DVD Review
A Blueprint For Murder, starring Joseph Cotton, Jean Peters, 20th
Century Fox, 1953
Personally, I like my femme fatales, my cinematic femme fatales anyway, pretty
straightforward. Someone like fetching sultry Jane Greer in Out Of The Past who when she got cross with her main squeeze, her main connected man,
shot him point blank and took a bunch of his cash as she sauntered out the door
to sunny Mexico. Nice. And then when he, Kirk Douglas he, had her tailed by a
couple of private gumshoes to get the dough back, and maybe her too you know
how connected guys are, she thought nothing of shooting one of them dead, very
dead when the heat was on, and led the other one a merry chase (although he,
Robert Mitchum he, knew the score, and took the ride anyway), and when Robert got
“religion” on her put the rooty-toot-toot on him too. At least a guy knew where
he stood with dear Jane and if he was silly enough to turn his back on her
under any circumstances then shame on him. So if his neck was tired from
turning around, or if he forgot, and he neglected his defense and a cold piece
of steel came his way he was forewarned. Yah, I can appreciate dear Jane
because in this wicked old world when a girl is from hunger, well, a girl has
got to do what she has to do.
This femme in the film under review, Blueprint For Murder, though
throws me off, is somebody who I can’t figure. Yah, this Lynne Cameron (played
by Jean Peters) is something else, smart, beautiful (although not to these eyes
drop- dead beautiful and sultry like Ms. Greer), would be good company on a
cold night, seemingly on top of the world yet was a stone-cold killer, a
murderess, a child murderess. And the child in question was one of her stepchildren.
See she married rich Bill Cameron after his wife died. (It came out later, at
least it was rumored and so take it for what it is worth, that she, working
under the name Lola Landry, was a high- class call girl when she met Bill, he
was bowled over, and married her after a few weeks. Another story making the rounds
later, and one that is more believable to these ears, was that she was a torch
singer, working under the name, LaVerne LaRue (nice),in one of Chi town
gangster Johnny Rico’s night spots, and his girlfriend. Once he was sent up to
Joliet and the dough stopped she, having to watch out for herself in this
wicked old world , grabbed for the next best thing, one sad sack but rich
widower Bill Cameron whom she met at the club one night and his two young kids,
Polly and Doug)
Things were okay, okay as long as
Bill breathed and was shelling out the dough to keep her in comfort and was
happy with her care of his kids but then he up and died of some rare and exotic
disease (no she didn’t have anything to do with his demise after all he was the
meal ticket, as far as the coppers were able to determine). Under the terms of
Bill’s will though our Lynne was to get coffee and cakes from his million
dollar plus estate (yes, it sounds like chump change, just walking around money
now, but was real dough, real felony-worthy dough in the 1950s) unless the kids
died before her. Some foolish lawyer arrangement as it turned out to protect
the kids and kind of freeze her out. Something must have snapped in her with
this news because she started spending all her waking hours studying
toxicology, studying about human reactions to various types of poisons and,
more importantly, how traceable, how criminally traceable they were.
Lynne did her work well as Polly
was the first to go from a strychnine dose, not once, but twice, the second
time in the hospital after she “volunteered,” as an angel of mercy to run out
and get an antidote prescription filled. Yes, Lynne was nothing but a
stone-cold killer when she got her wanting habits on. Enter Uncle Cam (played
by Joseph Cotten), Bill’s brother, who couldn’t understand how Polly, who
appeared to be recovering, could go under. And he was aided (egged on too) in
his suspicions by Bill’s lawyer and his over-read amateur sleuth wife who built
the case for Polly poisoning inch by inch. More importantly, pointing the
finger directly at Lynne once the terms of the will entered center stage as a motive,
and once little innocent Doug found himself as the only thing between Lynne and
a big payday.
The beauty of poisoning, as the
baffled authorities discovered from the amateur sleuths to the cops to the D.A.
to judge, is that unless you see the person actually administer the damn stuff it
is hard to get a conviction. Cam and his associates tried, got Lynne charged,
and got laughed out of court. And in the aftermath laughed at in the face by
Lynne who planned to take Doug away from prying eyes with a long European trip
by boat. Good-bye Doug. Well, not quite. Cam decided he needed to get some
fresh air so he took that same boat trip, pretend courted Lynne, and
administered a dose of strychnine that he found in her vanity into her drink. (All
parties admitted later that he was both heroic and foolish in that rash act.)Then
they played chicken, as the poison worked its way through her system and time
was running out. She stood up for her “innocence” like a real pro but in the
end she had to cry “uncle” and wound up in some women’s prison doing life for
her efforts. Yah, give me a Jane femme and a cranked
neck every time, so I don’t have to hire somebody to test my food and drink
like the kings of old did. Jesus.
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