the audience applauded

Perfect cast and a good story

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A murder is committed at an art auction and Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) is accused of the crime. Blackie must elude Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) while trying to catch the real killer and prove his innocence. Second in the Boston Blackie series from Columbia introduces two recurring characters for the series: Inspector Farraday's sidekick Sgt. Matthews (Walter Sande) and Blackie's friend Arthur Manleder (Lloyd Corrigan). Speaking of sidekicks, Blackie's pal Runt is played for the first time by George E. Stone, who would go on to play the role in eleven more films. Also in the cast are lovely actresses Joan Woodbury and Harriet Hilliard. Fast pace and lots of action and humor make this a highly entertaining entry in the series.

Boston Blackie is in top form in "Confessions of Boston Blackie," a 1941 entry into the popular series that stars Chester Morris, George E. Stone, Richard Lane, Charles Winninger and Harriet Hilliard (aka Harriet Nelson). Nelson plays Diane Parrish, who has given the wrong people an enormous statue to auction, not knowing that they copy the piece and auction the fake instead. At the auction, she realizes it's not the original statue, and chaos reigns, during which a man is killed - and of course Blackie (Morris) who had pulled his gun, is accused. The statue has a piece that comes off in the back, and it's used to hide the dead body. Of course Blackie's wealthy friend Lloyd Corrigan (Winninger) buys the fake one for $200.This film is grand fun, with Faraday (Lane) as bumbling as ever, Blackie getting away from him in no time. George E. Stone is funny as the runt, Blackie's sidekick. Playing Blackie himself, Chester Morris is handsome, demonstrating the character's good humor and relaxed manner with his great line deliveries. There's a subplot here of an old flame of Blackie's showing up and trying to blackmail him. But we all know that Blackie gets around."Confessions of Boston Blackie," directed by Edward Dmytryk, is zany and keeps you hopping.

After a period of amazing experimentation in the 30s, the detective genre settled into a few tracks. One of these consisted of series films with previously well known characters, usually from radio. Some actually pretended to have a mystery, while others like this did not. The main appeal was supposed to be in the characters and their traits. Boston Blackie's character is one of the more endearing, which allowed the extremely low budget production room to continue.Blackie is a successful thief, one of those charming, superclever types that appeared in the 20s and early 30s. Blackie stole because the rich deserved it, pure and simple, not out of selfish greed, and in fact his story always mentions how he gave the proceeds to the starving. He was one of the inventions we created during the last period where the difference in the wealthy and poor was immense.By this time (1941) he had been reinvented. Now he was a retired thief, with his cleverness turned to solving crimes the police were too dumb to understand. Along the way, the police (always the same guy) would suspect Blackie of the crime. So in addition to outwitting the criminals — which was ordinary in such movies — he had to more severely and embarrassingly outwit the police. That's the added piece here.His two sidekicks are runt, a Runyon-esquire character, and Arthur, a rich but clueless playboy. Arthur is important because he anchors the political reinvention handily. He always has enough money which is freely available for Blackie's escapades.I've only seen a couple of these, but this has something a bit extraordinary. Quite independent of any story element or need, we have a thread inserted. One of Blackie's affairs has resurfaced, a tall tough redheaded moll, who claims to be married to him and wants money... "or else."Its a strange episode, obviously inserted to tell us something about Blackie that is expected to build his appeal and thus the franchise. He's a wisecracking guy clever guy who (almost) never resorts to violence. He's slick and chatty. But we get the idea here that in the bedroom he can master this wild amazon. Because in the US, we were deep in the stupid prurient code, there had to be this amazingly indirect way of telling us this.I suppose its important, and that it worked. Blackie lasted for 15 films.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

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.