As the psychotic villain of the piece, George Macready conveys all the madness and menace that Ralph Hughes embodies as he indulges in his unhealthy obsession with knives and consistently fails to control his violent temper. Dame May Witty is very credible as her character who externally seems to be a typically posh elderly lady but is in fact, cruel, amoral and the mastermind of an extremely wicked conspiracy. Nina Foch, on the other hand, does a great job by showing her fear at times but also by being convincingly natural on other occasions.The disorientation and fear that Julia experiences in this movie are well reinforced visually by the use of tilted camera angles and close-ups and her state of being imprisoned is also emphasised by symbols such as the bars on her bedroom window and a shadow-grid on the staircase wall. Similarly, the shadowy compositions within the mansion contribute to the uncomfortable claustrophobic atmosphere that compliments Julia's predicament perfectly.

This is a nifty little suspense film...never mind that it is somewhat improbably (all the more so since there are holes in the plot)...it's still entertaining.It was a rather cheap B-picture, but that didn't keep one actress from shining through -- Dame May Witty as the mother who is protecting her adult son from being discovered as the murderer of his wife. To do so, they kidnap a young lady looking for a job (Nina Foch), and publicly treat her as having had a nervous breakdown, with the intent of murdering her and making it look like suicide so they can identify her body as the long-dead wife. Witty was always pretty interesting in films, and no less so here. Foch is a little less interesting, but does okay...sometimes it seems as if she is sleepwalking...but I don't mean that in terms of the plot. The son is played nastily by George Macready.It's a rather short film, just over and hour, so it moves along at a good pace, and it makes you want to forgive the the unevenness of the script. At least until the ending, which is about as bad as any I've ever seen in a film. Still, it's an interesting suspense film which could have done extremely well with a better director. I'll give it a "7" barely, although the ending made we want to drop it to a "6".

My Name Is Julia Ross is directed by Joseph H. Lewis and adapted to screenplay by Muriel Roy Bolton from The Woman in Red written by Anthony Gilbert. It stars Nina Foch, Dame Mary Witty, George Macready, Roland Varno, Anita Sharp-Bolster and Doris Lloyd. Music is by Mischa Bakaleinikoff and cinematography by Burnett Guffey. Julia Ross (Foch) out of work and in debt arrears to her landlady, hastily accepts a in-house secretarial position to Mrs. Hughes (Whitty). Starting work in the Hughes house in London the first night, she wakes up two days later in a cliff-top mansion in Cornwall. She is told she has been away with mental health problems, her name is Marion Hughes and she is married to Ralph Hughes (Macready)...A very important film in the career of the great Joseph H. Lewis, My Name is Julia Ross would effectively put the director on the map, with noir fans subsequently rewarded with the likes of Gun Crazy and The Big Combo. Compact in running time (65 minutes) and budget, it's a film that showcases just what real good work could be achieved by a director and photographer noir team working under tight restrictions; classical noir production if you like.Story as it is is pretty straightforward and familiar, but atmosphere and visual smartness ensure this is no walk down retread lane. It falls into the Gothic noir spectrum of films, following in the traditions of Rebecca, Gaslight and Suspicion. In fact, it's also very much "old dark house" on staple terms, with eerie staircase, wood panelled rooms, secret passageways and even a black cat. While the setting, house on a seaside cliff where the mist rolls in at night, is splendidly moody.The characterisations (very well performed by the cast) are vivid and odd, with us clearly meant to note that Julia Ross is clearly the only normal being in the Hughes household! Best of the bunch is Macready's Ralph Hughes, the catalyst for all the things that are happening, he fondles his knives like a fetishist, a truly memorable noir antagonist.Ultimately it's what Lewis and Guffey bring to the fore that makes the film better than it is on the page. Expressionistic touches are here of course, but it's the skew-whiff camera placements and up close POV shots that bring the viewer into Julia's confused new world. Memorable scenes are frequent, be it a rain sodden street or Julia peering through the bars of her bedroom, there's visual treats aplenty here.The ending is all to quick and as is often the case in this type of narrative, implausibilities need to be ignored. But that is easy to do, because with atmosphere unbound and not a shot wasted, this is a safe recommendation to the Gothic noir faithful. 8/10

This is one of those films that it seems Alfred Hitchcock should have directed; The Gazebo is another that comes to mind. Similar to "The Wrong Man" (which was a true story), the odds seem so heavily stacked against our heroine that it seems she will never be able to save herself. Another comparison that comes to mind is "Gaslight".Dame May Witty never gave a bad performance in her life, but here, she seems to sleepwalk through a role that doesn't give her much to work with. Her motivations are never fully revealed beyond the convenient fact that she loves her son.George McCready just has to walk in front of the camera to give me a chill. This "over the top" role may have looked silly had any other actor tried to tackle it.And finally, there's Nina Foch. I have always enjoyed watching her, but never thought she was a terrific actress. I WANTED her to be terrific, because she has a naturally exotic and sensual face and overall appearance, but she never seemed to submerge herself in a role - she always seemed a bit distant and aloof. It's interesting to me that she spent decades as an acting teacher/coach. As the saying goes, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach".