WILLAM CONRAD REINCARNATES NOIR WITH 'MY BLOOD RUNS COLD'

Title: MY BLOOD RUNS COLD Cast: Troy Donahue, Joey Heatherton  Year: 1965 Year: ****

Along with a throwaway horror flick in an extremely busy three-picture-year of 1965, the best-known-for-television actor William Conrad directed an unintentional neo-noir double-feature, BRAINSTORM and MY BLOOD RUNS COLD, both unique, creative and eclectic while the latter provided limited-rage Troy Donahue a surprisingly intense performance... with layers...

Albeit most of them intentionally hidden since his character is deeply enigmatic from the start, and desperately vulnerable — literally when he's almost killed by spoiled, fitfully gorgeous rich girl Joey Heatherton...

Nicolas Coster and Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Caustic and careless, stubborn and carefree, Heatherton's Julie Merriday drives her convertible towards the rural seaside locale so dangerously that pseudo-boyfriend Nicolas Coster fears for his life, right before she almost literally ends ten-speed-riding Donahue's — here as stranger-in-town Ben Gunther, despite the bizarre claim to have been around... well... practically forever...

Or at least a hundred years, supposedly reincarnated as Julie's distant lover and spending most of the film strategically convincing the full-lipped blonde bombshell she was her own great-grandmother: providing Donahue an offbeat and eccentric, borderline psychopathic role channeled through an otherwise straight/subdued persona...

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Troy Donahue

Wherein a more animated actor might've seemed part of a charming con-man ruse, Donahue's usual stilted, wooden underacting works for both story and character... his only challenge being Heatherton's "I own this town" tycoon father Barry Sullivan, fretting for his adored only-child while sporadically curbed by artistic, open-minded sister (and Julie's mentoring aunt) Jeanette Nolan, a kind of beatnik-den-mother type surrounded by old money/inherited wealth...

Meanwhile, the most intriguing sequences occur early on... when the mysterious, noir-inspired investigating-the-past slowly unveils so that Heatherton can take her time, balancing sheer disbelief with lovestruck confusion without rushing into the inevitable wispy, Harlequin romance, thankfully enveloped by a slowburn sailboat getaway before a quick foot-chase finale, ultimately making MY BLOOD RUNS COLD an entirely different kind of melodramatic thriller, and beyond.

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Troy Donahue and Barry Sullivan

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Nicolas Coster in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Troy Donahue in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Barry Sullivan

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Troy Donahue in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Troy Donahue

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Troy Donahue

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Troy Donahue

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Jeanette Nolan

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Troy Donahue in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Nicolas Coster in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Troy Donahue

Nicolas Coster in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Troy Donahue in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Troy Donahue

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Nicolas Coster in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD with Nicolas Coster

Joey Heatherton in MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Credits for MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Credits for MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Artwork for MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Artwork for MY BLOOD RUNS COLD

Artwork for MY BLOOD RUNS COLD