Boston Blackie - Films 6 - 10
     
The Chance of a Lifetime (1943) – 5.0



Go hide in a donut says the thug to The Runt. One of a lot of snappy lines in this sixth in the Boston Blackie series. There were fourteen of them produced by Columbia between 1941 and 1949 starring Chester Morris as Blackie. There were also a bunch made prior to that going back to 1918 with Lionel Barrymore portraying him one time. Not sure if any of those films survived. Giving them a slight tinge of authenticity is that they are based on the stories of Jack Boyle, who was serving a sentence in jail when he wrote them for passing bad checks. He was also an opium addict as was Blackie in the early short stories. It is hard finding much information about Boyle after Blackie - did he get rich from the books, films and radio? Did he go back to opium? He just seems to have disappeared off the grid.

 

This isn't one of the better films in the series - there is no mystery for one thing and it is replaced by a few comic set pieces - Blackie and his man pretending to be carpet cleaners to fool the foolish cops, a nice bit with Blackie and his man who get stuck in a dumbwaiter while one set of cops pulls them up and another set pulls them down and then they disguise themselves as old cleaning ladies to break into the cops safe. The cops as is traditional in so many of these films do not come off well! But there isn't much else going on.

 


Interesting premise though - it is 1943 and there is a shortage of men with skills at home and so Blackie convinces the Governor to release a group of prisoners to work in his millionaire friend's factory and to live at Blackie's apartment. One of them though gets into trouble immediately and kills a man in self-defense and Blackie is blamed by Farraday as he always does. This is William Castle's debut as director - better films ahead for him.
One Mysterious Night (1944) – 5.0

 

A few years ago I picked up the DVD set of all these Chester Morris Boston Blackie films and thought it was time to plough through a few of them. No one would confuse them for great cinema or even good cinema - passable cinema at best as in if you want to pass an hour with an unchallenging film this is a decent option. At about an hour apiece, think of it as binge-watching a TV series. The same four or five characters show up in all of them like TV as well.

 

This one deals with diamonds again - Blackie was an ex-jewel thief - this time the Blue Diamond is stolen at an exhibit in a room full of people and cops. Instead of accusing Blackie as Inspector Farraday normally does, he recruits him to find the diamond. Blackie is soon on the trail but a nosy parker female reporter (Janis Carter) is on his trail not knowing he is working for the police and causes all sorts of problems. He immediately suspects it is an inside job and the gum under the table points to the Asst. Manager Daily who has a pretty sister. The brunette sister can go by practically unnoticed at this very early point in her career and she goes uncredited which just seems mean. Later she would go platinum blonde and as Dorothy Malone she was in many good films. But to noir film fans she is the bookstore clerk who Bogart takes a fancy to in The Big Sleep.

 


Also of note - more so than the film - is the directorial debut of Oscar Boetticher Jr - later credited as Budd Boetticher who in the 1950's directed some of the best Westerns ever with his favorite actor Randolph Scott. So the last Blackie film had William Castle's directorial debut and this one Boetticher's. So many of them started off in B films as the studios tested them for speed and efficiency - bringing in a film on time under budget and also as a learning experience. Some moved up, many just got stuck in B films for most of their career and many were eased out.  Boetticher kept making B films for the rest of the 1940's but once the 50's came, he found his métier in the Western and the few times he moved out of the genre with films like City Beneath the Sea, The Magnificent Matador and Legs Diamond, the films just didn't seem as good. He had the feel of the West down.
Boston Blackie Booked on Suspicion (1945) – 5.0

 

Watching four of these Boston Blackie films probably isn't a smart thing to do - not that they are bad on an individual basis but you begin to realize how they repeat the same schtick time after time. Blackie gets caught by the cops; he escapes through the stupidity of the cops. His sidekick says something out of school giving away too much information. Inspector Farraday always thinks the guilty party is Blackie only to be shown he isn't time after time after time. Farraday's assistant is a bumbling nitwit in each episode. Blackie catches the bad guys and they turn the tables and then the bad guys catch Blackie only to have him turn the tables. In pretty much every film.



