AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

mark.waltz Of course, in this case, it's Augustus Caesar, not his famous murdered uncle immortalized in the line I parody by Shakespeare. Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) becomes involved in art fraud, accused of shooting the woman who created statue that phony auctioneers claim was a Roman original. Harriet Hilliard (Nelson) is the artist in question, realizing that her statue has been replaced by a phony. It's up to Mr. Blackie and his new found sidekick (Lloyd Corrigan) to unmask the truth, all the while as his old police lieutenant pal Richard Lane tries to pin it on him. Another dandy entry early in the series, this is so good that after the first two, I could easily do a marathon of the entire series. But as I found with other Columbia detectives (The Lone Wolf, the Crime Doctor, the Whistler), I couldn't enjoy it as much rushing through. Yes, like other series, I know I would be disappointed by the decline in quality as predictable formula kicked in. Lloyd Corrigan is a nice addition to the series, always the cheerful fat man, always perplexed with that non- stop Betty White like smile on his face. There's a lot of clever antics abound in this entry, directed with style by Edward Dmytryk who went onto much bigger things. I've seen Harriett Hilliard Nelson in a dozen or so films, and this is the first time I've recognized her as her famous TV housewife and mother. She doesn't sing here, but is a decent, if not exceptional, actress. Morris is obviously having a ball here, these quota quickies filled with amusing situations, funny lines, and great technical achievements that influenced a lot of hopeful directors who took what they learned from watching these films, and turned it into a true art form.

binapiraeus Once you've got into that 'Boston Blackie' movie series, you just can't stop - they're so wonderfully funny, just plain 'murder entertainment' with vanishing corpses, car chases, and Blackie and the police (in particular Inspector Faraday) in turn working together and against each other to solve the most crazy murder mysteries. Probably that's EXACTLY what the audience wanted during the War: just plain entertainment to get away from the cruel reality for a short while...This time, Blackie, trying to save a young lady's life, again becomes a murder suspect. The body (with the bullet in it that would prove Blackie's innocence) vanishes, the police chase Blackie, Blackie chases the corpse, the forgers chase the corpse AND Blackie - and finally the whole lot of them end up in a locked vault three stories below the ground and have no idea how to get out of there...This hilarious adventure, just like all the 'Boston Blackie' movies, just NEVER gets dated - they're in black&white, you can tell from the clothes, the hairstyles, the cars that they were made in the forties... But are there any crime adventures today - complete with color, special effects and all - that are as entertaining as this great stuff that's more than 70 years old??

Michael_Elliott Confessions of Boston Blackie (1941) *** (out of 4) Second film in the series has the ex-thief (Chester Morris) trying to track down some murderers who are also in the fake sculpture business. This here was directed by Edward Dmytryk and is a highly entertaining little gem. Morris is a lot better this time out and the screenplay gives him much better lines and a much better mystery. The film has some wonderful supporting players, all of which add plenty of laughs. Richard Lane returns as the Inspector and has great chemistry with Morris.

MartinHafer The 1930s and 40s saw a ton of detective series films designed as the second in a double-feature. These short full-length movies were relatively quickly made and had relatively low budgets, so they and other similar productions were nicknamed "B-movies". Some commonly known "B" detective films included Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, The Saint, The Falcon and also Boston Blackie. Though the Blackie series wasn't quite as famous as most of these listed, they were still very good and often better than the more famous competition. However, today they are practically forgotten and haven't been seen on American television for quite some time--that is, until they were recently revived by Turner Classic Movies.Chester Morris played the title character and unlike many detective series, he played this character in all the films (Charlie Chan, conversely, was played by four different actors during the late 20s to almost 1950). His character was a reformed thief who had changed his ways after a stint in "the big house", but despite his now being in favor of law and order, he was usually presumed to be guilty by the detectives investigating a crime.In this case, Blackie is assumed to be a murderer when he uses his gun to stop a murder at an art auction. Of course no one but Blackie saw the real murderer and Blackie is chased through most of the film until, naturally, the real bad guys are exposed at the end. All the action is pretty fast-paced and well-done. In particular, Chester Morris does a good job as a detective who actually will fight and DO something (something Chan and Holmes practically never did)! The only low-point of the movie is near the very end, when Blackie nearly gets everyone killed--this plan worked but boy did it seem far-fetched! Still, for this type of film, this is a very good entry and well worth seeing.