Blake of Scotland Yard

"Blake of Scotland Yard" is a cheap B-movie made by a 4th-rate studio. It's not entirely bad...though it's also not particularly good or worth seeing. The biggest problem is that the movie has lots of action and cops doing undercover work--but little in the way of acting or characters.

This mystery film stars Ralph Byrd—a man later known for playing Dick Tracy. It begins with a meeting of representatives of the League of Nations. They are to watch a test by Sir James in which he will demonstrate a machine that will supposedly make war obsolete—a plot very similar to the one from "Arrest Bulldog Drummond"--made two years after "Blake of Scotland Yard".

Sadly, this wonderful device is stolen by a goofy guy named 'The Scorpion' and his gang. The Scorpion is pure B-movie corn--a masked guy who, when not wearing a REALLY cheesy mask, runs around like a chimp who insists on always blocking his face from the camera. This is just silly and his identity COULD have been kept from the audience with competent direction...though I think there was no evidence of competence during the entire film.

There are many way overdone scenes. One is a silly bit involving two of the most unconvincing drunks in film history. They made Foster Brooks' old drunk act seem subtle by comparison!! However, the worse bit was the character of a severely mentally challenged guy in the last portion of the movie. He is handled as insensitively as you possibly can do it. The guy is practically portrayed like an animal--making guttural noises, grunting and running about like a gorilla (wow--more simian-inspired moments in the film). The film should get some sort of award for setting back the public's acceptance of the mentally retarded at least 50 years with this awful bit. I wanted to laugh at it, but also realized such sick characters are no laughing matter--just sad and pathetic.

Overall, a stupid film that is bad even for a low-budget B. Ralph Byrd's being in it isn't too surprising, as he appeared in MANY craptastic Bs over the years. Only of interest to weirdos like me who will watch most any B movie!

This has to be one of the worst films I have seen for a long time - lacking logic and continuity in the plot, and with a denouement that has a lot to do with the saving of a machine for posterity, but how the story got there is anyone's guess. Many scenes take place in blackness. There are a few well-staged fight sequences, but really nothing else to attract the attention.

confusing tiresome plot; exasperatingly inane action; tries to be cute by using current "in" references but ends up being oh so lame. The longer serialized version perhaps is a little better but I have not seen it. You keep asking yourself over and over again "Why did they do a stupid thing like that?" when you see 1)the heroine enter a dangerous scene pushing the youngster ahead of her or 2) they keep shooting guns and weapons out of each others' hands instead of actually shooting the attacker himself or 3) when one character hiding and spying tells(in a 90 decibel voice) his accomplice to talk more softly or they will be uncovered, 4) and so on ad nausea. Obviously meant for an uncritical 10-year-old audience.

This is the dire feature version of what I imagine is an equally dire serial. Ralph Byrd has invented a "death ray" that can blow up battleships more than a hundred miles away. He wants to give it to all the members of the League of Nations, which he imagines will bring world peace, but a criminal gang has stolen it and plans to sell it to a foreign power. Byrd goes searching through the dives of Paris under the direction of his uncle, Herbert Rawlinson, the eponymous Blake etc., instead of releasing the blueprints or building another.

The group of criminals is led by the Scorpion, a stooped figure in a slouch hat and cape who holds a lobster claw over his face as a disguise. This goes on for 70 minutes without much happening except a badly executed Apache dance or two.

How does the death ray work? It doesn't matter, because it's a Maguffin. A Maguffin derives from a story that Alfred Hitchcock liked to tell. A man gets on a train with a contraption, which he stows in the overhead rack. "What's that?" asks a fellow passenger. "It's a Maguffin." "What's a Maguffin?" "It's a device for trapping tigers in the Scottish Highlands." "There are no tigers in the Scottish Highlands." "Then that's never a Maguffin."

Maybe it was Hitchcock writer Angus McPhail who told the story, but in the movies a Maguffin is something people want desperately. It sets the plot in motion. It doesn't really matter what it is. Hitchcock liked Maguffins, from the secret plans in THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS to whatever it was that James Mason stole in NORTH BY NORTH-WEST. Film makers still use Maguffins. Remember the briefcase in PULP FICTION? Whenever the briefcase was opened, a light illuminated the face of the actor looking into the case. What was in the case? A light bulb.

Which is more than you get in this badly written, poorly executed, worse-printed movie.

This film is not the true version of "Blake of Scotland Yard." This is a truncated feature-length version of a 15-Chapter Serial. Its more than 400% shorter than it was intended to be and hence that accounts for all the issues you will read about in other reviews. This is truly unfortunate because it means the ruination of a great serial. If you visit the serial's IMDb page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028637/) you'll not that it's average user rating is double what it is here.

Unfortunately, this false version is the only one which is available from Amazon so it truly is a case of buyer beware. Please don't judge this work by the worst version of it but instead look for a full version which is 15 chapters and 303 minutes long.