Um Plano Sinistro

I agree with the viewer above who was disppointed in the ending. The acting overall was fine, but the plot was too disjointed and nonsensical in parts. My feeling is that the plot shifted whenever necessary to get the film to the next scene - dragging along the viewer whether it's a logical shift or not. For instance, at the beginning of the movie (not ruining anything for viewers!) Joseph Cotton approaches a doctor and asks about performing an autopsy - which would have ended the movie then and there. But no, the doctor says that he doesn't want to get involved, and the idea of an autopsy simply ends on that note. Cotten basically says, "Well OK" and the movie moves on to the next scene. At least the screenwriters could have come up with SOME other excuse to prevent an autopsy from occurring.... Anyway, there are irksome things like that throughout, but if you can ignore them, you can enjoy. As for the ending, it's a bit dull and nonsensical, again, and ends too abruptly.

... that probably being that you just have to hope things go your way in a couple of categories. First, you need to be an upstanding member of the community - but not too upstanding so that you are a target for some ambitious D.A. Second, you need to commit the crime in a jurisdiction where either the police are too lazy or too busy to look past the superficial details, where they accept whatever an overworked coroner says - accident, suicide, some sudden illness. Third, and this is where the killer in this film does not luck out, you need to make sure the grieving relatives are not the inquisitive persistent type, respectable and able to get the attention of those in charge of criminal investigations.

Enter Whitney 'Cam' Cameron (Joseph Cotten), who makes a darned good villain as well as a protagonist, but here he's the good guy - or at least so he says. He lost his brother suddenly to encephalitis several years before, and now his niece has also died suddenly. The random remarks of Cam's little nephew, Cam's own inquisitive mind, and the fact that his close friend's wife is a writer of murder mysteries gets Cam suspecting his late brother's wife Lynn of murder. I'll let you see how everything unwinds yourself and who is brought to justice. Cotten narrates for almost the entire film, since he is trying to convince himself this woman is guilty even as he tries to prove her guilt to others - he has always liked her since his brother married her after the death of his first wife, thought she was a good stepmother to his brother's kids, and doesn't want to believe something so hideous, but he has to protect his brother's one surviving child, his nephew - again, so he says.

One thing that has changed since 1953, besides the fact that fashionable ladies and gents all wore hats ,is that a person could die in the hospital - quite possibly due to a fatal mix up by the hospital pharmacy - and that an investigating relative would be met by cooperative hospital personnel and not by an army of stonewalling attorneys and form letters. At least, that's one thing I noticed as Cam went about the hospital where his niece died trying to get the facts.

This is a very good mystery, yet Fox relegated it to half a bill on a Midnight Movie DVD. Give it a chance. It is not the fare usually associated with Midnight Movies - matrons baking cookies by day and turned ax murderer by night, wildlife run amok due to a nuclear blast, etc. Recommended.

This is a slick Hollywood film from the 1950's made for entertainment purposes. Hollywood at its most confident and smooth, it is made to sell movie theater tickets and give you your money's worth. It delivers in that regard.

Good black and white photography and an a-picture gloss in all production values. Speaking of gloss- Mr. Cotton was one of the classiest of film acting gentlemen, and in this film Ms. Peters matches him in a performance that is not in any way b-list. She is first class all the way here.

All of the supporting performances are excellent. This is a straightforward movie mystery that does not mess with your head- what you see is what it is. I very much enjoyed the linear script that builds momentum into a swelling wave that reaches a crescendo right before everything is resolved.

A nocturne composed by Frederik Chopin in the 1830's matches the dark undertones at work throughout the film as it is applied in a background way as it should be rather than as a boffo film theme. I ordinarily would not recommend such structured classical music for a film but this one is melodic and was deliberately written by Chopin to be quietly dark, so it works.

Is "A Blueprint for Murder" just a glossy, slick Hollywood concoction? Yes but it is well edited and well made overall. It will provide you with entertainment from start to finish.

Rightly released on DVD in a double-bill format, for which it was clearly intended for the bigger screen, and very plainly directed by Andrew Stone, this is nevertheless a gripping thriller which keeps one guessing until the very end. Joseph Cotten had some form as a murderer in previous films and is sufficiently shifty to suggest that he might be one now. In my youth I fancied Jean Peters, a beauty with a brain, and was grieved when she succumbed to Howard Hughes. Here she is excellent as the presumed femme fatale. Gary Merrill is wasted, but Catherine McLeod is fun as his astute wife. The sets are obviously from studio stock, but this hardly matters: this is an Agatha Christie style nail-biter and it hits the spot!

After the mysterious death of his niece, Cam Cameron (Joseph Cotton) begins to suspect that the child's stepmother may be responsible. When the autopsy reveals the presence of strychnine in the girl's system, he's convinced that his dead brother's wife, Lynn Cameron (Jean Peters), is the only person with both a motive and the opportunity. Cam now begins to fear for the life of his nephew. He's got to act fast because Lynn intends to take the young boy to Europe.

While I've given A Blueprint for Murder a positive rating and I readily admit I mostly enjoyed the film, much of what I've got to write about is going to seem negative. As good as it is, it has far too many problems to be called great. A Blueprint for Murder is about the most straight forward mystery/thriller I've run across. And that's part of its biggest weakness. There's no mystery regarding the killer's identity. It's made quite clear early on that Lynn killed her niece. There seemed to be a half-hearted attempt to use Cam as a red-herring, but anyone with half a brain could figure out in 3.2 seconds that Cam couldn't have committed the crime - he wasn't there. Maybe I just imagined the light of suspicion being pointed at Cam because I so wanted to be thrown some kind of curve ball. Even though the killer is known, director Andrew L. Stone is able to wring some tension out of the final scenes as Cam tries to prove Lynn is a killer. You get the feeling that even though you know Lynn is responsible for the girl's death, she just might get away with it. These scenes are, however, undermined by an ending that's terribly rushed with action that, unfortunately, takes place off-screen. Too bad, because A Blueprint for Murder could have been much better.

One of the real highlights for me in A Blueprint for Murder was the acting. The performance of Jean Peters as Lynn Cameron is enlightening. I'm not overly familiar with her work, but she's marvelous as the apparent caring, wonderful parent who is hiding a cold, unfeeling heart. I may have to look for more of her work.