A CLOSE CALL FOR BOSTON BLACKIE

US, 1944, 60 minutes, Black-and-white.
Chester Morris, Lynn Merrick, Richard Lane, Frank Sully, George L.Stone.
Directed by Lew Landers.

Boston Blackie was a popular cinema sleuth in a series of films, 13 in all, between 1941 and 1948. This film came in the middle of the series.

Popular actor of the 1930s, Chester Morris (The Big House, Corsair) played the private detective. As with The Saint and the Falcon, the detective lives something of a debonair life and also has an associate/confidante, in this case The Runt (here George L Stone who appeared as The Runt in many of the films). He provides a contrasting character as well as some comic situations.

There is also a continued rivalry between Boston Blackie and the local police chief, Richard Lane in most of the films. And, as in so many of these films, there is an associate policeman who provides a deal of dumb comedy.

Boston Blackie and The Runt intervene when a woman is being attacked in the street and it turns out to be an old flame. And she has placed a baby in his apartment. She has a story about the father of her child whom she had married just before he went to jail (instead of Boston Blackie) and says that she wants to protect the child from his grandfather.

In the meantime, the father arrives but is shot, the blame being put on Blackie. Hence the police intervention, The Runt has to take the baby to his girlfriends, her being absent, his needing to get milk and dressing up as a maid, she finding the baby and ringing the police chief who she knows from her work as a waitress, hiding the baby…

And, the baby deserves an Academy Award for cuteness and nice responses to everybody trying to cheer him up – all very well edited for his response.

Actually, the woman is involved in the scam, borrowing somebody else’s baby, trying to get money from the grandfather who has never heard of it – with Blackie discovering the truth, disguising himself as the grandfather to try to catch the woman and her accomplice, complicated by the dumb policeman also being disguised as the grandfather with final confusion and ultimate clarity.

The series was the equivalent of later television series – but this is entertainment, American style, the 1940s.