A Blueprint for Murder

I love a good murder mystery, and while I can't really put this film at the top end of its genre; A Blueprint for Murder offers an interesting story, a conniving femme fatale and a modus operandi ripe for questions being asked. The plot is very straight forward in the way that it plays out, and it has to be said that there's not a great deal of tension or suspense; but the characters are interesting and the film never becomes boring. The plot, which focuses on a woman who is suspected of murdering both her step-daughter and her husband due to her husband's will, which states that she will inherit his fortune if she outlives his children, is not as shocking now as it probably was in 1953, though that doesn't particularly make the film any less effective. James Cotten is the hero of the piece, and while I believe that he is put to better use as the villain, such as he was ten years earlier in Hitchcock's masterpiece 'Shadow of a Doubt', he does fit into this role well. He is joined by Jean Peters who doesn't look like someone could murder a child, but that really is a credit to the film as it keeps the mystery as to whether she did it or not in place much better than if a more foreboding actress was chosen. The mystery itself is never all that mysterious; the film doesn't offer up any red herrings or opportunities for a twist, and it's more a case of 'did she or didn't she', which is a shame. It boils down to the sort of ending that you would expect, though it plays out well and the ending is certainly the most tense part of the film. Overall, this is a very decent little fifties B-movie that is unlikely to overly impress anyone; but it's entertaining enough, and I enjoyed watching it.

Blueprint for Murder is little more than a suspense-generating contraption, of which Alfred Hitchcock, applying his sadistic perversity, might have made a memorable meal. As it happens, Andrew Stone doesn't do too shabbily by it either, though it remains four-square and plot-driven. Part of his success is that he's abetted by an above-average cast which lifts it out of its mechanical origins.

Joseph Cotten returns to New York to visit his brother's second wife – and widow (Jean Peters); his timing proves inopportune, as his young niece goes into convulsions and dies in hospital. Cause of death remains a puzzler until a family attorney (Gary Merrill) reveals that Peters stands to benefit should both her stepchildren predecease her (a stepson may be next on her list). Though Cotten carries a small torch for Peters, his concern for the surviving son wins out, and an autopsy shows the girl died of strychnine poisoning. Peters ends up going to trial but is acquitted. Cotten, however, remains unconvinced, and, unbidden, joins Peters and his nephew on an ocean liner bound for Europe. He hopes to unearth the truth by means of trial by ordeal....

Surprisingly convincing, Peters takes on the role of a reserved society wife (as with most of Howard Hugues' `protegees,' she had more sides to her than the ones her Svengali wanted seen). As her housekeeper who also falls, albeit briefly, under suspicion, Mae Marsh turns up – the luminous star of D.W. Griffith's Judith of Bethulia, Birth of a Nation, and Intolerance (she was donning many a lace cap as a string of maids in this Indian Summer of her stardom).

Stone keeps the movie running along at a good clip and keeps tilting the ambivalence to the very end (Is Peters a wronged woman or a murderous monster? Does Cotten have a buried agenda of his own?). To be sure, certain coincidences and turns of plot don't bear prolonged scrutiny, but they're not allowed to become incapacitating lapses of logic, either. Blueprint for Murder meets the minimal production codes for suspense.

This is a superb and sophisticated murder mystery. Joseph Cotten is in peak form as the lead man, Whitney Cameron, who is called to the bedside of his young niece, who is dying in hospital. The child dies of mysterious convulsions, enigmatically and inexplicably crying out: 'Don't touch my feet!' The plot thickens from there, and the strange cry is discovered to have a meaning after all. This is a first rate early fifties noir with Cotton, Jean Peters as his sister-in-law, and Gary Merrill as his lawyer friend. It is excellently directed by Andrew Stone and should be better known than it is. The story is cleverly developed, and the mystery lasts up until the very end of the film. The question is: who poisoned the niece with strychnine, and why? And who will be next? Cotton is urbane, reassuring, and very solid in the main role. Jean Peters is rather more arch than usual, with a character portrayal which is intentionally ambivalent, just to keep us all guessing. One does not know whether she is a femme fatale or not, and the whole point is that no one knows, even within the story. This is a most ingenious whodunit which will not disappoint any viewer.

