Without Warning! Sultry Dames Skewered in LA

I hope you like sultry blonde dames. The good news!  This film has a lot of them.  The bad news!  Most will die horribly at the hands of a ruthless, misogynist maniac.  You divorced guys out there might not share the sorrow most of us will have for these babes.  In a city that has worked tirelessly to figuratively murder beautiful women, one psycho decides to do it literally.  Our feature today is 1952's "Without Warning!" directed by Arnold Laven.

As our film begins Carl (Adam Williams) has just murdered a sultry blonde dame in a motel room.  The married woman was fooling around on her husband and fate, or karma, caught up with her. Carl is a young, strong divorcee who has already murdered another blonde.  He sees blonde babes and feels the need to murder them...go figure. He escapes into the gritty Los Angeles night where finding witnesses is impossible. Pete (Edward Binns) and Don (Harlan Warde) are the two seasoned detectives on the case.  They do a fine job in their investigation and collecting evidence.  The LAPD's crime lab is on display analyzing fibers, fingerprints, saliva and lipstick, and metals.  Carl will be busy.  The gardener uses gardening shears to skewer his babe victims. He'll pick up another blonde floozy in a bar and skewer her.

Carl, as a gardener, frequents Saunders Nursey and sees the sultry blonde Jane (Meg Randall). Jane works there, keeping the books, and pruning plants.  Yep, Jane is a sultry blonde and Carl is always armed with gardening shears. Meanwhile, Don and Pete enlist a dozen sultry blonde policewomen to go undercover and prowl for this guy. They bag a lot of criminals, but not Carl. Smart, and always one step ahead of the cops, Carl puts Jane in his crosshairs. Pete and Don, the police lab, and the department psychiatrist (Robert Shayne) put together some important clues and a good profile. Now the race is on...will the cops get to Carl before he gets to Jane.

Is this film, set in L.A., a metaphor for what happens to sultry dames when they go to Hollywood?  Will Carl murder any policewomen on his way to Jane?  Will the divorced-men community be rooting for the wrong character in this Film Noir crime thriller?  The cheesecake factor is high, though sadly, the dames don't stay cheesy.  For a quasi-slasher film, made 30 years too soon, see "Without Warning!"