trimbolicelia Not bad little crime caper on the lighter side. Boston Blackie, a reformed jewel thief (or something of that nature) is suspected yet again of thievery and murder. This time the goings-on take place in Chinatown. The transfer is fine. The Sony Pictures Home Entertainment DVD-R is excellent quality. The DVD-R has absolutely no extras. Goes right into the movie. Other than that recommended for fans of the genre.

sol ***SPOILERS*** The last of the Boston Blackie series of films has Blackie get involved in a diamond smuggling ring in New York's, not Boston, Chinatown. That's when Blackie and his sidekick The Runt were implicated in the murder of Chinese laundromat owner Charlie Lu who was found murdered with Blackie's laundry slip found nearby by the police.Blackie in trying to prove his innocence even though there was not enough evidence to arrest him takes it on himself to go undercover in Chinatown with a flimsy Halloween mask, of what looked like Doctor Fu Man Chu,that no one suspects he's wearing as a disguise. It doesn't take long for Blackie and The Runt to find out that Charlie Lu's laundromat was being used as a place to smuggle stolen diamonds with poor Charlie totally unaware of it. It's when Charlie found out what was going on in his place of business it ended up costing him his life. The film "Boston Blackie's Chinese venture" also cost the life of the Boston Blackie series in that it just about put the final nine on its coffin in just how bad brainless as well as uninteresting the film was! Chester Morris who plays Boston Blackie who's seen better days and was in better movies finally called it quits after he made the film. You can see Morris just about had it with playing Boston Blackie in his nonchalant acting in the film and even his beautiful women co stars Maylia as Charlie Lu's niece Mei Ling and gorgeous redhead Joan Woodbury as Red couldn't spice things up for him. He looked totally bored in his role, even with a mask on, and seemed to want to just get out of it as soon as possible and go back to better things in life.***SPOILERS*** The ridicules ending was a real downer in Blackie having an entire Chinese tea store, obviously serving members of the Tea Party, have all its boxes of tea dump out to find the hidden diamonds that were being smuggled there through Charlie Lu's laundromat. Which all ended up making a total mess of both the store as well as what was still left, for those of us watching, of the movie.

blanche-2 "Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture" is the last in the Boston Blackie series, filmed in 1949. Thanks to Blackie, Chester Morris had to return to the theater, as he was quoted as saying, "After ... these films, a producer wouldn't put me in an 'A' movie even if I paid for the privilege." Without the good-looking, amusing Morris as Blackie, the series would not have worked as well as it did. The stories were usually very formulaic, and you really had to love the Runt in order for him not to become annoying. (The Runt here is Sid Tomack and not George E. Stone.) This story is actually kind of interesting - Blackie gets involved with a diamond smuggling ring in Chinatown after the owner of a laundry is found dead right after Blackie dropped off his laundry! Of course, as usual, he has to clear his name or be arrested by Inspector Farraday.The fun part about this film is the underground Chinese tours for tourists showing gambling, dancing slave girls, etc. - all fake, with the performers dropping their acts as soon as the tour guide moves on.Sorry to see Blackie go, but it became a TV show in the '50s starring Kent Taylor, a very different type from the amiable Morris.

csteidler The final chapter in the Boston Blackie saga starts off briskly and without surprises: Blackie drops off his laundry just moments before the laundry proprietor is discovered murdered; Inspector Farraday arrives on the scene to investigate and quickly deduces that Blackie is involved; Blackie chuckles along with Farraday but realizes he is going to have to find the real killer to clear himself. –That's all in the first five minutes, of course. The rest of the action includes stolen jewels, phony Chinatown underworld tours, and a couple of large piles of tea. It's all quite enjoyable…not the best in the series, but an adequate if unspectacular finale.Chester Morris is as steady as ever as Blackie--smart, smooth and snappy. Richard Lane's Inspector Farraday is still (Wile E. Coyote-like) confident in the face of all previous experience that he will sooner or later make something stick to Blackie. The only real sign that the series was ending was the absence of George E. Stone as the Runt; Sid Tomack is passable in the role but not really a replacement. The film's most shocking moment comes when Frank Sully's Detective Matthews has perhaps his first bright idea in fourteen films—noting that the gunshots just heard from inside the movie theater could not have been part of the movie playing, because it's a movie about Robin Hood! (And here he points out the movie poster for The Prince of Thieves; also coming soon to that theater, I noticed, was The Mating of Millie—nice advertising for a couple of 1949 Columbia features that I suppose I will have to put on my long list….)One great moment: The Chinese "gamblers" dropping their act and resuming their real game when the door closes on the peeking tourists—"All right, fellas," one says, "let's pick up the bridge game where we left off."It would have been a huge surprise if Blackie and the Runt had not disguised themselves as Chinese in at least one scene….Overall, it's a fair mystery with a few unique moments: a solid finish to the series.