That was an excellent one.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

The one constant thread in the Boston Blackie series is Richard Lane's obsession with nailing Chester Morris for some big crime. And of course Morris has to go to work to nail the real crooks to prove his innocence.But Inspector Farraday's obsession with Boston Blackie is a bit much in Boston Blackie's Rendezvous. Whatever else he is society crook Blackie is no homicidal maniac and Farraday should know that. Still the writers here think he's a strangler.This all begins when Blackie's playboy friend Arthur Manleder calls late at night on Blackie and the Runt to find his nephew Jimmy Cook who has escaped from an asylum for the hopelessly insane. Cook is played with sardonic brilliance by Steve Cochran in one of his early films. Cook breaks in on Blackie after Manleder leaves and nearly kills him, but does rob him of one of his suits for a disguise.Then he goes after an obsession of his, taxi dancer Nina Foch. Quite frankly if Farraday wasn't so obsessed with Blackie the film might have been over in 15 minutes.Arthur Manleder is played in this film by Harry Hayden taking over from Lloyd Corrigan. The Manleder character was dropped from future Boston Blackie films. And Iris Adrian is at her brassy best as Foch's roommate and general protector.Boston Blackie's Rendezvous is good for the presence of Steve Cochran and Nina Foch and bad for Richard Lane's obsession taken to truly silly lengths.

Boston Blackie's friend Arthur needs help: his insane nephew Jimmy has escaped from the asylum and who knows what he may do! Agreeing to help track down Jimmy, Blackie is soon mixed up in—yes, a murder, and yes, Blackie's old friendly nemesis Inspector Farraday is right there to pin the crime on Blackie.Steve Cochran is appropriately creepy as the lunatic, and through many uncomfortable moments he peeks around corners and lurks in hallways while other characters obliviously look in the wrong places and for the wrong person. Even Blackie misses him narrowly a couple of times while we in the audience want to shout out at him—"Hey! Blackie! No, not there, he's going out the back!" It's a tense mystery; for one thing, the gratuitous and random nature of the two murders make for a less "comfortable" viewing experience than a more typical who-done-it where you may not know the killer's identity but you do know that he or she has a "logical" reason for killing and therefore a more exclusive hit list. Of course, there's comic relief here and there, but the humor this time around frequently falls flat—the Runt's scaredy-cat antics, for example, come across as mostly idiotic rather than hilarious or even pleasantly silly.Nina Foch is good in a role where she spends most of her time on screen trying to size up whether she's talking to a friend or a stalker. Chester Morris and Richard Lane are steady as always as Blackie and Farraday.Still plenty of charm and confidence provided by Morris, and so Blackie fans like me won't want to miss this one; but I have to say it's not the series' finest hour.

It seems the more Boston Blackie films I watch, the more I think that this B-detective series just isn't quite as good as The Saint, The Falcon or Charlie Chan. This isn't to say that it is bad, but it just lacks the great fun and chemistry of some of its contemporaries. This film, while offering some pluses, isn't enough to change my opinion.For once the plot is a bit different. A man who was on the parole board that recommended Blackie for parole many years before comes to see Blackie for help. It seems that his nephew is an escaped maniac who must be caught but he's afraid of what the scandal might do to the family, so Blackie agrees to investigate secretly. However, when the maniac starts killing people and the newspapers get involved, it's now a police matter and for absolutely no good reason, the cops blame Blackie for the murders---even though in every previous film they blamed him but he ultimately proved he's working for law and order! Plus he is a reformed jewel thief--not a murderer.Instead of discussing the plot further, there's one other aspect of the film you just can't help noticing. When Blackie and Runt (his sidekick) are hiding from the police, they go in disguise--putting on black face and pretending to be cleaning women. On one level, this is kind of funny, but on the other it is very racially offensive--so much, that I just sat there in shock when they first appeared like this on screen!Overall, it's an okay entry in the series--not one that is remarkably different or better but an amiable time-passer nonetheless.

Chester Morris, (Boston Blackie) has the task of trying to hunt down an insane person who escapes from a mental institution and starts looking for a girl named Sally Brown,(Nina Foch) who works in a dance hall. This escaped killer has a big crush on Sally Brown and even keeps a diary on his daily thoughts about this girl. Steve Cochran,(James Cook) plays the role of the mental patient who as soon as he gets headaches, snaps into a killing urge and manages to kill another girl. Inspector Farraday,(Richard Lane) for some reason thinks that Boston Blackie has lost his mind and is doing all this killing and he stops looking for the real killer. George E. Stone,(The Runt) appears once again as Boston Blackie's sidekick and gives a great supporting role. This film is very entertaining and enjoyable to watch.