Blonde Ice

For most if its runtime, Blonde Ice is a very entertaining b-noir. Leslie Brooks is about as evil a woman as you'll see in one of these movies. She's beautiful, ambitious, and completely ruthless - it's a deadly combination. She's perfectly capable of chewing-up and spitting-out anyone who gets in her way. And, she's not above committing a little murder if the need should arise. Brooks gives a dynamite performance as far as I'm concerned. The rest of the cast is adequate, but nothing spectacular. The weakest point in the film, unfortunately, comes in the final scene. It's almost as if the screenwriters had no idea how to end Blond Ice. What they came up with is so ridiculous and out of character that it really hurts the overall film.

A word on the DVD - from what I've read, the VCI disc is the only way to go. The price is not much more than what you would pay for the Alpha DVD and the VCI disc has a much better transfer and a plethora of features.

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.

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.

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.

Society girl Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks) on her wedding day to multi millionaire Carl Hanneman is caught after the ceremony in the arms of an old flame Les Burns,by her new husband. Hanneman immediately says the marriage is over and leaves Claire to lick her wounds. However she has bigger plans and is not about to let her new wealth walk out the door, so she plans a foolproof plan to murder her husband while retaining her alibi on the other side of the country. All is going according to plan, until Les Burns a man Claire still loves is picked up as murder suspect No1. Claire soon after professing her love to Les, puts another rich man under her spell, a famous lawyer running for congress and when their engagement is announced Les is disgusted at her money grabbing skills and confronts her again, and again she is caught in his arms by her new suitor, this is where Claire loses the plot altogether and her world comes tumbling down along with her aspirations. Blonde Ice despite its C movie status is a good little Noir, Brooks is excellent as the ubiquitous Femme Fatale, the DVD had pretty poor sound though, very wooly which affected my total enjoyment, but still not bad.6/10