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Alias Boston Blackie (1942)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Third film in Columbia's Boston Blackie series has Blackie (Chester Morris) tracking down a prison escapee who escaped during one of Blackie's shows. Lew Landers (The Raven) returns to direct this entry and like the previous film in the series, this one here moves at a very fast pace but for some reason most of the comedy is left out of this film. The mystery isn't all that compelling either, although the first half of the film works the best with the second half losing some of its fire. Morris is really good here as he seems to really have the role down to ease.

A nice entry in the series (3/14) set at Christmas time, with a frenetic and tortuously multi-layered chase sequence in the middle.

Again, Blackie is implicated in a crime even though innocent, ultimately resulting in Farraday assuming his guilt. Framed Larry Parks as con has broken out on a murderous revenge mission, dragging his demure sister (Adele Mara) plus Blackie, Runt and of course cops Farraday and Matthews all into the vortex. Some witty lines and situations later we have a dead body in a hotel room to mull over - a corpse that is rather recklessly treated throughout! The dreamy looking sister proves of use to Blackie, crime-solving-wise, and is more than wallpaper in here. The character Jumbo Madigan makes his first lugubrious appearance as the know-it-all fence.

As with a lot of the Morris Blackies, I sometimes wish they could have been even only 5 minutes longer, it's all taken at such a breakneck speed that it can leave you as bit puzzled at times working it all out. But I love it!

It's Christmas at the Boston Blackie household, which means that Blackie is trimming the tree and the Runt is telling him that Christmas trees are bad luck. Will a Christmas mystery ensue? Well, a mystery there is, but oddly little time is devoted to the season aside from that opening and then a bit at the end.

Blackie rounds up a gang of theatrical friends, including Adele Mara as Eve, and buses them out to the prison for a Christmas show for the inmates. Eve's brother Joe (Larry Parks) is an inmate who is hot for revenge on two hoods who lined him up for this prison stretch; during the show, Joe steals a costume/disguise from one of the entertainers and escapes with the troupe on their way out. It isn't long before one of said hoods turns up murdered, and our old friend Inspector Farraday seems to have Blackie dead to rights for aiding in the escape, the murder, or both.

Less comic relief than expected in this one, though the banter between Blackie and Farraday is, as always, crisp and catchy. Chester Morris and Richard Lane both look very confident in their third film in the roles.

When Larry Parks uses a Christmas show at the penitentiary to cover his escape, show arranger Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) needs to prove his own innocence -- and to explain how neither he nor Parks had anything do with a murder.

It's a typically fast-paced episode in the Columbia series, with the usual cast of character actors: Adele Mara as Parks' sister, George E. Stone as Blackie's assistant, Richard Lane as the police inspector, and Lloyd Corrigan, Paul Fix, and Cy Kendall rounding out the cast.

Blackie was created by Jack Boyle after he had spent time for kiting checks. A fix-up novel from the short stories was a success in 1918, and there were eleven silent films from 1918 through 1927, with performers like Lionel Barrymore, Bert Lytell and Walter Long playing the safecracker. Columbia revived the series in 1941, starring Chester Morris. In them, Blackie is a reformed crook who keeps having to help out pals and prove his own innocence. He also starred in a summer replacement radio show in 1944. There was a TV show from ZIV in the 1950s, and a graphic novel in 2002.

The accent is more on comedy than mystery in Alias Boston Blackie, as Chester Morris spends more time making fools of the local law enforcement than in actually solving the case. For the 67 minute running time of Alias Boston Blackie, Morris only spends about 10 minutes or so toward the end in actually apprehending the criminal.

Morris and his valet George Stone are taking a trip to prison with a revue show as a Christmas treat for the inmates, many of which Morris did some time with. In the revue is show girl Adele Mara who has a brother, Larry Parks, among the inmates.

What she doesn't know is that Parks is planning to use the show to crash out and settle with the two guys that framed him for a robbery. When he makes it, Blackie's watchful nemesis Inspector Richard Lane assumes as he always does that Morris had something to do with it.

So Morris has to clear himself and in doing so help Parks find his quarry. That's made even more complicated by one of the two showing up dead in a hotel room.

But before Boston Blackie can get to work he has to constantly avoid the police who seem to have graduated from the Keystone Academy. In fact Lane's partner Walter Sande is the second dumbest detective in the world, only exceeded by William Bendix in Who Done It. The way that Morris keeps constantly making a fool of Sande, you can almost feel sorry for the poor slob.

The pace is quick in Alias Boston Blackie with this definitely being one of the funnier of that mystery series.