Alias Boston Blackie (1942)

Film Title: Alias Boston Blackie
Released: April 2, 1942
Directed by: Lew Landers
Written by: Paul Yawitz based on the character created by Jack Boyle
Starring: Chester Morris, Adele Mara & Richard Lane

Plot: Boston Blackie needs to track down a wrongly-convicted prison escapee before the revenge-minded convict or the police do something foolish!

IMDb: 6.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes: No score
My Score: 3/5

Alias Boston Blackie is the third film in the Columbia Pictures Boston Blackie series. Reprising their roles from previous film, Confessions of Boston Blackie, are Chester Morris as reformed jewel thief Boston Blackie, Richard Lane as his friendly nemesis police Inspector Farraday, George E. Stone as Blackie's sidekick the Runt, Walter Sande as Farraday's assistant Detective Matthews and Lloyd Corrigan as good-natured millionaire Arthur Manleder. Its Christmas Eve and Morris has decided to give the inmates at the prison did time in some holiday cheer in the form of a variety show. Lane and Sande hitch a ride on the bus with the performers so Lane can keep an eye on Morris at the prison. An inmate named Joe (Larry Parks) is the brother of a chorus girls in the troupe, Eve (Adele Mara). He uses the opportunity to escape, planning to take his revenge on the men that set him up and landed him in prison with a 15 year sentence. He ties up the clown in the act, donning his make-up and wardrobe, and leaves with the cast back to the city. When the escape is discovered, Lane believes Morris to be involved and Morris has to track down Parks before he kills his targets or before the cops get to him, as Morris has discovered Parks is innocent. So far I haven't been disappointed with this series and even three movies in the schtick hasn't grown old yet. I believe that this is due largely in part to the brief running times of the films, usually between 60 and 70 minutes each. There's not a lot fluff added to pad the movies and the result ends up feeling more like episodes of a fun, old time detective television series than feature films. Alias Boston Blackie marks the first appearance of Jumbo Madigan, a shady pawnbroker who aids Blackie in his adventures by providing him with information on various nefarious figures. Cy Kendall is Jumbo this time around, one of only two actors to play the part. Director Lew Landers, who began his career as Louis Friedlander, proved to be incredibly prolific and is credited with over 130 feature films (this film was already his 51st in a career started only eight years prior) and over 200 episodes of various television series, including Topper, The Adventures of Superman, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Maverick and Bat Masterson. Paul Fix co-stars as one of the hoods Parks is after and a very young Lloyd Bridges has a uncredited bit part as the bus driver in the beginning of the film. Watch Bridges in the opening sequence below or watch the whole movie here.