Boston Blackie Booked on Suspicion

One of the more enjoyable Boston Blackie entries with CHESTER MORRIS disguising himself as a bookseller and getting mixed up in a murder case right under Inspector Farraday's eyes. The story centers around a counterfeit first edition of Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" sold for $50,000 at a book auction. LLOYD CORRIGAN is his usual bumbling self as Blackie's friend.

"I'm in trouble and I'm the only one who can get me out of it," says Blackie--and therein lies the nub of the plot. When Blackie turns up at the murder scene just as Inspector Farraday arrives, he has to spend the rest of the film eluding the police until he can pin the crime on the guilty ones. STEVE COCHRAN is Merrick's accomplice/husband.

LYNN MERRICK is the pretty blonde bookseller who turns out to be not quite the helpful innocent she pretends to be. The story is more smoothly written than most of the Blackie films and moves at a fast clip at an hour and six minutes.

Merrick makes an attractive femme lead and Cochran struts his tough guy stuff showing why it became his screen persona.

Summing up: As a straight crime drama, it's not bad at all.

I have seen nearly every Boston Blackie film they've made and while I really like Chester Morris' title character, the films suffered much more from repetition than other B-movie detective series films. Some of this could have been because they made so many Blackie films--other than Charlie Chan, I can't think of another series of the era that had as many films. But sometimes it was just sloppy writing. While this is generally an enjoyable film, there were just too many similarities to other films--the black-face scene (which is very tacky, I know), Blackie being stuck in the chute and is trapped by the police between floors in the apartment building, and the idiot Inspector and his even more imbecilic assistant--it's all rehashed.

Now how much you enjoy the film really depends on your familiarity with the series. If you are new to it, then it you'll no doubt enjoy it immensely (maybe even giving it a 7 or 8) but if you've seen many of them, there just isn't enough new and worthwhile about this pretty standard film. At least, however, the main plot idea of a forged valuable book IS new and interesting.

Always willing to help his rich friend Arthur Manleder, Blackie goes into a 'racket' pretty strange for him: he agrees to impersonate the sick book expert at an auction of rare books for the bookstore Manleder has just taken over - and soon finds out that it's not only jewels that can be VERY valuable, but also rare old first editions: a Dickens book with the author's signature in it brings 50 000 dollars at the auction! Only that the buyer very soon finds out that it's a counterfeit - and following the first tracks, Blackie very soon finds himself once again with a body at his feet and a gun in his hand, and facing Inspector Faraday...

Another FANTASTIC performance by Chester Morris, who in the course of the series really developed into a first-class impersonator of the weirdest characters - and an absolutely NEW feature in the 'Boston Blackie' movies: a REAL, reckless femme fatale fit for any Film Noir! Be prepared for a LOT of surprises...

For a relief from the real world which seems full of suicidal terrorist savages, I turned to this one out of the Boston Blackie series.

A simple plot: Counterfeit Pickwick Papers bought for $62,000 at auction, Blackie goes into overdrive after the thieves especially because, as usual, Inspector Farraday believes he's at the bottom of it all. With a few neat twists and turns and plenty of wisecracking it reaches a logical and satisfying conclusion - unless in error you thought you were watching Fellini - and in fact fits together like a done jigsaw puzzle. No big surprises then, but I'll have to leave you to guess whether Blackie gets his...person or not - no spoilers!

Good bits: Trussed up Blackie + cigar untying himself in hoodlum's den; Steve Cochran alternating as usual between a Tough Cookie and a Poodle; the scenes inside the hotel's dumb waiter. At this point my daughter insists Steve was gorgeously handsome and a Man! Bad bits: Too many forced laughs by the main characters, it was pleasant enough without that.

Is there no end to the suspicions of "Insp. Farraday" (Richard Lane)? If he could, he'd probably have "Blackie" (Chester Morris) down for the Lincoln assassination! Anyway this time around, it's a valuable Charles Dickens first edition that sells at auction for a whopping great $62,000. It turns out, though, that this is a fake folio - and naturally, our deductive genius concludes that it must be our erstwhile thief. As usual, "Blackie" and his long-suffering factotum "Runt" (George E. Stone), alongside his wealthy but rather bumbling friend "Manleder" (Lloyd Corrigan) have to get to the bottom of a scenario where a criminal network doesn't just stop at forgery, and the outwardly butter-wouldn't-melt " bookseller "Constance" (Lynn Merrick) is maybe not just as sweet as she seems. It's quickly paced, if predictable, and en route we have some fun in a dumb-waiter, some slapstick fisticuffs and a few red herrings before a denouement that is hardly a shock to anyone. One of the better films from this series, I think.