Blonde Ice

Blonde Ice

Blonde Ice

Blonde Ice

Claire Cummings, San Francisco society reporter, blonde and gorgeous, is a woman to die for. If you make the mistake of marrying her, you probably will. Claire (Leslie Brooks) goes through men who want to marry her like a sharp knife through your side. She keeps news columnist Les Burns (Robert Paige) handy even when she marries a very wealthy San Francisco businessman. She makes the mistake of letting a letter to Les fall into her husband's hands on their honeymoon. "My darling Les," she writes, "three more weeks until I can see you again, dearest. Poor stupid Carl tries so hard to be a good husband, but he can't get used to an expensive wife." Carl says it will be a divorce. Twenty-four hours later, Carl isn't going to say anything ever again. Blonde Ice lets us tag along as Claire not only goes through her new husband, but through a blackmailer and a new, high social fiancée. She manipulates Les, who loves her, until even he has her number. "I once said I couldn't figure you out," he tells her. "I can now. You're not a normal woman. You're not warm. You're cold...like ice. Yeah, like ice...blonde ice." It might not have been wise to be so frank with Claire because now she plans for him to take the fall for one of her murders. Justice finally comes to Claire, as it must to all bad people in Hollywood movies of that time. Even then, it takes a three-way set-up, some psychoanalysis and a bullet to do the job. The movie is a great example of a low-budget B programmer which just manages to rise a little above the average. The script is okay, the acting is adequate, the story is interesting. What makes it work? Director Jack Bernhard, just as much a journeyman as the actors, keeps the film moving briskly, with little time to let us get bored or impatient. The photography helps quite a bit, with several noirish scenes at night. Also important is Leslie Brooks as Claire. Brooks was an actress that stayed firmly planted as a lead in B movies, with an occasional foray as a second lead in A movies. She's not an actress who would worry the A crowd, but she does a fine job as Claire, the self-centered, manipulative and deadly ice queen. The only really weak part of the movie is the conclusion, when psychiatry is used as an explanation for her behavior. For me, this undercuts her nicely murderous actions; after all, don't we all just want the nice things in life? There are even tips for fine living. What could be a healthier lunch than "martinis, chicken salad for two and coffee, please." Or "four Manhattans, waiter, with half French, half Italian vermouth." Why, that's a Perfect Manhattan.

Cool title (no pun intended). This noirish little flick actually has a couple gems of dialog sprinkled throughout, like the one offered by Claire Cummings' first husband Carl Hanneman (John Holland) - "Don't you think you were being a little affectionate for a newly married woman"? That's all that's needed to set the viewer up for a cold and calculating femme fatale on the prowl for upward mobility. I have to say, Leslie Brooks fits the definition of gorgeous babe, but you'll also find her picture in the dictionary next to 'bitch on wheels'. I do wish the writing here was a bit more clever and the the acting much better than the amateurish portrayals we got. Seriously, did Claire (Brooks) really have to call room service with a menu to order OJ, toast and coffee? I can do that without even thinking about it. It doesn't take much for even the casual film viewer to figure this one out well before it's over. What's cool though (there's that word again) is the way Claire rakes all of her lovers over the coals before giving them the old heave-ho. And what gives with that pilot Blackie (Russ Vincent)? I've seen it before and can't figure out why a guy would try to shake someone down who's already shown a propensity to kill. It doesn't take much to pull the trigger one more time now, does it? But you know, this is just one entertaining little flick. I wouldn't go so far as to actually call it a noir film; the only real bad apple is the peach who runs the table with the men in her life. What the picture could have used was a more satisfying ending. It made no sense at all that Claire would come clean just on the old shrink's say so. I'm still mulling that one over. As for actress Leslie Brooks, this was the first time I've seen her, and was intrigued enough to check her credits here on the IMDb. Curiously, she appeared in twenty seven pictures throughout the Forties, and then one more in 1971. I wonder what that was all about.

