Sadly Over-hyped

Not even bad in a good way

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.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is pretty typical of 40s b movies. The pacing is good, the acting is breezy and there's some nice light patter. At the same time, the movie doesn't even attempt to give characters believable reactions to events and no one does anything any real person would do. Which to some extent is just how movies are, but I thought this one is at least a little more absurd than many of its fellow movies. The worst examples I list as spoilers below.**************** BEGIN SPOILERS ********************* I think the oddest thing is Cecelia's reaction to being kidnapped by a strange man. She's pretty darn calm about it. Never panics, never gets upset; it doesn't even pop into her head that this guy could be dangerous and might hurt her. And after spending 20 minutes with him she is smiling and flirting and totally invested in helping him even though she thinks he might be a murderer. Realistically a character that reacted like this would have to be pretty emotionally damaged and have a history of abusive relationships; at least that's the only explanation I can think of that would make any sense. Hitchcock used to like a similar scenario but he would always work to have it make at least some vague sort of sense.The relationship between Blackie and the cop is similarly peculiar. He takes Blackie's word for it that he won't run for it but after he does the cop doesn't call out an all-points bulletin but instead goes to wait for him at his apartment. A real cop would be fired for this sort of thing (at least today; perhaps they had lower standards in the 40s.There was some other absurdity I noticed during the movie but it's slipped my mind. Basically this is a movie in which the scriptwriter wanted certain things to happen and didn't care if it made any sense or not; pure hack work. ******************END SPOILERS **********************

Recently, Turner Classic Movies has shown most of the Boston Blackie films and after having seen just about about all of them, this first appears to be the very best. I think much of this is the freshness and originality of the script. If you see it and remember it was the first of the series starring Chester Morris, the movie seems very fresh and exciting for the genre--with a great script and good doses of humor and excitement. However, many of the the wonderful things about this film were repeated again and again in later films and this is when the series began to wear a bit thin. The stupidity of the inspector and especially his assistant is funny, but not by the fifth or sixth or twelfth film--by then, it just seems....stupid. Plus, it makes sense that these two bumblers think that Blackie committed the murders--after all, Blackie had spent time in prison. However, when film after film after film Boston Blackie proves he is a good guy and solves the crimes, it really makes no sense at all that the original plot outline is STILL being followed--practically to the letter. As a result, I honestly think the average viewer is better off seeing just a few films from the series and not bothering to see them all.Now even if this formula is a bit too strict throughout most of the series, MEET BOSTON BLACKIE is still a very good film because it has an exciting plot. Instead of a movie about a jewel theft (a theme often repeated), it involves several murders and a spy ring--something very timely since the film was made just before the US entered WWII. Snappy dialog, great action and some amazing originality (at least in this point in the series)---all these come together to make an excellent B-detective film that's every bit as good as the best of Charlie Chan or The Saint.

Always like Chester Morris, (Boston Blackie) who made sixteen (16) of these films and also was Boston Blackie on the radio during the 1940's. In this film Boston Blackie takes a cruise and winds up with a corpse in his stateroom and finds himself being arrested many times by Inspector Farraday (RIchard Lane) and also handcuffed over and over again. In one scene Boston Blackie takes the driver's seat of an auto owned by Rochelle Hudson, (Cecelia Bradly) who is very attractive and proceeds to drive the car onto a train traveling to Valley Stream, Long Island, New York. In the next scene he winds up in Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y. where he gets involved with a spy ring with Inspector Farraday always trying to arrest poor Boston Blackie who was an ex-con for being a safe cracker years ago. These Boston Blackie films were usually shown as a double features in the movie houses on Saturday nights during the 1940's. Enjoy

Blackie arrives back in the US (via steamer) only to find himself in trouble with the law again when he finds a corpse, Martin Vestrick, in his stateroom. Blackie trails Marilyn Howard, who was seen with Vestrick by Blackie and Runt on the ship, to Coney Island where a group of spies meet at the freak show exhibit. Marilyn is later killed when she goes on the Tunnel of Horrors ride with Blackie, and the same killers go after our hero. Blackie forces a ride with Cecelia Bradley, an innocent bystander, and the two manage to elude the killers. Inspector Faraday, in the meantime, goes after Blackie for the murder of Marilyn, while Blackie, Cecelia, and the Runt try to unravel the spy activities at the amusement park. Nice opening to this 14 film series, with Chester Morris providing the jovial attitude seen in his other movies and beneficial to the character (also nice to see some of Morris' magic tricks as well). Rochelle Hudson was very beautiful here and lent fine support. I was impressed with Florey's direction and Planer's camera-work giving us some interesting perspectives and camera angles. My beef with this film was that there was little action with the villains in the movie, seeing the case from Blackie's perspective. Next film in the series: Confessions of Boston Blackie. Rating, 8.