Vintage Pulp | Jun 2 2019 |
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The Corpse Came C.O.D., as if you couldn't guess from its screwball title, is a comic murder mystery, and yes, it features a corpse sent through the mail—or more precisely by messenger. This stiff arrives in a crate to a famous actress's home, and when the body spills out she calls a well-connected newspaperman to help her with the problem. For him this involves not only solving the crime while staying ahead of the police, but fending off a rival who smells a juicy story. This rival happens to be his romantic interest, so the two fight and feud while trying to snatch the scoop from each other. This love-hate relationship is the core of the film, with the two hurling lines at each other like, “I wouldn't trust you if I had an atomic bomb in each hand!”
This is a pretty fun flick. Think The Thin Man, but with less budget and a bit less panache. It stars George Brent, Joan Blondell, Adele Jergens, and Leslie Brooks, and has interesting cameos from actual Hollywood gossip columnists George Fisher, Hedda Hopper, Erskine Johnson, Louella Parsons, and others. The film was written by columnist Jimmy Starr, which accounts for the tabloid focus, and he has a cameo too. You pretty much can't lose with this one. It's good natured and well put together, and might even make you wonder why movies like this aren't made anymore. The Corpse Came C.O.D. premiered in the U.S. today in 1947.
This is a pretty fun flick. Think The Thin Man, but with less budget and a bit less panache. It stars George Brent, Joan Blondell, Adele Jergens, and Leslie Brooks, and has interesting cameos from actual Hollywood gossip columnists George Fisher, Hedda Hopper, Erskine Johnson, Louella Parsons, and others. The film was written by columnist Jimmy Starr, which accounts for the tabloid focus, and he has a cameo too. You pretty much can't lose with this one. It's good natured and well put together, and might even make you wonder why movies like this aren't made anymore. The Corpse Came C.O.D. premiered in the U.S. today in 1947.
Femmes Fatales | Jan 6 2019 |
Brooks opens for trading, market expresses approval.
Leslie Brooks gives the stock market a boost in this promo image from 1945. We don't know if this Sunshine Graph image is associated with a movie, but we checked her output from ’45 and ’46 and nothing seems to fit. It could be just a one-off. We'll keep an eye out for more info. Meanwhile, see another Brooks promo here.
Intl. Notebook | Jun 28 2018 |
Miss beijada pelo sol brightens the day.
We've been running across covers of the Portuguese magazine O Século Ilustrado online lately. We don't know where they originated, since they're on numerous image aggregator sites without attribution, but we like them. We shared one with Martha Vickers recently and here's another starring U.S. actress Leslie Brooks that calls her “Miss beijada pelo sol,” literally “Miss Kissed by the Sun.” It appeared on newsstands today in 1947.
Vintage Pulp | Jul 24 2016 |
Why bother with divorce when murder will do?
From the moment Leslie Brooks makes her appearance in Blonde Ice, striding down a staircase in her wedding dress and casting a hawkish gaze over the crowd, you know she's trouble. This is a woman that clearly shouldn't marry, and indeed the union is strained before the reception ends, and the husband is dead within days.
Yes, we have a killer on our hands, a sociopath who married for money then disposed of the unnecessary man attached to it. The police don't buy suicide as a cause of death, which presents problems for Brooks, and other aspects of her plot don't go according to plan, but this is a person you don't want to count out even when the tables seem to be turning against her. She'd hardly be worth the appellation femme fatale if you could take her down just like that.
Low budget, but well executed, with the lead perfectly played by the occasionally crazy-eyed Brooks with a blend of chilly slyness and gee-whiz phony innocence, Blonde Ice shows how much filmmakers can achieve with very little budget, quite a bit of careful thought, and a very good headliner. A little more money might have solved some problems with this production, but it's a nice little time eater even if the tidy ending hurts it a little. Blonde Ice premiered in the U.S. today in 1948.
Femmes Fatales | Sep 20 2015 |
Come closer—I want this next point to really sink in.
Above, American actress Leslie Brooks, born Virginia Leslie Gettman, featured in such films as Tonight and Every Night and Hollow Triumph, aka The Scar, seen here giving us crazy eyes in a 1948 promo image made for the film noir Blonde Ice.