Blonde Ice is a crime film noir movie released on July 24, 1948, directed by Jack Bernhard with music by Irving Gertz. The film was originally released as a B movie. This means the film is a low budget commercial film along with a feature movie. The film stars Leslie Brooks as Claire Cummings Hanneman, Robert Paige as Les Burns, and Michael Whalen as Stanley Mason. It is based on the 1938 novel Once Too Often by Elwyn Whitman Chambers. Claire is a society reporter and serial killer who is willing to go to extremes if it means publishing a story. She manages to keep herself in the headlines by marrying and seducing a series of wealthy men. However, all of these men die under certain mysterious circumstances. In order to protect her reputation, as well as deflect suspicion from herself, Claire frames her former boyfriend, the sportswriter Les Burns.

Plot
Claire Cummings a society columnist for a San Francisco paper, is about to marry Carl Henneman in his opulent mansion. A small group of men – all Claire’s old co-workers from the newspaper – comment about Claire being late to her own wedding. At least two of the men attending – Les Burns and Al Herrick – are ex-lovers of Claire’s. Claire appears at the top of the stairs as the wedding march begins, making her way down the stairs and into the ceremony. As the ceremony takes place, Les leaves to go stand on the veranda, and Claire watches him, instead of focusing on her wedding. Immediately following the ceremony, Claire slips out to join Les, and tells him she still loves him, and will continue to see him, despite now being married. She kisses him, which her new husband sees. When Claire re-enters the reception, Carl confronts his new bride, who tells him that Les is like her brother, and the kiss was platonic. Luckily, Carl believes her.

While on their honeymoon in Los Angeles, Claire and Carl are at the racetrack, arguing about Claire’s recklessly betting money on random horses. Claire thinks it doesn’t matter, since Carl’s wealthy, but Carl wants her to be more frugal. The couple return to their hotel, where Claire writes a love letter to Les. When Carl enters the room, she hides the letter under another letter she’s written to a friend, but Carl quickly discovers the letter to Les, and tells Claire he’s divorcing her. At first, she barely reacts – telling Carl that California’s a state with community property laws which entitle a spouse to half of a couple’s combined holdings. But Carl says he’s taking the letter Claire had been writing to Les, as proof of adultery, so she won’t receive any recompense. Carl leaves, heading back to San Francisco, to begin divorce proceedings.

Claire hatches a plan; she heads to the airport, where she finds a pilot – Blackie Talon, and tells him she needs to immediately fly round-trip to San Francisco and back. She pays him extra to ensure his silence.

The next morning, Claire phones Les, and tells him Carl’s flown to New York on business, and she’s planning to return to San Francisco, where she’ll spend the rest of her honeymoon with him. She asks Les to arrange a flight for her and to pick her up at the airport. After picking Claire up, she asks him to drive to Carl’s mansion, so she can get some clothes.

Upon arriving, Les makes a gruesome discovery; Carl’s dead body, in an easy chair, a gun in his hand. Apparently, Carl killed himself. Les phones the police, though Claire seems unfazed. At the police station, Claire’s questioned. The police think Carl’s death could not have been a suicide, as there are no fingerprints on the gun, nor powder burns on his hands. They suspect Claire, but she’s a strong alibi: she (falsely) states that she was in Los Angeles at the time of the murder, and has the plane ticket and Les to back her up.

Les and Claire rekindle their romance as if her whirlwind marriage and subsequent death of Carl Henneman never taken place. One night while out to dinner, Claire spots Stanley Mason, an attorney who’s currently running for congress. She asks Les about him, and brings up the idea of his handling Carl’s estate. Les tells her that Stanley is – in all probability – too busy with his campaign for congress. Ignoring Les, she approaches Stanley, and tells him she could use a good lawyer to handle her late husband’s estate. Stanley decides to help her, and in no time, the pair become lovers.

Les finds himself once again losing Claire to another man. At the same time, the police are coming down hard on Les, as he’s their primary suspect. Les realises there are too many holes in the theory of Carl’s supposed suicide, and confronts Claire, telling her, “[she’s] not like other women. [She’s] not warm. [She’s] cold, like ice. Blonde ice.”[4] That evening, the pilot, Blackie shows up, demading more money from Claire for his continued silence. Claire gives him some of her jewelry, and Blackie runs off. Later that night, Claire and Stanley are joined at dinner by psychologist Dr. Kippinger, who’s able to pick up on Claire machinations towards Stanley.

With the police having closed Carl’s murder case, for insufficient evidence, Claire’s able to relax again. Just then, Blackie, the pilot reappears. Tired of dealing with him, Claire murders him and goes back to her new life with Stanley. At the victory party where Stanley announces his election victory, he also proclaims he’s going to marry Claire. Immediately after the announcement, Claire heads over to Les, and tells him not to worry, she still loves him. Like a repeat of her wedding to Carl, Stanley walks in on her kissing Les, and he immediately breaks off the engagement to Claire.

Unfortunately for him, no one leaves Claire: she murders Stanley, and tries to pin the murder on Les. The police come and arrest Les, but Dr. Kippinger knows the real murderer was Claire. He confronts her at her newspaper office, and discovers she has already written a confession for the murders of Carl, Blackie, and Stanley for an unknown reason. Claire decides to kill Dr. Kippinger before turning herself in, and tries to shoot the doctor. Instead, she accidentally shoots and kills herself.

In the final scene, a bunch of people come into her office and stare at her corpse. Les leaves last, shutting the door behind him.

Cast
Robert Paige as Les Burns
Leslie Brooks as Claire Cummings Hanneman
Russ Vincent as Blackie Talon, the Pilot
Michael Whalen as Stanley Mason, Attorney
James Griffith as Al Herrick
Emory Parnell as Police Capt. Bill Murdock
Walter Sande as Hack Doyle
John Holland as Carl Hanneman
Mildred Coles as June Taylor
Selmer Jackson as District Attorney Ed Chalmers
David Leonard as Dr. Geoffrey Kippinger