utgard14 A murder is committed at an art auction and Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) is accused of the crime. Blackie must elude Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) while trying to catch the real killer and prove his innocence. Second in the Boston Blackie series from Columbia introduces two recurring characters for the series: Inspector Farraday's sidekick Sgt. Matthews (Walter Sande) and Blackie's friend Arthur Manleder (Lloyd Corrigan). Speaking of sidekicks, Blackie's pal Runt is played for the first time by George E. Stone, who would go on to play the role in eleven more films. Also in the cast are lovely actresses Joan Woodbury and Harriet Hilliard. Fast pace and lots of action and humor make this a highly entertaining entry in the series.

calvinnme No wonder Chester Morris as Blackie is smiling so slyly through this film - he's the smartest guy in the room!. A group of art thieves are taking legitimate works of art to auction, making replicas, and then selling the replica and keeping the original. This time, though, the owner of the work up for auction gets suspicious in the middle of the auction, stands up, and declares there is something wrong. One of the bad guys thinks the simple thing to do - knowing there are cops in the audience - is shoot the owner! Blackie,also in the audience, is conveniently armed and shoots at the shooter. His shot causes the original bad guy to miss and shoot his own partner through the heart.Of course the cops don't look any further than Blackie, but he easily gets away. The bottom line of this fast paced Boston Blackie entry is the police apparently can't count shots or do geometry or they would have known Blackie could not have fired all of those shots at those angles from where he was, don't even notice the body of the auctioneer for a good while, and never stop and ask themselves WHY would Blackie shoot at all of these people.Now let's turn our attention to the IQ of the art thieves. They make hollowed out statue replicas that anyone that knows art could spot in 10 seconds, install secret panels in their statues which is a big tipoff that this is not an original, and insist on having their art studio in what is obviously an underground death trap under the right circumstances - it wouldn't take OSHA to spot the hazard here. And if their goal is to ultimately steal the original, why not just do that in the first place rather than stage this elaborate ruse with poorly made replicas? So why watch this theatre of the absurd? Mainly because of the wit and wisdom of Chester Morris as Boston Blackie plus it's just plain fun. On the lighter side we get to see Blackies's sidekick, the runt, attempt to evict an amazon who claims to be Blackie's wife from Blackie's apartment. Recommended for the fun of it all.

GManfred "Confessions Of Boston Blackie" is listed as 65 minutes long but seems much longer. I think that is because it continually breaks the Law of Outlandish Improbabilities too often, resulting in a movie that is lame and tedious. The main flaw is that it tries (unsuccessfully) to combine mystery with humor, a trait common to pre-war mystery movies, but here the attempt is an absolute flop. Compounding the problem is the fact that the murderer is known as soon as the murder is committed, which eliminates any mystery the picture could claim.The result is a potboiler which will keep you looking at your watch, waiting for the 65 minutes to expire. Not worth rehashing the plot, and the law mentioned above is invoked often and stretches the viewers patience and credibility boundaries.In truth, much of the subject matter, as well as the styles and customs - not to mention much of the dialogue - is embedded in the 1940's. This is ordinarily not a problem, but a great deal of the humor is also from the 40's, much of which falls flat and slows the proceedings down. The result is an unsatisfactory mystery/comedy which may not have been considered good when it first came out.

Spondonman Excellent stuff: Blackie at an art auction spots someone about to shoot someone so shoots first. Naturally he's (wrongly) blamed for the murder of the second someone, and so becomes a fugitive from Inspector Farraday again.Under the noses of the cops the murderer disposes of the body in an ingenious way, but the chase is on to recover the corpse when they all realise the bullet will pinpoint the real murderer and clear Blackie. During this double chase there's time for plenty of the usual comedy repartee between Blackie, Farraday and Runt (first outing by George E. Stone), also a little bit of romance too. And Blackie's rich friend, Arthur (Lloyd Corrigan) also makes his first appearance, trying to out-bumble Charles Winninger.Standard 57 minute Blackie outing, well worth watching to the converted.