This is a slick Hollywood film from the 1950's made for entertainment purposes. Hollywood at its most confident and smooth, it is made to sell movie theater tickets and give you your money's worth. It delivers in that regard.

Good black and white photography and an a-picture gloss in all production values. Speaking of gloss- Mr. Cotton was one of the classiest of film acting gentlemen, and in this film Ms. Peters matches him in a performance that is not in any way b-list. She is first class all the way here.

All of the supporting performances are excellent. This is a straightforward movie mystery that does not mess with your head- what you see is what it is. I very much enjoyed the linear script that builds momentum into a swelling wave that reaches a crescendo right before everything is resolved.

A nocturne composed by Frederik Chopin in the 1830's matches the dark undertones at work throughout the film as it is applied in a background way as it should be rather than as a boffo film theme. I ordinarily would not recommend such structured classical music for a film but this one is melodic and was deliberately written by Chopin to be quietly dark, so it works.

Is "A Blueprint for Murder" just a glossy, slick Hollywood concoction? Yes but it is well edited and well made overall. It will provide you with entertainment from start to finish.

A Blueprint for Murder (1953)

A clean, old-fashioned murder mystery, brightly lit, and even including a voyage on a cruise ship to Europe like some Betty Davis movie, or Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. It's a crime standard at the end of the film noir era, with a terrific star who never quite fit into any genre very well, Joseph Cotten. It's smart and fast and strong and almost believable, at least until the drawing room high stakes of the end, which is just great movie-making.

Cotten plays Whitney Cameron, and he's visiting his niece in the hospital. Quick facts pour on (and are slightly hard to follow at first): she has some strange affliction, her father (Cameron's brother) died of a strange affliction a few years earlier, and the stepmother is sweet as cherry pie, though she plays a demonically fierce romantic piano. Then the niece suddenly dies, and before Cameron leaves the scene, suspicions arise about the stepmother.

By the way, stepmothers can do terrible things that mothers would never do to their own children, like murder them. And so we are led down that obvious path. Soon, however, we know that the movie can't be quite that simple, and another suspect clarifies. The view is left deciding who is playing the better game of "not me." It's good stuff, very good, though constrained and reasonable, too. We don't always want "reasonable" in a film.

The stepmother is excellent, played by Jean Peters, and a helping couple is also first rate, especially Gary Merrill as a lawyer friend. Merrill was in "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "All About Eve," and is partly why those are great films. Peters plays the cheerful innocent here just as she did in a another pair of masterpieces, "Niagara" (with Cotten) and "Pickup on South Street" (a true noir from the same year as this one).

It's Cotten who drives the movie, however, and he has a tone rather similar to his similar "visiting uncle" role in "Shadow of a Doubt." He is, in fact, a kind of soft-spoken, dependable icon in many movies (and later lots of t.v.) and it's because he's so normal that I think he's less adored. But he's exactly what the movie needs, guiding us first through the police investigation and then the informal one of his own. It had the makings of a tightly woven classic.

Why are there so many films that are quite good but not amazing? I think a little of everything, often, but here it's the story itself that is limiting. A great idea, surely, but a little too familiar in its basic plot, and quite simple. A second plot, or another suspect, or another murder along the way would have been just fine. I think the directing (by Andrew Stone) is competent but lacks vision, and an unwillingness to push the edges a little. It proceeds, and we don't want movies to simply move along. There are, however, some excellent scenes, like one in the police office early on where the two leading men are led from one desk to another, from one group of cops to another, in a flowing, backward moving long take. It's a lesson in first rate cinematography, actually.

And in fact the movie is totally enjoyable, never slow, expertly done, with a good cast.