Bala perdida

Now to be fair, this time, to "Insp. Farraday" (Richard Lane) he has marginally more to base his suspicions on when he apprehends "Blackie" (Chester Morris) red handed in possession of some gems! We know that he's just fetching them from a safety deposit box on behalf of the daughter of the man who pinched them in the first place. He was being coerced by his "associates" to return the loot, but when he is killed it falls to "Betty" (Ann Savage) to work with "Blackie" to prove his innocence and to apprehend the folks who killed her father. Again, it's a tightly cast and well paced drama with an on form Morris working well with the slightly more substantial role played by Savage and with Lloyd Corrigan and the soon to be married "Runt" (George E. Stone) contributing well as this wartime feel-good thriller keeps us entertained easily enough for an hour of predicable cat and mouse antics with a hint of diamond-laced legerdemain!

Columbia Pictures had an unbeatable formula in the 40's - get stars who had passed out of the limelight but still had great talent and charisma and make them the leads in short B crime mystery films with lively scripts. They did this with Warner Baxter and the Crime Doctor series, with Warren William and the Lone Wolf series, and with Chester Morris and the Boston Blackie series. They also had a habit of naming the films in almost a random way. For example this film has nothing to do with the hour of midnight or what came before or after.

The basis of the story is an old friend of Boston Blackie -"Diamond Ed" - is getting out of jail and has some diamonds hidden away for his grown daughter that are apparently from the heist for which he was doing time. His old gang has been waiting for him to get out and wants the loot. Blackie is drawn into the whole situation by Ed's daughter, who wants Blackie to help Ed decide to go straight. Of course, things never go right for Blackie or else we wouldn't have a story and soon Blackie finds himself falsely accused of killing Diamond Ed to get to his loot. The incompetent and always mistrusting detective Farraday and his sidekick Matthews get their usual exercise jumping to conclusions and running in circles.

There are a few items of note in this particular Boston Blackie film. First, we finally get to hear Blackie's real name. Second, apparently Blackie's friend "The Runt" (George E. Stone) has it in him to court and marry a very tall and buxom amazon of a woman who's a burlesque dancer at a local club...or does he??? Finally, I may have missed something but it is not entirely apparent at the end that Blackie turns over Ed's diamonds to the police. You walk away at the end not knowing if Blackie gave the diamonds to the daughter and told her to keep them or not. For a production code era crime film this would be quite an event.

Action packed from beginning to end, and even using a WWII west coast blackout as a plot device, I highly recommend this fast little film.

The Runt is getting married—that is, if his and Blackie's wealthy friend Arthur can manage to keep the few principals involved in the wedding assembled in his house for more than thirty seconds. Blackie, however, is occupied helping an old friend's daughter sort out a mystery involving the missing father, some diamonds he had hidden and a gang of crooks who will stop at nothing to seize those diamonds. Of course, Inspector Farraday and his dumb assistant Matthews are on hand, slapping Blackie with any charge handy and letting Blackie slip away as needed to work on the actual solving of the case.

Cy Kendall is particularly oily as the head villain here, even though he had appeared in at least two previous series outings as an old underworld pal of Blackie's. Walter Sande as Detective Matthews is wonderfully hapless as comic foil and brunt of insults for both Farraday and Blackie. (Farraday making a point: "I have Matthews as a witness!" Blackie: "Well, I wouldn't brag about that.")

A handful of comments and events in the film allude to the war—particularly a scene set during a blackout when cops, bad guys and Blackie and friends are all chasing each other around in the dark. But for the most part, this is your standard escapist B mystery featuring familiar characters, plentiful comic relief and an easy-to-follow plot about diamonds and murder.

We never do find out if Blackie's "ulcer remedy" that he shares with Farraday is the real stuff, or just a trick. I suspect a trick, since one of the ingredients is ketchup.

Turner Classic Movies just recently showed most of these mystery films starring Chester Morris and while they are pretty good B-detective films, they are also very, very formulaic--even for the genre. I practically saw all of these movies and the same stupid inspector and his subhuman sidekick are accusing the hero of committing the crimes in question. And, each time, Boston solves the crime for them--making their idiocy apparent again and again and again. You'd think that these bumblers would be fired and that any cop with a functioning cortex would realize the best thing to do it just sit back and let him solve the crime! Plus, in the process, the Inspector almost always gets himself captured or is tricked. At first, this is all pretty funny, but by the time this film came out, the formula was wearing a bit thin. They could have easily kept most of the formula but also had the cops not always been so stupid--this would have greatly improved the films.

This film isn't much different from the rest--having a pretty standard plot involving stolen diamonds and a vicious gang who will stop at nothing to get them. Of course, as usual our hero is blamed by the moronic cops for everything and as usual, he is able to easily outwit them. Frankly, if he had played peek-a-boo or "got your nose" with these policemen, they probably would have been surprised again and again--they were just THAT stupid. The only plus is that at the end, the stupid Sergeant did a much better job than usual assisting.

There was one small scene, by the way, that truly amazed me. The detective and Runt were in a cab being followed by the police in another cab. The hero then told the cabbie to pull over. Then, after doing this he told the guy to "back up into the cab behind us"...and the guy DID!!! I'd love to find a cabbie that compliant. I might tell him to give me all his cash, then get out of the cab and drop his pants and sing show tunes!

An old man named Diamond Ed Barnaby is released from prison and is reunited with his now-grown daughter. But the reunion is cut short when gangsters kidnap him and demand he reveal the location of some diamonds he stole years before. The daughter goes to Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) for help. Blackie figures out where the diamonds are but not before Barnaby is killed. When Blackie arrives to get the diamonds, Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) is waiting for him and convinced Blackie murdered the old man.

Pretty good Boston Blackie picture. Not the best but entertaining. Nicely fits in a WW2 backdrop (city-wide blackout drill) as part of the story. Morris, Lane, and George E. Stone as Runt are all in good form. There's one scene that will ruffle some feathers today. Boston Blackie smears soot all over his face in order to pass as a black man and slip by Inspector Farraday's moronic sidekick, Sgt. Matthews.

Oddly, one of the bad guys in this is played by Cy Kendall. Kendall played a criminal type named Jumbo Madigan who gave Blackie information in several other Boston Blackie films, including the ones before and after this picture. However, here he plays a similar but more evil character named Joe Herschel that is much more involved in the plot. I didn't even know they were different characters until one of Joe's goons called him by that name.