This is an obscure noir film which is seldom seen but will show up at film festivals that celebrate the "B" productions of the 1940s and '50s. That's where I got the chance to see Leslie Brooks weave cinema magic as the coldest babe in town. Her performance ranks right up there with the wonderful Ann Savage's Vera in the greatest "B" of all times, "Detour". Brooks plays a newspaper columnist who goes from one wealthy victim to another, kills, inherits the money and moves on. A blackmailer gets in her way so she dispatches him as well. All the while, her ex-boyfriend, played by Robert Paige, a familiar face to movie buffs,is hanging around on the fringes of her life. He becomes the main suspect in the murders and complications arise. Brooks should have gone on to bigger and better things but, here again, her career mirrors the aforementioned Ann Savage. The low budget films were not always a stepping stone to stardom. This is an unusual film with a totally unrepentant and psychologically twisted main character who, in a word, is a bitch. The supporting cast is strong and the cinematography is quite good. Now that I have said that, I must admit that this is definitely a "B" film and can sometimes be rather hard going. But it is Leslie Brooks that makes it worthwhile. The film was made by Film Classics, originally a releasing company, which tried it's hand at it's own productions, with some limited success. The company disappeared early in the 1950s, as did most of the Poverty Row studios, much to the chagrin of all aficionados of the genre. "Blonde Ice" is one of the stars in the crown of low budget film making due to Brooks. Make an effort to find it.

"Blonde Ice" is part of the two disc / six movie DVD collection "Dangerous Dames." Every collection is bound to have a Dud and I'm pretty sure this movie is the one for this collection. Or at least I hope it is as I still have three movies to go. We start off in San Francisco at the home of Carl Hanneman. He is set to marry Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks). She writes the social column at the local newspaper and has invited quite a few coworkers to the wedding ... including the thin and rat-faced former lover Al, and her current lover, the sports columnist Les Burns (Robert Paige). Yes. She is marrying Carl for his money and has no intention of giving up her current Beau. Just moments after they are legally wed Carl catches her in the arms of Les out on the balcony, but she explains it away as an innocent kiss to say goodbye. Ha! Then on their honeymoon in LA Carl finds a love letter Claire has written to Les. She -literally- gives it to him in a handful of other letters she has written! Naturally, Carl isn't putting up with this crap, so he tells her it's over and he flies back to San Francisco. Claire isn't about to give up on her meal-ticket, so she secretly hires a private plane, flies to SF, murders Carl and makes it look like a suicide, then flies back to LA. She explains his absence on their honeymoon by telling people he had to take a sudden business trip. The police aren't buying this story and investigate Les! Meanwhile Claire sets her sights on a politician as she climbs the social ladder ... and the lies and the bodies start to pile up. This is a bad film ... and it's not one of those so-bad-it's-good films. It's just bad. There are plot holes, characters do things that just don't make sense, the sets are cheap, and none of these people can act. Don't waste your time like I did.

the implausibility of this movie's progress is only eclipsed by the denouement's! this ridiculous woman, pretty and nicely shaped but a total "B" on wheels is obviously a psychopath and really displays no charm whatsoever. OK maybe people are so stupid that they keep throwing themselves after her cause she looks rather like Rose McGowan, I can sort of see that... But why she throws in the towel at the end freely admitting her guilt to 3 murders before accidentally shooting herself simply out of pique at the psychiatrist who, over one dinner's worth of psychoanalysis, appears to have unmasked her as such a disturbed damaged piece of goods is not the least clear. from what we've seen of her she ought rather to have beat the rap, then done away with the shrink as she did with anyone else who annoyed her. idiotic! the acting isn't very good either, from anybody in this movie. what could have been noir lighting was instead actually rather sloppy lighting.

