kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS***"Confessions of Boston Blackie" is the 2nd of the "Boston Blackie" series sandwiched between "Meet Boston Blackie" and "Alies Boston Blackie" with of course the smooth talking and quick thinking Chester Morris in the lead role. It's here that Blackie while attending an art auction-just to pass the time of day-gets involved in a murder. That he in trying to prevent the person selling the statue of Augustus Caesar the intended victim Diane Parrish, Harriet Nelson, from getting gunned down is accused of shooting the man who's to buy the piece of junk Eric Allison, Walter Soderling. As it turned out Allison was in fact shot and killed by his partner Buchanan, Ralph Theodore, by accident when he in fact tried to shoot Diane who could prove that the statue that was going for a cool $3,000.00 was a total fake. What Diane wanted to do with the cash that she got for the statue to pay for her kid brother Jimmy's , Martin Spellman, who's suffering for TB medical expenses.The rub in all this is the victim Eric Allison's body disappeared hidden inside the statue by Buchanan making it impossible the charge Blackie in his murder!It's now up to Blackie to prove himself innocent in finding Allison's body and thus proving that the bullet that killed him didn't come from his gun but from the gun of his partner in crime Buchanan. On top of all that in pops the gold digging Mona, Joan Woodbury, claiming without a shred of evidence that she's Blackie's estranged wife and want's to take him to the cleaners for every cent he's got! With the help of his friends "The Runt", George E. Stone, and Arthur Manleder, Lloyd Carrigan, Blackie is able to avoid the police lead by the bumbling Inspector Farraday,Richard Lane, until he not only tracks down Allison's body and the man Buchanan who framed him for his murder.****SPOILERS**** In a wild shootout at Buchanan's secret hideout with Blackie and everyone is the cast trapped with no way out, due to an electrical blackout, that Blackie burns the place down to get the attention of the police and fire department to come to his as well as their rescue before they all end up dying from smoke inhalation! Blackie had a great time here in his impersonation of not only a doctor who was looking after Diane in the hospital but also of the friendly "Good Humor Man" in being able to wolf down all the "Tudie Frutie" ice cream bars that he could stuff his mouth with without paying for them!

binapiraeus Once you've got into that 'Boston Blackie' movie series, you just can't stop - they're so wonderfully funny, just plain 'murder entertainment' with vanishing corpses, car chases, and Blackie and the police (in particular Inspector Faraday) in turn working together and against each other to solve the most crazy murder mysteries. Probably that's EXACTLY what the audience wanted during the War: just plain entertainment to get away from the cruel reality for a short while...This time, Blackie, trying to save a young lady's life, again becomes a murder suspect. The body (with the bullet in it that would prove Blackie's innocence) vanishes, the police chase Blackie, Blackie chases the corpse, the forgers chase the corpse AND Blackie - and finally the whole lot of them end up in a locked vault three stories below the ground and have no idea how to get out of there...This hilarious adventure, just like all the 'Boston Blackie' movies, just NEVER gets dated - they're in black&white, you can tell from the clothes, the hairstyles, the cars that they were made in the forties... But are there any crime adventures today - complete with color, special effects and all - that are as entertaining as this great stuff that's more than 70 years old??

Michael_Elliott Confessions of Boston Blackie (1941) *** (out of 4) Second film in the series has the ex-thief (Chester Morris) trying to track down some murderers who are also in the fake sculpture business. This here was directed by Edward Dmytryk and is a highly entertaining little gem. Morris is a lot better this time out and the screenplay gives him much better lines and a much better mystery. The film has some wonderful supporting players, all of which add plenty of laughs. Richard Lane returns as the Inspector and has great chemistry with Morris.

tedg After a period of amazing experimentation in the 30s, the detective genre settled into a few tracks. One of these consisted of series films with previously well known characters, usually from radio. Some actually pretended to have a mystery, while others like this did not. The main appeal was supposed to be in the characters and their traits. Boston Blackie's character is one of the more endearing, which allowed the extremely low budget production room to continue.Blackie is a successful thief, one of those charming, superclever types that appeared in the 20s and early 30s. Blackie stole because the rich deserved it, pure and simple, not out of selfish greed, and in fact his story always mentions how he gave the proceeds to the starving. He was one of the inventions we created during the last period where the difference in the wealthy and poor was immense.By this time (1941) he had been reinvented. Now he was a retired thief, with his cleverness turned to solving crimes the police were too dumb to understand. Along the way, the police (always the same guy) would suspect Blackie of the crime. So in addition to outwitting the criminals — which was ordinary in such movies — he had to more severely and embarrassingly outwit the police. That's the added piece here.His two sidekicks are runt, a Runyon-esquire character, and Arthur, a rich but clueless playboy. Arthur is important because he anchors the political reinvention handily. He always has enough money which is freely available for Blackie's escapades.I've only seen a couple of these, but this has something a bit extraordinary. Quite independent of any story element or need, we have a thread inserted. One of Blackie's affairs has resurfaced, a tall tough redheaded moll, who claims to be married to him and wants money... "or else."Its a strange episode, obviously inserted to tell us something about Blackie that is expected to build his appeal and thus the franchise. He's a wisecracking guy clever guy who (almost) never resorts to violence. He's slick and chatty. But we get the idea here that in the bedroom he can master this wild amazon. Because in the US, we were deep in the stupid prurient code, there had to be this amazingly indirect way of telling us this.I suppose its important, and that it worked. Blackie lasted for 15 films.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.