It isn't a jewel robbery for once - it is a fake rare book that is sold and Blackie's friend is responsible for paying the buyer back $50,000. Blackie spends much of the film disguised as an old man when he doesn't disguise himself in blackface as he did only 2 films previously.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out the brains behind the forgery is the sweet blonde bookstore manager (Lynn Merrick) though Blackie isn't very sharp in this one missing clue after clue but how could that face be bad. Merrick is a beauty - of course there were so many blond beauties that got funneled through the studio systems and she never broke free from the B films. First signed to RKO she made loads of Westerns co-starring with Red Barry and then with Columbia for more B films - three with Boston Blackie as different characters. Her husband and partner is played by Steve Cochran, later a tough guy in many films - this is his debut.


 
It isn't a bad film - lots of twists and turns - a plenty of escapes crammed into 60 minutes but it is time to give Blackie a rest for a while.
Boston Blackie’s Rendezvous (1945) – 4.5

 

Chester Morris who played Boston Blackie for the 14 films of the series said in an interview years after that he hated being Boston Blackie. Easy to understand. He was Blackie on the radio and then in this series from 1941 to 1949. He felt that it ruined his career being stuck as this character. Hard to say - he made other films as well during this period and many before it. He just has the makings of a B film actor about him - charming, fast talking but not a great deal of depth. Of course, a film like this one probably didn't help his attitude. It is ok with some idiot bits that go for humor but when he and his sidekick the Runt do a blackface routine it is like walking on a land mine. It just explodes.  They pretend to be two black hotel maids who act like loonies and a real black porter meets them and is fooled by them. Good grief. And then the film ends with a quick reprise. I understand that times have changed and I try not to be too judgmental about the old films but this was really wretched.

 


It starts off with some style though. Blackie and Runt (George Stone) are sleeping in single beds when they get a frantic knock on the door. It is their friend Arthur Manleder who asks Blackie for help. He tells Blackie that his cousin has escaped from an asylum after almost choking a nurse to death. He wants Blackie to find him which turns out to be easy since he is in the next room and tries strangling Blackie to death. Tip - don't turn your back on a strangler. Jimmy is a charming fellow, well-spoken, good manners until something clicks in his brain and he turns into a psychotic killer. Everyone has their faults.

 

In particular, he is interested in a girl that he has been sending letters to and wants to meet her. She works at a dance hall - ten cents a dance - and is played by Nina Foch. A murder takes place. Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) of course thinks Blackie is the killer because . . . why not. Kind of idiotic and there is plenty more in that vein. The Runt who has been cool in previous films becomes a nervous-nelly in this one to an irritating degree. Like Abbott in a ghost movie. Best part of the film is Steve Cochran as the killer who smoothly moves between being a perfect gentleman and a wide-eyed killer.
Boston Blackie’s Close Call (1946) – 4.5



I've reached the tenth film in the Boston Blackie series - four more to go. Hopefully, better than this one. One of my rules towards any film is when they bring in a baby and have a hundred reaction shots from said baby, you have a lemon on your hands. I expect the baby is making a guest appearance and won't make another. The poor kid doesn't even get a credit after all that hard work. They must have spent a day just filming this gurgling brat to get the expressions they needed - happy, sad, curious, puzzled, shit in my pants. Damn, I hate children in films. Child actors should have been run out of Hollywood. Except Judy, Deanna and Rooney. They could stay. Anyways, the cast is all back - Chester Morris as Blackie, George Stone as The Runt and Richard Lane as Inspector Farraday. After nine films, why change anything.

 

Blackie and the Runt come home to find an old love of Blackie's getting beaten up by two men on the street. He rescues her and takes her upstairs to find the demon baby on his bed like an escaped nightmare. All happy and giggling. It's a trap. Gerry (Lynn Merrick) explains its her baby from her husband who was sent to the slammer but is now out. She needs help. My femme fatale antennas raise immediately, What mother would leave her baby on a bed and go downstairs to wait for Blackie. Blackie isn't as smart as I am. It's a scam to get dough from her husband's rich father. who has disinherited his son for marrying this woman. A few people get in the way. They find their way to the morgue.

 

Merrick is all soft eyes and softer lips - a blonde looking for trouble. The highlight of the film is another dame though, Claire Carlton, the Runt's moll. She is a stick of dynamite. Funny and cute. Interestingly, after divorcing Conrad Nagel she married Robert Goelet Jr. the heir to some fortune. Or he was till he married Merrick. His father disinherited him because of the marriage. Life imitating film.