YVETTE MIMIEUX

I have always been indifferent about '60s starlet, Yvette Mimieux. In the mid-sixties one critic tabbed her the "poor man's Carol Lynley." In fairness, Lynley was tagged the "poor man's Carroll Baker." Mimieux consistently played waif-like roles while Lynley was able to play more varied roles to better effect i.e. the harried heroine in Bunny Lake Is Missing, the psychotic heiress in Once You Kiss a Stranger, etc. However, by the early '70s Yvette was snagging lead film roles in which I though Carol should have got and I started to resent her. Two of those movies have just been released on DVD.

First up was my favorite movie as a kid until I saw The Poseidon Adventure a year later. Skyjacked (1972) features an all-star cast trapped aboard a jetliner hijacked by disturbed Vietnam vet James Brolin with Yvette as the head stewardess. The following year she appeared in The Neptune Disaster in the role of the "girl" who accompanies a team of scientists to the ocean floor. Check out a great review of this on the CinemaRetro site. Buy them both. I will and as I am watching I'll still mutter under my breath that Carol Lynley should have been cast instead!