Blonde Ice

I've mentioned a few times that I record a lot of Noir Alley selections because they're interesting, and even when they're not very good Eddie Muller makes them interesting. And then I recorded a movie several months back that I expected to be a Noir Alley presentation when I sat down to watch it only to find out that it in fact was not. That movie was Blonde Ice.

The movie opens up with an establishing shot of San Francisco before moving to one of those big houses that the hyperwealthy have and that always seem to populate Hollywood movies set in San Francisco. Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks) is set to get married in that house to wealthy Carl Hanneman. Claire was a society reporter for one of the San Francisco papers, but like Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, is planning on retiring from journalism to be the rich society wife.

On the veranda outside the house, Claire talks to Les Burns (Robert Paige), who worked for the newspaper and who was a former boyfriend of Claire. And this is on her wedding day, so it's not a surprise that Carl is a bit jealous. But they head off down to Los Angeles for a honeymoon before they return to a life of wedded bliss living happily ever after. What am I saying? Early on in the honeymoon, Carl discovers that Claire is writing a love letter to Les. With that in mind, Carl announces that he's heading straight back to Frisco to file for divorce the following day.

Claire finds a pilot who is willing to make a quick flight without asking any questions, after which we cut to her being back in the rental bungalow where the couple was supposed to celebrate the honeymoon. She calls Les to tell him that Carl had to go east on business, so could he pick her up at the airport. It's a ruse, as Claire takes Les to the Hanneman place where it's discovered that Carl is quite dead and has been for a good day, with the crime scene seemingly indicating suicide.

Now, the audience knows this is probably not the case, although obviously Les has no reason to think anything odd is going on. Except that when the cops investigate, they discover a gun with no fingerprints, and a lack of powder burns where you'd expect them if Carl had committed suicide. So there's the possibility of murder. Les has an airtight alibi, and besides, we having seen everything up to this point in the movie are already being led to believe that Claire is responsible.

But at this point the movie really starts getting weird. Claire and Les are in a restaurant and who should walk in but Stanley Mason, a prominent and wealthy local attorney who is running for Congress. Claire learns who he is, and thinks that he would be just the attorney to probate Carl's will, although that's just an excuse to try to start a relationship with Mason. Besides, if he really were running for Congress, he wouldn't have the time to be doing the business of a probate attorney. More people get killed before the climax of the story.

Blonde Ice is very much a B noir, from a studio I didn't recognize and what looked like an edited title card in the print TCM aired to put one of the distribution companies' names on it. It looks like Blonde Ice fell into public domain hell at some point. In any case, Blonde Ice is an interesting enough movie that's definitely entertaining, despite the fact that it's chock full of plot holes, and a totally ridiculous ending that is in part jumping upon the 1940s bandwagon of trying to make things psychological by having a psychologist character in the cast.

There's a reason, then, that I'd never heard of Blonde Ice. But I'm glad I got the chance to see it.