Adapted by Laird Koenig from the 1977 novel of the same name by Sidney Sheldon, it follows an international pharmaceutical heiress who is targeted for death by unknown members of her extended family, while a serial killer simultaneously crisscrosses Europe, murdering women in snuff films.

Lead investigator Max Hornung informs Elizabeth of his list of suspects, which includes her closest advisers and financially strapped family members.

Elizabeth returns to her father's villa in Sardinia during a sirocco for protection from the unseen murderer, who sets her house on fire and shouts "Now try to make it look like an accident!"

As Hornung had previously discovered, Sir Alec, a prominent British politician, was heavily in debt due to his young wife's gambling addiction.

[1] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "As he demonstrated in his James Bond films (Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball), Terence Young is a director of some comic style, but though Bloodline is often laughable, it has no sense of humor.

"[2] Roger Ebert wrote, "After six months, a week, and two days of suspense, we can now relax: The worst movie of 1979 has opened ... See Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline, and weep for the cinema.

"[7] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "trash", writing of Hepburn that "she has so much class that you sit there wondering what a woman like her is doing in a movie like this.

The task of making clear the heavily populated, incredibly thick plot of Sheldon's best seller requires so much exposition—and so much zigzagging over Europe—that adaptor Laird Koenig and director Terence Young have scant opportunity to develop characters or work in much action.