Aaron Igay This thriller has a really creepy subject matter, a straight-laced high-society woman possibly poisoning kids which holds lots of potential to be memorable. However, it just never really pays off with a money shot. I must have heard of things being "laced with strychnine" in a dozen movies over the years but in this film we get to learn all about the pesticide as the plot revolves around the evil stuff. After watching the film I was a little skeptical that you could buy it on any corner as shown in this story, but it does pop up for sale on Amazon in a quick search today so perhaps it wasn't that far removed from reality. Joseph Cotten stars, but while he is good at what he does, he does play the same dull everyman as usual and this film needs a more interesting character in the lead role.

calvinnme ... that probably being that you just have to hope things go your way in a couple of categories. First, you need to be an upstanding member of the community - but not too upstanding so that you are a target for some ambitious D.A. Second, you need to commit the crime in a jurisdiction where either the police are too lazy or too busy to look past the superficial details, where they accept whatever an overworked coroner says - accident, suicide, some sudden illness. Third, and this is where the killer in this film does not luck out, you need to make sure the grieving relatives are not the inquisitive persistent type, respectable and able to get the attention of those in charge of criminal investigations.Enter Whitney 'Cam' Cameron (Joseph Cotten), who makes a darned good villain as well as a protagonist, but here he's the good guy - or at least so he says. He lost his brother suddenly to encephalitis several years before, and now his niece has also died suddenly. The random remarks of Cam's little nephew, Cam's own inquisitive mind, and the fact that his close friend's wife is a writer of murder mysteries gets Cam suspecting his late brother's wife Lynn of murder. I'll let you see how everything unwinds yourself and who is brought to justice. Cotten narrates for almost the entire film, since he is trying to convince himself this woman is guilty even as he tries to prove her guilt to others - he has always liked her since his brother married her after the death of his first wife, thought she was a good stepmother to his brother's kids, and doesn't want to believe something so hideous, but he has to protect his brother's one surviving child, his nephew - again, so he says.One thing that has changed since 1953, besides the fact that fashionable ladies and gents all wore hats ,is that a person could die in the hospital - quite possibly due to a fatal mix up by the hospital pharmacy - and that an investigating relative would be met by cooperative hospital personnel and not by an army of stonewalling attorneys and form letters. At least, that's one thing I noticed as Cam went about the hospital where his niece died trying to get the facts.This is a very good mystery, yet Fox relegated it to half a bill on a Midnight Movie DVD. Give it a chance. It is not the fare usually associated with Midnight Movies - matrons baking cookies by day and turned ax murderer by night, wildlife run amok due to a nuclear blast, etc. Recommended.

MartinHafer In some ways, "A Blueprint for Murder" was a disappointment. After all, while it's supposed to be a noir mystery, there really isn't any mystery. People have been poisoned and it soon becomes apparent that only one person could be responsible--so where's the mystery?! I think the film would have been a lot better had there been some twist and some other suspects! But, despite this, the story still is intriguing and well worth seeing.Joseph Cotten plays a man who has come to visit his sister-in-law (Jean Peters) and her two step-children. However, he arrives at the same time his niece is being taken to the hospital with some unknown ailment. She is in intense pain and appears to be getting better...only to relapse and die later that night. Considering that her father died exactly the same way AND both deaths could be have been by strychnine poisoning, he is naturally a bit concerned--especially since his nephew might just be next! But, while all evidence points to his sweet sister-in-law, no concrete evidence can be found and she gets away scot-free.What happens next is pretty cool...though a bit silly. As my oldest daughter noted as she watched the film with me, why didn't Cotten just give the Peters the 'W pill' and say nothing more--figuring that regardless, he'll have an answer as to her guilt. See the picture yourself and see what she means. The acting is very good (I am a Cotten-phile) and the story works despite its lack of suspense. Had they worked this out better, the film could have easily earned an 8 or 9.

RanchoTuVu Jean Peters plays a cool, cruel, and calculating killer in Blueprint For Murder, which opens as her step-daughter is in a hospital and dying from being poisoned with hard to detect strychnine. Set in high upper middle class society, Peters has a chance to inherit a fortune from her dead husband's estate if she can outlive her two stepchildren (now reduced to one), who for what ever reason, love and trust her (as if children don't have some intuitive feelings). Thus, the movie, which could have been a lot tenser and more realistic (the gullible kid and the weird will), still has a bizarre enough storyline to keep one watching. And the suspense does actually build at the end with Peters taking the one surviving child (the boy) on a long vacation to Europe, from which, according to her plans, he won't be returning. Joseph Cotton's part as the dead husband's brother and uncle to the children, who in the past had a thing for Peters, is fairly well done, as he gradually sees the truth about Peters, and then protects the one surviving child. Jean Peters, who from her first scene looks suspicious, especially if you've read about the film beforehand, is very good in a constrained part. In fact, the entire movie seems a bit constrained, though it's saved by the pacing and general momentum, as the police get involved, with some cool interrogations between them and Peters, who expertly navigates around their difficult questions, while the courts, due to inevitable Constitutional issues, actually give over the surviving child to the stepmother, in spite of their suspicions.