Blonde Ice (1948)
Director: Jack Bernhard
Stars: Robert Paige, Leslie Brooks, Russ Vincent
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Length: 73 minutes
A social climbing woman, manipulates the men around her to further herself. She marries several wealthy men who all die under mysterious circumstances. Now she's about to marry another.
This might be an old film but the subject matter is relevant today. How many times have we heard of someone who's a social climber who will use people at all cost to further their means? This film explores that phenomenon with deadly results.
This is a little known film noir, made by Martin Mooney Productions, not by a big studio. Yet for all of it's obscurity it's worth seeking out. For two reasons: one is Leslie Brooks.
Pretty women are a dime a dozen in Hollywood but Leslie Brooks is so much more than a pretty face. She plays a woman accused of being a cold blooded social path murder. And she does her role so believable. She's cold and yet charming, manipulating and cunning. In other words a first rate femme fatale. I'm surprised that she is virtually unknown today.
The other reason to watch this is it's a different type of noir. The music score and the way the story is told seems more like a film from the late 1930s.
Director Jack Bernhard (known for the film noir,
Decoy) is not a name that most recognize but he does a really fine job here balancing 30s style drama with 50s style film noir.