Boston Blackie Goes Hollywood

Turner Classic Movies just recently showed most of the Boston Blackie 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 noticed that the same stupid inspector and his subhuman sidekick are accusing Blackie of committing the crimes in question. And, each time, Bost Blackie 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 Blackie solve the crime! Plus, in the process, the Inspector almost always gets himself captured or is tricked by Blackie. 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.

About the only new thing about this film is that now in addition to the idiotic cops, Blackie has a rich friend who is introduced to the series and he manages to be even dumber than the police!! While it would have been easy for even a two year-old to figure out what was happening, this Neanderthal was clueless--making the film itself seem pretty lame in spots. Still, the snappy dialog and able support by Blackie's buddy, Runt, is pretty good and make this film an amiable time-passer--just don't expect anything particularly new or interesting except for appearances by very young actors Forrest Tucker and Lloyd Bridges.

As you have already read by the person who has only seen this one film in the Boston Blacke series, they are not in the A budget class. Look a little closer and you'll see some up and coming actor, namely Forrest Tucker (Whipper). Who cares if it's not an A picture. These films are fun to watch! And by the way, the original writer of the Boston Blackie series was an opium addict and did time in prison. He began writing in prison and when he got out his stories were bought and changed for the movies. Columbia pictures had a hit on it's hands. Not all the movies made back then were Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford, if it weren't for Boston Blackie and his antics Columbia would have probably gone bankrupt a long time ago. Most movies made even today aren't worth the time and money, but every now and then the movie makers get it right and it works. Open your mind and enjoy a fun film. Any Boston Blackie movie is fun to watch.

What makes a series last?

Here's a film that is in the middle of a remarkably successful franchise. One wonders what in the formula worked so well.

I think in this case it was the focus on sidekicks. Our two main characters are a "reformed" master thief, the Blackie, and a senior police chief who always chases him and whom reluctantly ends collaboratively up solving some crime. Ho hum so far.

Each of these guys has a sidekick. Each sidekick is incompetent, in fact utterly dependent on his alpha dog. Overall, Blackie's team is suave and the police team gets the worst of pranks. But its the dynamics of the pairs that I think gave this formula its success. There's something about defining a loyal admirer and placing him on screen. Its a funny sort of narrative shift where some small element of ourselves are placed on screen. As they admire the character, we do too, a bit more intensely. To make it more admirable (pun here) we have to have a sidekick who we knowingly do not identify with, someone at the far end of competence.

In other films of this era, the comic main at the bottom of the stack would be a black man. But that wouldn't work for this recipe, because the audience is presumed to be white and the mechanism based on subliminal identification. You'll still see this in cop buddy movies and many teen movies.

Other than this minor thrill, of seeing a perfect and inexpensive formula at work, this is a waste of time.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Boston Blackie and sidekick Runt as they're about to go to Florida on a vacation get a transcontinental call from their good friend, playboy Lloyd Corrigan. Get $60,000.00 from a safe in his apartment and bring it to California. Corrigan has a couple of hoods pointing guns at him as he makes this call and of course Chester Morris thinks something is up. So Morris and George Stone get the money and make the trip with NYC cops trailing them because they think he's involved in a nice jewel heist also having taken place in California.

Columbia was doing both the Boston Blackie and Lone Wolf series at the same time and the plots were pretty interchangeable. Both retired master criminals, both with helpful sidekicks, both living good and no visible means of support, and both with cops constantly questioning them every time some notorious crime breaks at which they're always innocent. My own theory is that they lived off the proceeds of their previous criminal lives, the money having been laundered clean and untraceable. Just what were Blackie and the Runt vacationing from?

In this Lloyd Corrigan who's a good hearted and empty headed soul with too much money to burn always finds someone to help him burn it, usually of the female variety. That was Corrigan's function in all the Blackie films he did. Columbia starlet Constance Worth fulfills the function here, she's a poor man's Rita Hayworth.

Corrigan does have himself peripherally involved in the stealing of a legendary jewel, it's up to Morris and Stone to get him out of the jackpot if they can just shake loose from NYPD's not so finest Richard Lane and Walter Sande. They do it as usual with aplomb.

This one is a nicely paced Blackie entry that also features an up and coming Forrest Tucker as one of the hoods. This is a good one for a potential Blackie fan to be introduced to.

I'm not too sure "Blackie" (Chester Morris) had his head screwed on the right way when he agreed to take $60,000 in cash from the safe of his pal "Manleder" (Lloyd Corrigan) and travel with the "Runt" (George E. Stone) to deliver it to him in Hollywood. No sooner is the cash in his pocket than "Insp. Farraday" (Richard Lane) and the dim-witted "Matthews" (Ralph Dunn) collar him for theft. This time, though, "Farraday" has a plan. He reckons that "Blackie" might have some ideas about the recently stolen Monterey diamond and by letting him escape and following him, he hopes to track it down. Meantime, as luck would have it his wealthy pal has hooked up with "Gloria" (Constance Worth) who was wearing the diamond when it was pinched and who is now offering to retrieve it for, yep, $60,000! What now ensues is an almost slapstick series of escapades as nobody is quite sure who has the stone, the money, or who is trying to double cross whom. The bumbling Corrigan reminded me a little of Nigel Bruce here, and there's decent effort from William Wright as the aptly monikered "Slick" to keep this entertaining and worth a watch for an hour.