Boston Blackie Booked on Suspicion (1945)

Best movie ever!

A Major Disappointment

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There are a ton of books pulled off the shelves of used book stores and thrift shops to be used as props in this intellectual entry of the "Boston Blackie" series. It's all about the theft of a first edition of Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" and a murder that follows. Blackie's in disguise for a great auction sequence, one of the best, along with 1941's "All Through the Night" and Hitchcock's "North by Northwest". Blackie is in cahoots with Richard Lane's inspector, losing the buffoonish quality of earlier episodes when they were more foes. George E. Stone and Lloyd Corrigan are once again featured, with Lynn Merrick an excellent femme fatale. Some clever use of shadows and very tight editing make this one of the better later entries in the series. This entry doesn't throw its intelligence in the viewer's face, but grabs them, pulls them in like a great novel, and keeps them involved. Is it any wonder that later screenwriters, directors and technicians point to the B films of the 1940's as to why they got into the film industry?

Boston Blackie Booked on Suspicion (1945) *** (out of 4) Eighth film in Columbia's Boston Blackie series is one of the better films. This time out Blackie (Chester Morris) gets involved in a first edition book, which turns out to be a fake and soon a man is dead and Blackie is the main suspect. This 66-minute film flies by and manages to be quite good even though these story lines are starting to repeat themselves with minor issues. Morris is once again very energetic and fun to watch in the role. The supporting cast of George E. Stone, Richard Lane and Frank Sully adds a lot to the movie as does the femme fatale played by Lynn Merrick.

I have seen nearly every Boston Blackie film they've made and while I really like Chester Morris' title character, the films suffered much more from repetition than other B-movie detective series films. Some of this could have been because they made so many Blackie films--other than Charlie Chan, I can't think of another series of the era that had as many films. But sometimes it was just sloppy writing. While this is generally an enjoyable film, there were just too many similarities to other films--the black-face scene (which is very tacky, I know), Blackie being stuck in the chute and is trapped by the police between floors in the apartment building, and the idiot Inspector and his even more imbecilic assistant--it's all rehashed.Now how much you enjoy the film really depends on your familiarity with the series. If you are new to it, then it you'll no doubt enjoy it immensely (maybe even giving it a 7 or 8) but if you've seen many of them, there just isn't enough new and worthwhile about this pretty standard film. At least, however, the main plot idea of a forged valuable book IS new and interesting.

For a relief from the real world which seems full of suicidal terrorist savages, I turned to this one out of the Boston Blackie series. A simple plot: Counterfeit Pickwick Papers bought for $62,000 at auction, Blackie goes into overdrive after the thieves especially because, as usual, Inspector Farraday believes he's at the bottom of it all. With a few neat twists and turns and plenty of wisecracking it reaches a logical and satisfying conclusion - unless in error you thought you were watching Fellini - and in fact fits together like a done jigsaw puzzle. No big surprises then, but I'll have to leave you to guess whether Blackie gets his...person or not - no spoilers!Good bits: Trussed up Blackie + cigar untying himself in hoodlum's den; Steve Cochran alternating as usual between a Tough Cookie and a Poodle; the scenes inside the hotel's dumb waiter. At this point my daughter insists Steve was gorgeously handsome and a Man! Bad bits: Too many forced laughs by the main characters, it was pleasant enough without that.