Tag Archives: Michael Whalen

30 More Days of Noir #2: Blonde Ice (dir by Jack Bernhard)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1948’s Blonde Ice tells the story of Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks), the society columnist for a San Francisco newspaper.  Almost every man that Claire meets falls in love with her.

Les Burns (Robert Paige), the paper’s cynical sports reporter?  Les is so in love with Claire that he keeps getting involved with her despite the fact that she cheats on him with almost every man that she meets.

Al Herrick (James Griffith)?  Yep, he’s still in love with her too.

Carl Hanneman (John Holland), one of the wealthiest men in San Francisco?  Carl is so in love with Claire that he’s willing to marry her even after he catches her kissing Les on the day of the wedding!

Congressional candidate Stanley Mason (Michael Whalen)?  He’s so in love with Claire that he’s willing to sacrifice his political career just to be with her.

How about Blackie Talon (Russ Vincent), the pilot who witnesses Claire doing some things that she probably wouldn’t want the world to know about?  Well, Blackie never gets around to declaring his love for Claire but his obsession with blackmailing her is probably just his way of dealing with the massive crush that he has on her.

The only person who doesn’t appear to be in love with Claire is Dr. Kippinger (David Leonard), a psychiatrist who immediately picks up on the fact that Claire is cold and manipulative.  There’s a reason why Les refers to her as being …. can you guess? …. “Blonde Ice!”

Of course, even with all of these men falling in love with her, no one loves Claire as much as Claire loves herself.  Claire is a narcissist and a sociopath and she has no problem killing one lover and framing another for the crime.  In fact, it’s something that she attempts to do several times over the course of Blonde Ice.  Claire, it has to be said, is pretty clever about it too.  Her natural ability to manipulate, combined with her total lack of empathy for anyone but herself, makes Claire a dangerous character.

Blonde Ice is somewhat obscure as noirs go.  It was clearly a poverty row production, with only a 74-minute running time and a cast largely made up of obscure contract players.  And yet, Blonde Ice is a personal favorite of mine, largely because of the ferocious performance of Leslie Brooks.  Brooks rips into the role of the femme fatale, delivering her cynical lines with aplomb and murdering anyone who gets in her way.  Considering that this film was made in 1948, I was actually a bit shocked at just how high the body count climbed in just an hour and a few minutes.  Claire is basically willing to kill anyone and the film often seems to take a perverse delight in showing how easily she can convince others of her innocence.  Perhaps the most interesting thing about the film is that Claire attempt to frame the same man for not one but two murders and, even after all that, he still doesn’t seem to be emotionally capable of telling her to get out of his life.  In a world of weak men, Claire comes in, takes control, and offers up no apologies.

Obscure though the film may be, Blonde Ice is an enjoyable noir and can be found on YouTube.

Missile to the Moon (1958, directed by Richard E. Cunha)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

At a secret laboratory located just a few miles from the local prison, scientist Dirk Green (Michael Whalen) is working with Steve Dayton (Richard Travis) to build a missile that’s capable of flying to the Moon.  Dirk’s obsession about traveling to the moon is not just scientific.  Dirk is secretly from the Moon himself and is desperate to return.

Dirk gets his opportunity when two convicts escape from the prison and hide out in his rocket.  Dirk agrees not to turn Gary (Tommy Cook) and Lon (Gary Clarke) over to the authorities but only if they agree to help him fly the rocket to the Moon.  It turns out that it doesn’t take any special training to fly a rocket.  According to this film, you don’t even have to worry about oxygen in space.  Anyone can travel to the Moon, even two escaped convicts who have only had about an hour’s worth of instruction in how to pilot a rocket!  Gary and Lon agree because dying in space is preferable to serving out a prison sentence.

Once Dirk, Gary, and Lon are in space, they discover that Steve and his fiancee, June (Cathy Downs), have stowed away on the ship.  Gary takes a liking to June but Steve tells him to back off.  After a journey through a meteor field, the missile finally lands on the Moon, which is ruled over by The Lido (K.T. Stevens), a beautiful woman who enforces order through the help of a giant spider.

