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Movie Review -- The Girl in Blue (U-Turn)
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The Girl in Blue (U-Turn)
                                         review by JMW

This film opens with Scott Laithem (David Selby) a young
attorney, remembering an experience from four years before the events of the movie – a brief meeting with a young lady he thinks of as "The Girl in Blue" (Maud Adams) whom he has never forgotten. He had tried to catch up with her at the time, but fate intervened.

In the present time, Scott has a good relationship with his live in girlfriend, Bonnie (Gay Rowan), -- the food fight scene at the beginning of the movie is adorable, realistic and most of all FUNNY -- and an apparently successful career. Yet despite his genuine love for his girlfriend, he is reluctant to commit to marriage, and we see that this is because of his lingering memories of the Girl in Blue, who has now in his memory become the idealized girl of his dreams. As his girlfriend presses him for a commitment, he finds himself wondering more and more what might have been.

He decides to go in search of the mystery woman, and the events of the movie follow this search, his reconnection with the woman and the effect of his actions on his present day relationship.

Most Selby fans know of this movie only because of his nude scenes, but it's a cute romantic movie in its own right. The Selby character is the focal point of the whole film and he carries the plot superbly. It also showcases his versatility, from the silliness of some of the romantic scenes with "Bonnie", thru drama and deep emotion in later scenes and the romantic idealism hiding under the surface of the smart alecky lawyer. Selby and Gay Rowan, who played Bonnie, also have excellent chemistry in all their scenes, even the bed scenes which I gather from reading many interviews that actors in general find the most difficult to portray naturally.

As to those oft-mentioned nude scenes – this movie was made in Canada, in 1974, at a time when both male and female nudity was a fad, simply because it was now acceptable in mainstream movies. (Anyone else remember the initial shock of Richard Gere's "Full Monte" in American Gigolo?) By today's standards they are laughably tame, only mildly gratuitous and flow naturally from the storyline for the most part. If it were not for the single use of the F word
(not as swearing, but during an argument. Scott tells his girl that he had not been unfaithful "Not one lousy five minute ****), I think it would likely rate a PG now instead of its original R rating.

Here's a breakdown for those who want to be able to judge whether they would find anything offensive – or who they might NOT want to be watching the movie with. There is the use of the F word as mentioned. In a few love scenes, the woman is shown as topless and there is fondling. Selby's nude scenes are all from the back, and flow naturally from the circumstances of the scene: getting out of bed after lovemaking, going to the bathroom and getting in the tub
(folding himself into that tub without anything showing which shouldn't have must have been an interesting contortion exercise!), being in the shower. Though on that
latter I DO wonder who in their right mind would be taking a shower with the curtain OPEN <G>. I don't care HOW cute he is, if he were my boyfriend either he'd shut the curtain or HE would have to clean up the mess on the floor!

In short this is a cute little movie that is well worth watching, even if it weren't for the Selby nude scenes. It is out of print,and only avaliable on VHS, but when I got my copy nearly two years ago, there were many copies for sale on ebay and especially on their other site, half.com. It is fairly obscure, so you should be able to get it for under $5. As to who Scott ends up with – that would be telling!

review @JMW 2004

This website is @2004-2013 by JMW. No original article or photograph may be reprinted in any form without prior written permission from JMW