To gain wealth and influence, Clair (Leslie Brooks), the blonde of the movie’s title—Blonde Ice (1948)—marries, hurts and betrays various men. Indeed, she is very open about almost all of it. Strangely, the police don’t treat her as a person of interest in her first husband’s, er, suicide. The marriage lasted a week, and now Clair is back with an old flame. But for how long?
The film suggests that Clair is a sociopath. Interestingly, it shows us the workings of society’s institutions being interrupted by this sociopath. A society columnist for a newspaper, Clair can no longer contribute. She keeps a newly elected Congressman from beginning his term. Marriage is turned on its head.
Blonde Ice is a pleasing, unassuming, slightly nutty thriller directed by Jack Bernhard. Brooks, who looks a little like June Lockhart, is never sentimental or too affectionate. She knows how to play a person with ulterior motives—one who keeps inherent iciness hidden. Just as fitting is tall Robert Paige, enacting a man whom any woman, including Clair, would like. Walter Sande (as a newspaper editor) and Emory Parnell (as a police captain) are honorably true.
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