Confessions of Boston Blackie

The only way currently to see an old Boston Blackie movie is to buy a copy that has been copied off television somewhere, sometime. I think they are priceless. I bought this one off eBay. You can't use them to study law or police procedures and usually they have a spot or two that defies chemistry or physics or even common sense. But they are always fun. Just fun. No reality. I think this one was great. I especially like the scene where the radio was reporting on Boston Blackie's escape. And the newspaper headlines. I really wish the studios would release these on tape or DVD.

A common thing among B pictures is that several will have a title that has nothing to do with the film. In the case of Confessions Of Boston Blackie, Chester Morris didn't confess to anything that I recall.

In fact in this second Boston Blackie feature Morris is trying desperately to get out from under a murder rap. His playboy friend Lloyd Corrigan invites him to an art auction and during the course of it Morris foils an apparent heist, but in the process the owner of the gallery is shot. And the cops in the person of Inspector Richard Lane as always think that the famous crook and confidence man has done the deed. Throughout the entire series Morris was never able to convince the cops he'd gone straight.

There are two women of note in the cast. Sultry Joan Woodbury has picked this time to reenter Morris's life and he who bailed her out of a tight spot learns the meaning of the word 'no good deed goes unpunished' as Morris holds him up for blackmail dough.

Secondly Harriet Hilliard plays a rich woman who is putting up an ancient Roman larger than life statue for auction which is the Hitchcockian McGuffin of the piece. I wish they had given Hilliard a song to sing, she had a wonderful voice which later TV viewers didn't get to hear on Ozzie And Harriet.

This Boston Blackie film could have been better, there was a little too much slapstick comedy which was then followed by a very real danger that the cops, Blackie, and the crooks are all in at once. Columbia would tighten the series up later.

No wonder Chester Morris as Blackie is smiling so slyly through this film - he's the smartest guy in the room!. A group of art thieves are taking legitimate works of art to auction, making replicas, and then selling the replica and keeping the original. This time, though, the owner of the work up for auction gets suspicious in the middle of the auction, stands up, and declares there is something wrong. One of the bad guys thinks the simple thing to do - knowing there are cops in the audience - is shoot the owner! Blackie,also in the audience, is conveniently armed and shoots at the shooter. His shot causes the original bad guy to miss and shoot his own partner through the heart.

Of course the cops don't look any further than Blackie, but he easily gets away. The bottom line of this fast paced Boston Blackie entry is the police apparently can't count shots or do geometry or they would have known Blackie could not have fired all of those shots at those angles from where he was, don't even notice the body of the auctioneer for a good while, and never stop and ask themselves WHY would Blackie shoot at all of these people.

Now let's turn our attention to the IQ of the art thieves. They make hollowed out statue replicas that anyone that knows art could spot in 10 seconds, install secret panels in their statues which is a big tipoff that this is not an original, and insist on having their art studio in what is obviously an underground death trap under the right circumstances - it wouldn't take OSHA to spot the hazard here. And if their goal is to ultimately steal the original, why not just do that in the first place rather than stage this elaborate ruse with poorly made replicas?

So why watch this theatre of the absurd? Mainly because of the wit and wisdom of Chester Morris as Boston Blackie plus it's just plain fun. On the lighter side we get to see Blackies's sidekick, the runt, attempt to evict an amazon who claims to be Blackie's wife from Blackie's apartment. Recommended for the fun of it all.

This time Blackie is suspected of being the murderer of an art dealer at an auction attended by Inspector Farraday. Blackie has to spend the rest of the movie exonerating himself of the crime and discovering what happened to the missing body of the art dealer.

Female interest is provided by HARRIET HILLIARD, wife of "Ozzie" Nelson(the bandleader), who was making a few rather unimpressive appearances in films around this time. She's interested in purchasing a statue of Julius Caesar. Blackie is up to his same old shenanigans in throwing Farraday off his trail and proving that he's not guilty of a murder he never committed.

Interesting plot has to do with the missing body of the dead man and how it was accomplished with a phony statue. The story follows the usual Boston Blackie formula and this one is not quite on the same level with the first Blackie film. Still, for detective fans, it manages to move briskly within its short running time.

Boston Blackie attends an art auction; the curator is shot dead; Inspector Farraday spots Blackie with his gun out and jumps to the obvious conclusion; the real killer sneaks the dead body into the hollow body of the life sized statue being auctioned. Oh, and the owner selling off her valuable statue is attractive Harriet Hilliard. Mystery and adventure ensue.

Fun bits: Lloyd Corrigan as Blackie's rich friend Arthur has amusing difficulties with a pair of handcuffs. Joan Woodbury has a juicy minor role as a woman from Blackie's past (an episode whose details are delightfully vague) who has a ball trashing Blackie's living room while George Stone as the Runt watches helplessly. And poor Billy Benedict is hilarious as an ice cream man whose costume is "borrowed"—twice!—by Blackie in need of a disguise.

Also, watching the statue movers transport that large statue from place to place—always keeping it in a standing up position—I couldn't help but think what short work Abbott and Costello would have made of such a job.

It's a fun hour with no lulls.