O Segredo da Estátua

Excellent stuff: Blackie at an art auction spots someone about to shoot someone so shoots first. Naturally he's (wrongly) blamed for the murder of the second someone, and so becomes a fugitive from Inspector Farraday again.

Under the noses of the cops the murderer disposes of the body in an ingenious way, but the chase is on to recover the corpse when they all realise the bullet will pinpoint the real murderer and clear Blackie. During this double chase there's time for plenty of the usual comedy repartee between Blackie, Farraday and Runt (first outing by George E. Stone), also a little bit of romance too. And Blackie's rich friend, Arthur (Lloyd Corrigan) also makes his first appearance, trying to out-bumble Charles Winninger.

Standard 57 minute Blackie outing, well worth watching to the converted.

This is my second look at a Boston Blackie adventure-mystery and it reminds me of the old Superman TV series in that most things that happen in here are totally implausible. There are more holes than in the proverbial slice of swiss cheese. The humor is very dated and corny, too - yet - it's still fun to watch in many parts. Credit for that goes to the filmmakers who made this short (a little over an hour) and fast-moving.

I also enjoyed seeing Harriet Hilliard who went on to big fame in the United States as the "Harriet" Nelson in the "Ozzie and Harriet" TV show. As "Diane Parrish," she's a cutie and a sweet thing, as she played in other roles such as "Follow The Fleet" with Fred Astaire.

Storywise, it's the similar Blackie story (I assume) in which "Inspector Faraday" (Richard Lane) collars our smug hero for a murder he didn't commit, and then stupidly loses him several times. We also have Blackie's dim-witted helper "Runt" (George E. Stone) and we have a millionaire in here who is unrealistically portrayed as dumb like Runt. He was played by a familiar actor to TV watchers in the '50s and '60s: Lloyd Corrigan. The name might not mean anything but when you see his face and hear is voice, he's very familiar.

This is fast-action "B" movie action and comedy that is fun but beware: it's so dated it can look really stupid. Frankly, I thought the first movie was better.

Once you've got into that 'Boston Blackie' movie series, you just can't stop - they're so wonderfully funny, just plain 'murder entertainment' with vanishing corpses, car chases, and Blackie and the police (in particular Inspector Faraday) in turn working together and against each other to solve the most crazy murder mysteries. Probably that's EXACTLY what the audience wanted during the War: just plain entertainment to get away from the cruel reality for a short while...

This time, Blackie, trying to save a young lady's life, again becomes a murder suspect. The body (with the bullet in it that would prove Blackie's innocence) vanishes, the police chase Blackie, Blackie chases the corpse, the forgers chase the corpse AND Blackie - and finally the whole lot of them end up in a locked vault three stories below the ground and have no idea how to get out of there...

This hilarious adventure, just like all the 'Boston Blackie' movies, just NEVER gets dated - they're in black&white, you can tell from the clothes, the hairstyles, the cars that they were made in the forties... But are there any crime adventures today - complete with color, special effects and all - that are as entertaining as this great stuff that's more than 70 years old??

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.

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.