Blonde Ice (1948)

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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.

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.

From the director of DECOY (1946) comes another obscure noir revolving around a femme fatale; however, it emerges to be less interesting stylistically and also proves quite predictable as drama! Mind you, one is sufficiently entertained throughout by the unscrupulous machinations of its ambitious but unbalanced heroine/villainess – ensuring ample hard-boiled dialogue and melodramatic situations; still, it all feels rather stilted this time around – perhaps because the casting here doesn’t work nearly as well as in DECOY.The title aptly describes Leslie Brooks’s conniving protagonist (incidentally, I ended up watching this film on the actress’ birthday by pure coincidence!): still, she commits a surprising amount of gaffes during the course of the picture which is incongruous to her genre prototype – for instance, she plans to have her husband’s murder passed off as a suicide, yet never thinks of getting his fingerprints on the weapon!; to do so she asks a pilot to take her from L.A. to Frisco and back again – but doesn’t figure on his wanting to cash in on the fortune she’d inherit once the husband’s death becomes public!; to say nothing of the number of times she’s caught in the company of, or writing to, her true love (sports columnist Robert Paige – best-known for playing the hero in the Universal minor horror classic SON OF Dracula [1943], with which this film shares also cinematographer George Robinson) soon after having committed herself to someone else i.e. a wealthy big shot of some kind!; but my favorite is the climax – finally exposed for what she truly is by an elderly psychiatrist, Brooks impulsively still attempts to violently shut him up despite the fact that there are at least three other people in the room! Incidentally, the latter constitute some of the most important men in Brooks’ life; apart from Paige (justly bewildered at the sight of his loved one blowing her cool), they are James Griffith (making a good impression as a smarmy colleague of Paige’s and who also carries a torch for Brooks – by the way, the latter had her own spot on the paper…which is then amusingly but cruelly put down by none other than Paige himself in the film’s closing line!) and Walter Sande (as their long-suffering editor, who’s often reduced to acting as referee between Paige and Griffith over their common affection for Brooks!). Also making a significant contribution is Michael Whalen as an ageing politician – having already married into money, Brooks had next intended to acquire standing in the U.S. capital! Quality-wise, the VCI “Special Edition” DVD leaves a lot to be desired – but, I guess, it was to be expected from a film which had long been considered lost! There’s a surprising amount of bonus features to be found here – I by-passed Jay Fenton’s Audio Commentary but did get to watch his fairly interesting interview which, rather than focus specifically on BLONDE ICE, drew also on other subjects (particularly on Film Restoration techniques and closer to home, being itself a VCI release, his own involvement in the ‘rediscovery’ of Mario Bava’s THE WHIP AND THE BODY [1963]). Two more supplements in the form of a musical short subject and an episode from a virtually unheard of made-for-TV detective series are treated on their own elsewhere.RAY BARBER SINGS "SATAN WEARS A SATIN GOWN" (N/A, 19??; **): Included as a supplement on VCI’s BLONDE ICE (1948), this was the kind of short made specifically to showcase a new song: in this case, it’s a number advising men to be wary of femme fatales – which is how it ties up with that noir picture. It’s nothing special as both record and film but, I guess, it served its purpose at the time (incidentally, I couldn’t determine when the short came out or who directed it).INTO THE NIGHT (TV) (N/A, 19??; **1/2): As with the short about the “Satan Wears A Satin Gown” number (see above), this also accompanied the main feature on the VCI DVD of BLONDE ICE (1948), an above-average film noir; likewise, too, I found little to no information on the INTO THE NIGHT TV series on the Internet – not even the title of this this particular episode! Thanks to the DVD medium, I’ve watched a handful of 1950s TV programs; all of them were fairly crude technically but also reasonably entertaining in themselves. This one, then, was no exception – being a mildly engaging detective story featuring veteran Hollywood character actor Wallace Ford: the plot, again, revolves around a femme fatale as she schemes to come out on top at all costs. She’s involved in a diamond robbery, contrives to kill her two partners, and even tries to make a dupe out of Ford – but he’s too experienced to fall for her type! While the proceedings are entirely predictable, what makes the show palatable is its constant flurry of hard-boiled dialogue; though this was an intrinsic element of the genre, the overall easy-going approach here results in an agreeable mix of thrills and chuckles throughout.

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.