Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

bkoganbing 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.

blanche-2 Someone is killing women and framing Blackie in "Boston Blackie's Rendezvous" starring Chester Morris, George E. Stone, Richard Lane, Steve Cochran, and Nina Foch.Blackie is appealed to in the middle of the night by a man whose brother has escaped from the asylum. The man, Jimmy Cook (Steve Cochran) shows up at Blackie's later and refuses to turn himself in. He starts killing, picking up a woman at a Dime a Dance joint and then moving on to someone else who works there. He writes poetic letters to these women, so when he shows up at Sally Brown's (Foch) place, she's looking forward to meeting him.Chester Morris is always very good as Blackie - relaxed and funny, and George E. Stone makes a good if scared sidekick. And they both drive Inspector Farraday (Lane) nuts. However, this script left something to be desired. First of all, Blackie and the Runt go looking in their building for Cook disguised as black maids, complete with white lips like they were doing a minstrel show. That type of thing is cringe-worthy today.Also, the Foch character is suspicious of Blackie, thinking he's the killer, lets in Cochran and buys his whole line, even accompanying him to his place. She was definitely one sandwich short of a picnic.The film moves along quickly, with handsome Steve Cochran leaving much to be desired in an early performance, relying basically on making faces. Nina Foch was lovely, but her character wasn't fleshed out very well.Okay entry into the series.

Alonzo Church Boston Blackie movies have some strengths -- mostly in that the pacing is swift and the hero is cheerfully unfazed in even the worst circumstances. But the plotting is frequently atrocious, and the unrelenting comic bits often kill the pacing (if the plot happens to be atypically good) or are just unfunny and inappropriate.This one involves Blackie chasing an escapee from the asylum (Steve Cochran in a really poor performance) who has become fixated on beautiful Nina Foch (who puts in a nice, rather subtle acting job). Inspector Farraday, of course, believes Blackie has gone homicidal maniac (he at least has some evidence in this one for that), and is incompetently trying to jail him as Blackie goes after the real killer. The plot has possibilities, but any time any real tension gets going, we a get a not funny comedy routine. It doesn't seem like anyone at Columbia understood that, in a movie about a pursuit of a really dangerous maniac, cute little comedy scenes about hiding an inconvenient body from the inspector disrupt any willing suspension of disbelief. (One just concludes our clever hero is an idiot -- deadly for a film like this.) This one is not worth the time. For a well plotted episode of this series, see Alias Boston Blackie.

MartinHafer 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.