Jack Bernhard

Although "Blonde Ice" isn't all that well known, it is still a decent little noir B-movie about unfettered greed and avarice. Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks) is a reporter who is happy to date different men to further her career and standing in society. The film opens at her wedding to the rich Carl Hanneman (John Holland) at which Claire takes aside Les Burns (Robert Paige), the man she dumped in favour of Hanneman, to tell him that she still loves him. On honeymoon Hanneman finds out about the affair, but he soon turns up dead with Claire deflecting suspicion in the direction of Burns. Claire quickly switches her attention to an aspiring Senator, while keeping the lovelorn sap Burns on the hook. "Blonde Ice" is a minor film noir made noteworthy due to the lead character, Claire, surely one of the deadliest and most psychopathic femme fatales in all noir cinema. Claire is utterly ruthless and by the end of the film she isn't afraid to engage in both knife and gun play. Leslie Brooks plays her to great effect with an unrivalled cold and nasty sheen and manages to almost single-handedly lift the film above its low budget roots. Directed by Jack Bernhard from a story by Whitney Chambers, he manages to deliver a number of interesting and inspiring sequences, particularly the use of extreme close-ups of Claire's face while a character in the background, fully framed and in focus, outlines concerns about Hanneman's death. Cinematographer George Robinson also deserves credit for some of these sequences and the excellent lighting throughout the film. The overall story, however, is a touch superficial and doesn't stand up to much scrutiny – you have to suspend disbelief quite a bit for the whole thing to work. Overall, however, "Blonde Ice" is an entertaining little movie, which comes across a lot better than its B-feature status would suggest. Jack Bernhard deserves much credit for achieving so much on so little, but the film belongs to Leslie Brooks' hugely entertaining, ruthlessly cold and conscience free femme fatale, Claire Cummings.… (mehr)