Confessions of Boston Blackie (1941)

Really Surprised!

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Blackie is a strong leading man with a mysterious past, not sad like the Lone Ranger's origin story, but filled with human mistakes and thus more relatable. I like how Blackie gets into fights for the seeming joy of it, a twinkle in his eye, and bulldozes the bad guys into submission with balsa wood furniture bludgeons or whatever else works in the scene. This entry also shows Harriet Hilliard being coy, which was her specialty, and also sweet, another character point. As someone who hustles herself into a laundry chute to escape arrest all the while clinging to her hat, coat, and purse, she has my admiration. Runt and Arthur are also fun characters and the whole hour, more or less, works well as entertainment.

Boston Blackie attends an art auction; the curator is shot dead; Inspector Farraday spots Blackie with his gun out and jumps to the obvious conclusion; the real killer sneaks the dead body into the hollow body of the life sized statue being auctioned. Oh, and the owner selling off her valuable statue is attractive Harriet Hilliard. Mystery and adventure ensue.Fun bits: Lloyd Corrigan as Blackie's rich friend Arthur has amusing difficulties with a pair of handcuffs. Joan Woodbury has a juicy minor role as a woman from Blackie's past (an episode whose details are delightfully vague) who has a ball trashing Blackie's living room while George Stone as the Runt watches helplessly. And poor Billy Benedict is hilarious as an ice cream man whose costume is "borrowed"—twice!—by Blackie in need of a disguise.Also, watching the statue movers transport that large statue from place to place—always keeping it in a standing up position—I couldn't help but think what short work Abbott and Costello would have made of such a job.It's a fun hour with no lulls.

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.

This time Blackie is suspected of being the murderer of an art dealer at an auction attended by Inspector Farraday. Blackie has to spend the rest of the movie exonerating himself of the crime and discovering what happened to the missing body of the art dealer.Female interest is provided by HARRIET HILLIARD, wife of "Ozzie" Nelson(the bandleader), who was making a few rather unimpressive appearances in films around this time. She's interested in purchasing a statue of Julius Caesar. Blackie is up to his same old shenanigans in throwing Farraday off his trail and proving that he's not guilty of a murder he never committed.Interesting plot has to do with the missing body of the dead man and how it was accomplished with a phony statue. The story follows the usual Boston Blackie formula and this one is not quite on the same level with the first Blackie film. Still, for detective fans, it manages to move briskly within its short running time.