XoWizIama
Excellent adaptation.
Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
mark.waltz
Of course, in this case, it's Augustus Caesar, not his famous murdered uncle immortalized in the line I parody by Shakespeare. Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) becomes involved in art fraud, accused of shooting the woman who created statue that phony auctioneers claim was a Roman original. Harriet Hilliard (Nelson) is the artist in question, realizing that her statue has been replaced by a phony. It's up to Mr. Blackie and his new found sidekick (Lloyd Corrigan) to unmask the truth, all the while as his old police lieutenant pal Richard Lane tries to pin it on him. Another dandy entry early in the series, this is so good that after the first two, I could easily do a marathon of the entire series. But as I found with other Columbia detectives (The Lone Wolf, the Crime Doctor, the Whistler), I couldn't enjoy it as much rushing through. Yes, like other series, I know I would be disappointed by the decline in quality as predictable formula kicked in. Lloyd Corrigan is a nice addition to the series, always the cheerful fat man, always perplexed with that non- stop Betty White like smile on his face. There's a lot of clever antics abound in this entry, directed with style by Edward Dmytryk who went onto much bigger things. I've seen Harriett Hilliard Nelson in a dozen or so films, and this is the first time I've recognized her as her famous TV housewife and mother. She doesn't sing here, but is a decent, if not exceptional, actress. Morris is obviously having a ball here, these quota quickies filled with amusing situations, funny lines, and great technical achievements that influenced a lot of hopeful directors who took what they learned from watching these films, and turned it into a true art form.
ccthemovieman-1
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.
whpratt1
Love these low budget films that were produced during the 1940's and by a great producer, Edward Dmytryk who created many of these Boston Blackie films. Chester Morris,(Boston Blackie) gets himself involved with Harriet Hillard, (Diane Parrish) who has put up a valuable statue for an art auction which is run by a crooked organization of hoods who copy great treasures of art and sell the phony reproductions. There is a man who gets murdered and his body is hidden in a statue with a secret door on the back. Richard Lane, (Inspector Farraday) is always after Boston Blackie for stealing a pearl and also gets himself running around in circles trying to find something to arrest Boston Blackie and his sidekick George E. Stone, (The Runt). In this film, Harriet Hillard is the wife of Ozzie Nelson who made famous their favorite TV Show.
MartinHafer
The 1930s and 40s saw a ton of detective series films designed as the second in a double-feature. These short full-length movies were relatively quickly made and had relatively low budgets, so they and other similar productions were nicknamed "B-movies". Some commonly known "B" detective films included Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, The Saint, The Falcon and also Boston Blackie. Though the Blackie series wasn't quite as famous as most of these listed, they were still very good and often better than the more famous competition. However, today they are practically forgotten and haven't been seen on American television for quite some time--that is, until they were recently revived by Turner Classic Movies.Chester Morris played the title character and unlike many detective series, he played this character in all the films (Charlie Chan, conversely, was played by four different actors during the late 20s to almost 1950). His character was a reformed thief who had changed his ways after a stint in "the big house", but despite his now being in favor of law and order, he was usually presumed to be guilty by the detectives investigating a crime.In this case, Blackie is assumed to be a murderer when he uses his gun to stop a murder at an art auction. Of course no one but Blackie saw the real murderer and Blackie is chased through most of the film until, naturally, the real bad guys are exposed at the end. All the action is pretty fast-paced and well-done. In particular, Chester Morris does a good job as a detective who actually will fight and DO something (something Chan and Holmes practically never did)! The only low-point of the movie is near the very end, when Blackie nearly gets everyone killed--this plan worked but boy did it seem far-fetched! Still, for this type of film, this is a very good entry and well worth seeing.
