Blonde Ice

Coldly beautiful Leslie Brooks is well cast as Claire, who happily goes about marrying rich men so that she can kill them, get their money, and move on to her next victim. It's a bizarre little film noir, which must have seemed even more bizarre in the days when most films wouldn't touch a story about a woman who is so totally ruthless in getting what she wants.

Robert Paige, as the man who really loves her but can't overlook her hobby, was in the latter stages of his career when this poverty row noir was made.

BLONDE ICE was directed by Jack Bernhard and photographed by George Robinson, the unsung master cinematographer who gave such great atmosphere to the Universal "B" horror films of the '30's and 40's.

There are also many fine character actors playing the type of roles they were so well known for------even if their names were not. They showed up so often in the '30's and '40's------always playing the same character-------that we knew when they walked on the screen exactly what their personality was going to be.

Edgar G. Ulmer, the famous cult director of such admired "B" masterpieces as DETOUR, THE BLACK CAT and RUTHLESS claims to have written the story, though his name does not appear in the credits.

This is one of the most difficult "B" films to see, but is well worth watching if you get the opportunity.

A cheesy programmer with a cast of nobodies and has-beens, sporting production values suited to Charlie Chan, Blonde Ice remains curiously compelling. Most of its interest flows from the lead performance of Leslie Brooks as Claire, a newspaper gossip/society columnist who marries first a millionaire then an aspiring congressman only to dispatch them abruptly; all the while she keeps stringing along a paycheck-to-paycheck reporter whom she uses as a backup/patsy. Brooks performance is modelled, distantly, on Bette Davis (though the vertiginous arches of her eyebrows are a preview of Divine's). One apparent deficiency in the script -- and there are plenty -- may prove a blessing in disguise: no attempt is made to "analyze" Claire's motives, or pathology. What we see is what we get. The version I saw was shorn of 10 to 15 minutes of the reported running time; it's hard to say whether the condensed version detracts from or actually improves the original release. Though nobody should set out on a desperate quest to acquire a copy, Blonde Ice is somehow better than it has any right to be.

Director Jack Bernhard was on a roll when he made this low-budget crime drama for the interesting "Film Classics" company (all of whose releases that I've seen have been fascinating on some level)--he had made VIOLENCE (about a crypto-fascist secret society preying on returning veterans) and DECOY (a noir classic with the ultimate femme fetale, as played by Jean Gillie) at Monogram in 46-47, and after BLONDE ICE he went on to direct two of the three John Calvert "Falcon" films which I found entertaining in a quirky way. BLONDE ICE teams Leslie Brooks (who played a similar "deadlier than the male" female two years earlier in SECRET OF THE WHISTLER), here playing a upwardly-mobile woman who uses marriage and murder as a way of improving her social status, with actor-singer-gameshow host Robert Paige, a reliable performer best known to me for the serial FLYING G-MEN and the horror classic SON OF Dracula. The film will not make anyone forget DETOUR or DECOY because to me it doesn't really aspire to the dark world of noir--it's not a corrupt world here, just an empty one for Claire Cummings. Les, her friend and the man she keeps coming back to whenever she conquers a new financially successful man (played by Robert Paige), is an interesting character because he is a devoted friend who knows that something is wrong but doesn't want to know about it. Claire states many a time that she loves him, but he seems to have gone beyond any romantic feelings for her before the film starts--his feelings for her are more like those of an ex-spouse who has moved on but who still wants to help his former partner who is having a run of bad luck. I disagree with those who don't care for Brooks' performance--she has a number of wonderfully feline poses and it's easy to see how men who ought to know better (such as the congressional candidate) fall for her. I also like the fact that no real explanation is ever provided for her actions other than social climbing, and she always seems unsatisfied with each new level she reaches. The supporting cast does a good job also--my favorite being Russ Vincent as the sleazy flyer/blackmailer, in a performance straight from the Jack LaRue school of acting. I'm glad to see this film available in a crisp-looking DVD. It has the flavor of a paperback-original crime novel with a lurid cover (the film's poster and title card have that flavor too)and it pulled me into its world for 70 minutes.

Other than Jennifer Jones in Ruby Gentry have I ever seen a film which had more members of the male species in heat than in Blonde Ice where Leslie Brooks has every member of the cast with testosterone panting after her with the possible exception of police captain Emory Parnell. The cops are very interested in Brooks, she's killing men all over the place who threaten her position on the social scale and her efforts to improve same.

There's a body count of three, a rich society guy, a wealthy attorney who gets elected to Congress but doesn't live long enough to even claim victory and a blackmailing pilot played by John Holland, Michael Whalen and Russ Vincent. Brooks started as a Suzy Knickerbocker type society columnist who wants to do more than write about the rich and privileged.

David Leonard a criminal psychologist has her pegged from the beginning and does she hate him. Another reporter James Griffith has the hots for her, but she's rejected him and fashioned on to Robert Paige. He's the one that rings her chimes, but he's not rich and privileged.

Blonde Ice was an interesting film though it got way too melodramatic toward the end. Noir fans should give it a look.

Much as I love the film noir genre, a lot of so called noir do turn out to be little more than 'B' movie filler. Every now and again though one turns up to surprise you. This is nothing incredible but is very watchable indeed with a fantastic ice cool blonde central performance from Leslie Brooks. She seems to have had a decent career but I don't recall her taking the lead in anything else I've seen - gangster's moll more like. Based on the book by Whitman Chambers ('Once Too Often', although interestingly, 'Manhandled' on my own copy, which is a bit misleading because this lady doesn't get manhandled by anyone). The film lacks those deep dark shadows and night time location shooting, it even lacks any real baddies, unless you count the aspiring politician, but it does have a femme fatale. And what a performance Leslie Brooks gives as the most convincing ruthless ice maiden who does all the killing herself. Bit slow to start and seems to be slipping into screwball territory at one point but once on track this smokes.