Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Absolutely Fantastic

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

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.

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 Harriet Hilliard (Nelson) is the artist in question, realizing that her statue has been replaced by a phony.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.

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.

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.