Crooks copy a statue worth $50,000 to sell at auction and defraud the owner. When she realizes something's wrong, an attempted murder goes astray, and Boston Blackie, who just happened to be in the auction room, is wrongfully accused by Inspector Farraday, who never once figured out or admitted that Blackie had actually gone straight.
Many have rightly compared the BOSTON BLACKIE and the LONE WOLF series from Columbia, as both feature reformed thieves forever accused of whatever crime happens by the same IDIOT policemen in film after film. The main difference is in tone, as BLACKIE tends more toward ridiculous comedy and non-stop high-speed action. I'd compare the difference to that between, say, THE 3 STOOGES and THE MARX BROTHERS, with BLACKIE being the former!
Chester Morris, with his square jaw, intense eyes and ever-smiling grin, was the 10th actor to play Boston Blackie on film, but he did 14 movies in a row, plus episodes of the radio show! That's pretty consistent for a "B"-movie series from this era. As others have said, he's always the smartest person in any room... but sometimes, I wish the screen-writers didn't go to such extreme lengths to make nearly everyone so jaw-droppingly STUPID!
Richard Lane has the thankless job of playing "Inspector Farraday", who may well get my vote for the DUMBEST lead cop in any of these series. It just goes beyond any level of reason that anyone could watch someone like Blackie help the police solve crimes, over and over and over, yet still continue to accuse him of all sorts of things, never on actual evidence but just on the basis of a terminally-misguided grudge. Like Morris, Lane was in all 14 of Columbia's BLACKIE films.
George E. Stone, who was one of the henchman in Howard Hawks' SCARFACE, debuts as Blackie's pal "The Runt". Replacing Charles Wagenheim from the previous film, Stone would do no less than 12 BLACKIE films in a row.
Lloyd Corrigan is "Arthur Manleader", a rich, middle-aged playboy who somehow became good friends with Blackie. At times it's a toss-up as to who's the bigger "comic relief" character, him or The Runt. He returned in several later installments.
Walter Sande is "Detective Matthews", Farraday's sidekick, and the best thing I can say is, he's NOWHERE NEAR as dumb as "Detective Dickens" in the LONE WOLF series is. Sande played a random cop in the previous films, then (presumably) debuted as Matthews here, and managed 5 films in a row before moving on. His resume shows he was perpetually typecast playing cops and the like.
Harriet Hilliard is "Diane Parish", the owner of the statue who's the target of the thieves, in more ways than one. She spends part of the film believing Blackie is pretty rotten, but then comes to realize the truth. I suspect Hilliard was basically playing herself in this film, as she just comes across as very sweet and considerate; I can see why Ozzie Nelson fell in love with her!
Joan Woodbury is "Mona", an old flame of Blackie's who intrudes in the story claiming to be his wife (she isn't) and demanding blackmail money ("or else"). When things don't go her way, she proceeds to completely trash Blackie's apartment single-handedly, as The Runt stands by watching helplessly. What on Earth would Blackie have ever seen in this CREATURE (heh)? I've seen Woodbury in a whole lot of films, and every time I see her, I can't get over how much she resembles Mary Woronov, who also had a way of making such strong impressions, decades later.
The climax of the story, in which the heroes, the baddies AND the cops all suddenly find themselves trapped in a seemingly-inescapable underground death trap (yeah, how did a place like this ever get past building code inspectors?) seems as if it was tacked on just to extend the running time of the film, as without it, it would certainly have been under an hour. The funny thing that crossed my mind was, the large wooden scaffold in the underground room looks EXACTLY like the one in Roger Corman's THE HAUNTED PALACE. Could it possibly have been a leftover prop Corman reused more than 20 years later? In Hollywood, you never know.
The only thing about this film that really got on my nerves, to be honest... was THE COPS. And in this instance, I don't just mean Farraday. I mean, EVERY single cop in this film is portrayed as intrusive, abusive, and in many scenes, just total A**H***s. The tragic thing is how much this genuinely reflects police in REAL LIFE-- then, AND NOW. Maybe the screenwriters had a grudge and this was a way of getting it out there? I note this film was relased the day after Pearl Harbor. In one scene, a character says to a policeman, "You have a lot of GESTAPO in you." No kidding.
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