User reviews

This film (and all the other Boston Blackie films) is significant to those of us in the plus 65 age group for more than one reason. It hearkens us back to Saturday afternoons during the '40's, when a dime or 15 cents gained us an afternoon's entertainment at the Strand. Here was Chester Morris on the big screen, and, as we munched popcorn and stared bug-eyed at our tough, clever hero, we knew that he was more likely to escape any predicament using his wits rather than his fists. We knew that the runt, bumbler though he may be, loyal to the core, would come through when needed. And we knew that Inspector Farraday would never seem to come to fully trust Blackie as we knew he should, and that he would have an assistant who was an even worse bumbler than the Runt. This was an hour and a half of pure escapism, even for an eight or nine year old. And today, for an almost seventy year old. Tacked to a cartoon, newsreel, a Three Stooges (I am one of the few die hard Shemp fans, but that's another story)and maybe an Abbott and Costello....just the place to make your troubles vanish, real or imagined. In short, this film is fun. It is not great drama, comedy, acting, writing, or plotting. Just fun.

If the story has a familiar ring, it's because it's based on a former film called ALIAS BOSTON BLACKIE in which Larry Parks is a convict on the lam after a magic show at prison.

This time the convict is a woman who disappears during Blackie's magic act (CONSTANCE DOWLING), but the plot is basically the same.

Unfortunately, the story gets off to a bad start with an attempt at humor that backfires as Blackie shows off his "magic" prowess to Inspector Farraday (RICHARD LANE) and his bumbling assistant. It goes on for fifteen minutes with meager results.

With Blackie impersonating Jani, a magician, the plot takes a turn when the real Jani is murdered. TRUDY MARSHALL plays the magician's wife effectively and is part of the final plot twist.

It's strictly formula stuff, but Blackie fans will probably recall that the story was done in a more clever way originally.

While Boston Blackie is performing a magic show at a women's prison, one of the convicts escapes. Naturally, Blackie is accused of helping with her escape. The Boston Blackie series was often repetitive but this one might take the cake as this is a reworking of Alias Boston Blackie, changing the gender of the escaped prisoner and the season to Thanksgiving instead of Christmas. More repetition as we get one of Blackie's trademark disguises, unconvincing as always. It really is amazing that the Boston Blackie series was as enjoyable as it was, given how many flaws it had. Just a testament to the charm and screen presence of Chester Morris, as well as his likable co-stars Richard Lane and George E. Stone. Lane in particular had his work cut out for him as the series did his Inspector Farraday no favors. If you take Farraday out of the often comical light the films cast him in, it's a rather unsettling character. A police detective who continually abuses his authority and powers to persecute a man who, according to the films, has paid his debt to society. One film even had Farraday chasing Blackie across the country where he clearly had no jurisdiction. In reality (even in the 1940s), he would have lost his badge long ago and Blackie would be able to sue the police for harassment.

"Boston Blackie and the Law" is a remake of "Alias Boston Blackie" with a gender switch - a woman female prisoner escapes during a magic show instead of a male. It seems a little silly to have remade it.

Blackie is in good form first doing his own magic show at the female penitentiary and later disguising himself as a magician whose ex-wife is out to get the money they apparently both stole, for which she took the rap, and to kill him. The Grunt and Matthews, the dumbo-o police investigator, as well as Inspector Farraday are all around. Heavy emphasis is on stupid Matthews as Blackie fools him with a disappearing act.

I never understand Blackie's disguises - to me, it always looks like Blackie, and I'm amazed no one figures it out. Nevertheless, Chester Morris makes even these repeat stories palatable as does George E. Stone as The Grunt.

It's just a little disappointing - the theme is always the same - Blackie in trouble with the law for something he didn't do so now he has to find the real villain - so why retread an old story is beyond me. And how come no one recognized it?

Boston Blackie and the Law (1946)

** (out of 4)

Twelfth film in Columbia's Boston Blackie series is pretty much a remake of the third film Alias Boston Blackie. Blackie (Chester Morris) is putting on a magic show at a prison when a female inmate escapes. Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) thinks Blackie had a hand in the escape but there's a lot more going on. This is the least interesting of the seven or so films I've seen from the series. This same story was done in the third film, although in that movie it was a man who escaped. This film here is really dry on any laughs and the supporting players aren't up to the usual standard. Even Morris and Lane seem a tad bit uninterested here.

