Blonde Ice (1948)

• Year: 1948
• Released: 24 Jul 1948
• Country: United States
• Adwords: N/A
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041187/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blonde_ice
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Approved
• Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
• Runtime: 73 min
• Writer: Kenneth Gamet, Whitman Chambers, Dick Irving Hyland
• Director: Jack Bernhard
• Cast: Robert Paige, Leslie Brooks, Russ Vincent
• Keywords: based on novel or book, blackmail, airplane, femme fatale, film noir, woman reporter,

	6.0/10
	25% – Critics
	25% – Audience

Blonde Ice Storyline

Reporting the news for a top periodical, Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks) believes she was made for better things than hammering out a living with her sports reporter boyfriend Les Burns (Robert Paige). She decides to marry up into wealth, but on her honeymoon, her new husband abandons her and goes back to Los Angeles. First, he caught her kissing an ex beau. Then, he catches her writing a love letter to Les. Later that night, Claire charters a plane piloted by Blackie Talon (Russ Vincent) to travel back to Los Angeles. The next day, her husband Carl is found dead, presumably from a suicide. Claire stays at Mimi’s. The police suspect murder and Claire deflects their suspicions by framing Les, for having motive and opportunity to do in his rival. We see over and over how Claire needs and spends money like crazy. Horse races. Claire continues to manipulate the emotions of Les to keep him helping her. When Blackie comes back into her life for blackmailing purposes, Claire dispatches him and cuddles up to successful politician Stanley Mason (James Whalen) for a ride to the top of the heap. Mason is running for Congress, and we hear him ordering lots of fancy drinks. When he discovers her getting close to Les, Mason confronts Claire, and the wedding is off. When Les discovers the depths of Claire’s ruthlessness, he realizes it may cost him his own life. Later, Claire meets Dr. Klippinger, who psycho-analyzes her; there’s a showdown. Claire is furious and tries to shoot Klippinger, but (SPOILERS) Claire offs herself with the gun.

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Blonde Ice Movie Reviews

above average 40’s b-crime programmer w/ wild femme fetale

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.

by-the-numbers noir with a couple of decent performances

Blonde Ice has a DVD that is almost too good for its own movie – the menu has a special ice-crackling design with dialog from the movie placed over and some of that chilling noir-ish music we all know and admire from the period. The DVD menu hints at it being a smashingly good B-movie, but as it turns out the film itself is just OK. Blonde Ice, one of those stories with the conniving and murderous sexy femme fatale who gets whoever she wants and in this case rich men who get suckered into her grasp, is a picture made for cheap, of course, but also with a cheap script: not much imagination goes into the dialog or the construction of the plot. Even the one possibly fascinating character, the one man, Les Burns (Paige) who has held a torch without shame for Claire (Leslie Brooks) for years and stands by and defends her against murder claims even if he suspects deep down she might have done it, is brushed aside into the conventional column.

Brooks is a honey, that much has to be given to her, and she can act in some scenes- in others she just goes through the motions like the rest of the capable cast of character players (most of whom you wont know unless you are some kind of film-noir scholar like Alain Silver or other)- and she does give a decent anchor for some of the emotional scenes, such as at the end when she gives a confession that is as icey as everything else she does in the movie. The direction and writing are on par with her: not spectacular, not ever really a downer. Blonde Ice probably has an amazing poster, one of those you might see in an art-museum installation celebrating pulp fiction advertising. The content itself is just there to pay a couple of small bills and fill some seats for a double feature. It’s recommended only to those who sniff out whatever 40s noir might have promise. Like me.

Leslie Brooks is dynamite!

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.