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Monday, June 19, 2017

Meet Boston Blackie (1941)

Starring Chester Morris, Rochelle Hudson, Richard Lane, Charles Wagenheim, Constance Worth
Directed by Robert Florey
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

Former safecracker Boston Blackie finds the police on his trail when he returns home to New York, which is complicated when he's suspected in a pair of murders tied to an espionage ring.

The first "Boston Blackie" film in Columbia's long series starring Chester Morris as the ex-con trying to help others while keeping the police at bay, this is a more dynamically filmed adventure than I expected, perhaps due to the presence of innovative director Florey at the helm.  There's some clever exchanges in the screenplay, an exciting car chase, and Hudson is very cute as the young lady who's driven into trouble by Morris, but falls for him anyway.  It's fun to spot some of the familiar character actors who have very brief cameos in the film, including Byron Foulger and Nestor Paiva, and although the espionage plot is not a terribly unique or interesting one, the picture held my interest, and I found it very entertaining.

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