The first twenty minutes or so of this are quite entertaining. Who knew that "Blackie" (Chester Morris) was a dab hand at magic tricks? Well he takes his cabinet to a women's prison where he asks inmate "Dinah" (Constance Dowling) to have a go. Next thing, sirens are going off and there's no trace. "Insp. Farraday" (Richard Lane) and sidekick "Matthews" (Frank Sully) drag him in for questioning and we have some playful mischief around this magical device before, well it's soon not much use for anything but bonfire fodder. Meantime, there's a standard who robbed who and wants their share revenge drama bubbling away that sees the scheming "Irene" (Trudy Marshall) playing a shrewd game to secure the loot. It's quite quickly paced and there's some fun to be had - usually at the expense of the police and some singeing of $1,000 bills - before the ending that isn't quite what you might have been expecting. This is quite an amiable outing for "Blackie" with some comedy, spatting and sleight of hand to keep in interesting.

Boston Blackie And The Law finds Chester Morris doing a magic act to entertain the inmates of a woman's prison. When during a disappearing act, Constance Dowling escapes and breaks out of the joint, Blackie of course is once again held responsible.

A great deal of this episode involves Blackie demonstrating the disappearing act with cabinet with those perennial Keystone Cops Richard Lane and Frank Sully. I will never understand how Sully's character Sergeant Matthews ever passed a civil service test to be a cop in the first place.

As it turns out Dowling was a magician's assistant who knew all the magician's tricks. She was also implicated in a robbery where her former partner and husband Warren Ashe was questioned. Ashe is now doing his magic act with Trudy Marshall and these women have no use for each other.

One of the weaker Blackie films, this one is not too hard to figure the results and the slapstick with cops pads much of this film.

Since Boston Blackie is also a genuine magician, he performs at a Thanksgiving celebration show in a female prison; and as his last act, he (maybe unwisely) chooses the 'vanishing lady' trick: he gets a pretty young blonde inmate (with a very much Veronica Lake-like hairstyle) to 'vanish' from his 'magical cabinet' - and she DOES: before the wardens are aware of it, she's escaped... The only mysterious clue she leaves behind is a note that someone is getting married on Sunday - so we're right in for another great crime puzzle with our smart friend Blackie and his not so very smart cop 'friends'!

The 'someone' who's getting married turns out to be - a magician as well; but with a past: he was involved in a robbery and murder case years ago - and it was the mysterious blonde that took the rap for the robbery. So Blackie takes over his colleague's identity to set a trap for the 'femme fatale' who's obviously after the money he's hidden somewhere... And here begins a REALLY crazy chase, and we even see Blackie and the 'Runt' for the first time in the whole series behind bars - and the 'Runt' merely comments dryly: "Here we are again - no place like home..." But, of course, they find another dumb cop soon to help them escape, and the hunt goes on...

For the most part, this movie looks just like a usual funny, entertaining 'Boston Blackie' adventure - but wait until you'll see the surprise ending...!

Keystone cops... or maybe three stooges. The cops just look silly trying to figure out how Blackie's magician's box works in the Inspector's office. After the disappearing act goes south in a prison, and one of the girls escapes, Blackie Chester Morris) and his box are hauled down to headquarters. As usual, Inspector Farraday and all the other coppers are goons, scratching their heads trying to figure out what's going on. Blackie must clear his name when "Dinah", the prisoner (Constance Dowling) somehow gets away. He and the "runt" run all over town and break a bunch of laws to try to find Dinah. It's pretty good... a much later episode in the Boston Blackie series. Morris would make a couple more after this one. I hope author Jack Boyle got compensated for all the films they made from his work! Directed by Ross Lederman... who, oddly enough, had actually started out as an extra with the keystone cops I mentioned at the beginning of this summary.

Chester Morris is almost the whole show here—he's on screen as Boston Blackie throughout nearly the entire picture. Morris is given his best opportunity yet to show off his skills as a magician, both as Blackie performing tricks himself, and disguised as the bearded and turbaned Jani, a professional magician who is mixed up with a pair of women and a missing stack of $1000 bills.

Of course, Inspector Farraday and Detective Matthews (the reliable Richard Lane and Frank Sully) are on Blackie's trail; faithful sidekick the Runt (George E. Stone) has grown a mustache for this picture and does his best to follow Blackie's orders and generally assist in misleading the detectives as required. Trudy Marshall and Constance Dowling are the two women who, it's quickly obvious, do not care to make friends.

The first 15 minutes of the picture are almost entirely goofing around—Blackie is captured by Farraday, who leaves Matthews to guard him alone (how is that likely to work out?), and Blackie toys with Matthews and the disappearing-person box from his magic act for a good long stretch before finally escaping as he should have done right away. It's amusing but wears a bit thin.

Once out on his own, however, Blackie quickly gets to work tracking down the prison inmate who escaped during his magic show to make trouble; the plot does pick up steam and develops into a quite satisfying mystery that's suspenseful and surprising, with Blackie staying (generally speaking) one step ahead of Farraday.

Funniest scene: Matthews explaining to Farraday how he would go about tracking down a wanted person. (Look in the phone book!)

Solid entertainment, especially for Boston Blackie fans.