Although it was made on a shoestring by a small independent company and features some below-par acting, this movie redeems itself because of its lively pace, its outrageous story and the performance of its leading lady. Based on the 1938 novel "Once Too Often" by Whitman Chambers, "Blonde Ice" follows the exploits of an extremely ambitious femme fatale whose pursuit of wealth, power and status leaves in its wake, a lot of collateral damage in the form of broken hearts and dead bodies. At a ceremony held in his own mansion, wealthy businessman Carl Hanneman (John Holland) marries Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks) in the company of his guests who include some of Claire's colleagues from the San Francisco newspaper where she's employed as a society columnist. Immediately after making her vows, she leaves her new husband to join her old flame Les Burns (Robert Paige) on the balcony. There she tells the sportswriter that he's still the man that she loves and adds "I'll think of you on my honeymoon". Whilst on honeymoon in Los Angeles, Carl sees a love letter that Claire's written to send to Les and immediately decides to divorce her and return to San Francisco. That night, Claire hires a charter plane to fly to San Francisco and back and pays the pilot Blackie Talon (Russ Vincent) an extra $100 to ensure his future discretion about the trip. When she returns home after her very brief honeymoon, she arranges for Les to meet her and take her back to her husband's house where they discover Carl's dead body. He'd been shot dead in circumstances that suggest that he'd committed suicide. The police are convinced, however, that Carl was murdered but don't have sufficient evidence to charge either Claire or Les. A short while later. Claire gets another of her boyfriends to introduce her to a politically ambitious attorney called Stanley Mason (Michael Whalen) who she wants to administer her late husband's estate and soon they become an item. When Mason is elected to Congress, he announces his engagement to Claire but problems then arise when Blackie Talon turns up to blackmail her and Mason's psychiatrist friend Dr Geoffrey Kippinger (David Leonard) expresses strong reservations about her suitability for marriage. Naturally, Claire resolves these problems with her usual ruthless efficiency but further complications follow. "Blonde Ice" is a film noir with a number of the usual archetypes such as the femme fatale, the weak man who repeatedly gets into danger because of his obsession and the "good girl" who the man consistently ignores. The involvement of psychoanalysis in the plot and the presence of a blackmailer who suddenly emerges from the shadows are also typical noir components. What the story eschews though is the twists and the uncertainties surrounding identities and motivations which often add greater intrigue to some of the best films of this style. Leslie Brooks exemplifies what's best about this movie as she's bold, brazen and shows no reservations or conscience about her character's actions or crimes. Everything she does is treated as simply the next logical step in her progression to her goal. The remainder of the cast are adequate at best but this doesn't detract from the enjoyment because the uncomplicated nature of the whole undertaking makes all the wickedness on-screen highly entertaining and often comical to watch.

Unfortunately for the movie going public "Blonde Ice" was almost Leslie Brooks' last film (she was second female lead to Joan Bennett in "The Scar" (1949)). "Blonde Ice" was one of her leading roles and she was fantastic - a pity she didn't get more of these roles that she could sink her teeth into. Before I saw this film I remembered her most in "Cover Girl" (1945) - She played Rusty's catty rival (the one who gave her tips on how to impress the editors). Claire Cummings, (Leslie Brooks) a gossip reporter, has just married wealthy businessman Carl Hanneman (John Holland) but that doesn't stop her from pigeon-holing Les (Robert Paige), a former flame, and pledging her undying love for him - he, of course, is flabbergasted!!! Later at the race track Carl is astonished at the amount she is betting ($500) even though she wins!! A letter reveals that she is tired of Carl and her marriage. Carl accidentally sees the letter and announces the marriage is over. She concocts a plot that involves Les, a sports reporter -he is suspicious and wonders why Carl has taken a business trip on their honeymoon. When Claire decides to pop into her apartment to freshen up, they find Carl dead - Les assumes it is suicide and Claire agrees. The police believe it is murder but Claire gets off through lack of evidence. The next day she asks for her old job back - she feels she must carry on!!! She soon sets her cap at Stanley Mason (Michael Whalen) a high powered attorney, who, she wants to represent her late husband's estate. Like Carl, he is completely under her spell and he is also able to get the police to close her late husband's file. A blackmailer, who has helped give Claire an alibi but now wants payment, is shot in the back - by Claire!! Mason starts to have second thoughts about Claire and after talking to a doctor tries to convince Claire that she needs counseling to help her deal with issues she has about wealth, power and ambition. Unfortunately Claire doesn't like that idea. At the end she has made her own headlines and her true colours shine forth - even to a dope like Les. The only films I have seen Robert Paige in are "Can't Help Singing" (1944) where he co-starred opposite Deanna Durbin in a Technicolored musical western and "Split Second" (1953) a rather good thriller directed by Dick Powell - he has been in dozens of films but to me he is just not that memorable. Which made him perfect for the role of Les. Michael Whalen, who played Stanley Mason, started out as a leading man in a couple of Shirley Temple movies ("Poor Little Rich Girl" (1936) and "Wee Willie Winkie" (1938)) and later developed into a character actor. Recommended.