This afternoon, Lisa and I watched Missile to the Moon because today is May 4th, which is also known as Star Wars Day.  (May the 4th be with you, get it?)  Since every Star Wars film has already been reviewed on this site, I had to find a different science fiction film to review for today.  And because Lisa claimed Starcrash for herself, I got stuck with Missile to the Moon.

Missile to the Moon is science fiction with an emphasis on the fiction.  In this film, space travel is easy and certain parts of the moon have a breathable atmosphere.  Not to mention, of course, that there are all sorts of creatures living on the Moon.  It’s easy to laugh at Missile to the Moon today but this movie was made before anyone had ever set foot on the Moon so, for all people knew, there could have been aliens and giant spiders living underneath the surface.  In fact, maybe there still are.  It’s been a while since anyone went up there and checked.

The main thing I liked about Missile to the Moon was the implication that anyone, no matter how dumb, can learn how to fly a spaceship in under an hour.  That’s what we all believed when we were kids.  Want to go into space?  Just put me in the pilot’s seat, show me where the booster button is, and let’s go into hyperspace!  The other thing I liked about the movie is that the Moon was populated by attractive belly dancers.  That’s exactly what you want to find on another planet.  The paper mache spiders were pretty cool too.

It’s a dumb movie but I enjoyed it.  I’d rather go to the movie’s Moon than the real Moon.

30 Days of Noir #27: Parole, Inc. (dir by Alfred Zeisler)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1948 film noir, Parole, Inc., begins with a lengthy opening crawl, informing the viewer that this film — though fictional — deals with a real-world problem.

Apparently, too many people are getting out of prison!

That’s right!  The opening crawl informs us that half of all crimes are committed by people who have already served time in prison.  Apparently, there would be less crime if we just never released people from prison but, unfortunately, state parole boards are way too quick to let some criminals out early.  Is it because the members of the board truly believe that these offenders have been rehabilitated in prison?  Or is it because they’ve been bribed?

That’s what FBI Agent Richard Hendricks (Michael O’Shea) is going to find out!

Now, we already kind of know what he’s going to discover and what’s going to happen to him as a result because, for some reason, the film opens with Hendricks in a hospital bed, dictating the events of his latest case.  The rest of the film is largely an extended flashback, occasionally interrupted by a shot of Hendricks recovering from his injuries.  I’m not sure why the filmmakers decided that this would be a good format to go with.  It basically robs the story of any suspense.  Whenever a gangster says that he’s going to kill Hendricks, the declaration doesn’t carry any weight because we know that Hendricks is alive and that he managed to solve the case.

Anyway, in the flashback, Richard is working directly for the governor of California.  The governor is worried that the state parole board is accepting bribes so Richard goes undercover as an ex-con who wants to buy a parole for a friend of his who is still in jail.  As a part of his assignment, Richard befriends a recently paroled criminal named Harry Palmer (Charles Bradstreet).  It turns out that, for a criminal, Harry isn’t that bad of a guy.  He may still have underworld connections but, for the most part, Harry seems like he could easily go straight.  Of course, that doesn’t make much difference to the nefarious crows that Harry runs around with and Harry ends up getting gunned down about halfway through the film.  Richard seems to be more annoyed over the inconvenience of Harry dying than anything else.  Now, he’s going to have to do all sorts of extra work!

Though Michael O’Shea has just enough screen presence to be an acceptable hero, the main reason to see the film is for Turhan Bey and Evelyn Ankers.  Bey plays the crooked attorney who is in charge of the parole buying ring.  Evelyn Ankers play the wonderfully named JoJo Dumont, who owns the bar out of which the gangsters operate.  These two actors both throw themselves into their roles, bringing just the right amount of B-movie grit to their characters.  Horror fans may recognize Evelyn Ankers from her performance as Lon Chaney Jr.’s girlfriend in The Wolf Man.  Ankers appeared in several classic Universal horror films and was menaced by everyone from Dracula to Frankenstein’s Monster to the Invisible Man.  Turhan Bey also appeared in his share of horror films, even co-starring with Evelyn Ankers in The Mad Ghoul.

Parole, Inc is a largely forgettable movie but worth seeing if you’re a fan of Universal horror and you’re interested in seeing Turhan Bey and Evelyn Ankers in a change-of-pace film.