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.

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.

The screenplay is by Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue. The film—About Last Night . . . (1986)—is based on David Mamet‘s play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. I haven’t seen the play, but I know perfectly well that this is not it. It’s not Mamet on screen except, I assume, in the first sequence when Mamet-like language really flows.

The film is involving, even so. Director Ed Zwick, who released in 2010 a mediocre comedy-drama called Love and Other Drugs, fashioned a better comedy-drama with About Last Night. It stars a beautiful Demi Moore and a handsome Rob Lowe, both just fair as actors, and co-stars Jim Belushi, quite potent.

The theme seems to be the struggle, if it is even possible, to reach the highest, the utmost, in sexual love. For an hour and fifteen minutes, the movie is satisfactory, with gusto, then it turns unconvincing (for one thing, Dan [Lowe] agrees to kiss the strange woman at a party where his girlfriend Debbie [Moore] is). Before long, though, it becomes satisfactory again, even if Miles Goodman’s sensitive music has no place here. All in all, the film’s not bad.

The screenplay is by Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue. The film—About Last Night . . . (1986)—is based on David Mamet‘s play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. I haven’t seen the play, but I know perfectly well that this is not it. It’s not Mamet on screen except, I assume, in the first sequence when Mamet-like language really flows.

The film is involving, even so. Director Ed Zwick, who released in 2010 a mediocre comedy-drama called Love and Other Drugs, fashioned a better comedy-drama with About Last Night. It stars a beautiful Demi Moore and a handsome Rob Lowe, both just fair as actors, and co-stars Jim Belushi, quite potent.

The theme seems to be the struggle, if it is even possible, to reach the highest, the utmost, in sexual love. For an hour and fifteen minutes, the movie is satisfactory, with gusto, then it turns unconvincing (for one thing, Dan [Lowe] agrees to kiss the strange woman at a party where his girlfriend Debbie [Moore] is). Before long, though, it becomes satisfactory again, even if Miles Goodman’s sensitive music has no place here. All in all, the film’s not bad.