Watch A Close Call for Boston Blackie For Free

As Good As It Gets

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Every time we think that after so many hilarious and varied adventures, the writers of the 'Boston Blackie' movie series must be running out of ideas sometime, they surprise us with something ENTIRELY new: this time, the story seems to revolve around one of Blackie's romances at first, and when the husband of the girl Blackie was 'sweet on', just released from jail, is found dead in Blackie's apartment, Inspector Faraday comes to the conclusion that, while he's learned by now that Blackie wouldn't kill anybody for diamonds or money and neither is he a deranged strangler - for a woman he MIGHT commit murder...But the case very soon becomes a lot more complicated: there's a 'borrowed' baby involved that the 'Runt' and his girlfriend Mamie try to hide in the most impossible places (a very talented baby, by the way - literally a BORN actor!), while Blackie once more is at the same time on the run from the police and after the real murderer... Another VERY entertaining and surprising entry in this wonderful series of 40s crime-comedy mix!

A Close Call For Boston Blackie is a title with a double meaning. Our hero is once again suspected of a crime he didn't do, in this case a murder right in his own apartment. But the really close call Chester Morris has is that he could have been married to dame who is part of a plot to slip him into a frame for said murder.This film rests on a wildly illogical premise than Lynn Merrick who had been kanoodling with Morris before marrying playboy Robert Scott. On the day after her husband was paroled from prison because he turned out to be one bad seed of a prominent family, he turns up with gun in hand looking for Blackie. He's later found shot to death in Blackie's apartment.Of course the idea that Boston Blackie would ever fall for a bad dame and worse almost marry her is wildly ludicrous since we know how street smart he is. But this dame borrows a baby from Charles Lane who is his real father and passes it off as her's and Scott's. The idea is to extort some money out of Scott's wealthy father.Followers of the series know that Blackie is a master of disguise and he puts on an old man's disguise as the baby's grandfather to help expose the scam. But I cannot believe that Merrick could not have seen she was also being scammed by a guy she was intimate with. That just won't play.The ever faithful George E. Stone is here as well as the dumb and dumber cops Richard Lane and Frank Sully. But A Close Call For Boston Blackie was way too impossible to swallow.

Close Call for Boston Blackie, A (1946) *** (out of 4) Lew Landers (The Raven) directs this tenth entry in Columbia's popular series. This time out Blackie (Chester Morris) runs into a woman he formally loved who know is married with a kid. When her husband gets out of prison he's killed in Blackie's apartment and of course the police thing Blackie pulled the trigger so he must set out to prove his innocence as well as capture the real killers. This one here is a step up from the previous film because they changed the mode quite a bit. For starters, the plot is a lot more difficult to figure out and is a lot more challenging for the viewing. Another added bonus is that Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) and Sergeant Matthews (Frank Sully) play a bigger part of the mystery and they aren't just here for laughs, although they still have a lot of funny moments. Another added bonus is the baby itself, which leads to several cute scenes with Blackie, the police and The Runt. All the cast members are once again at full force with Morris being as delightful as ever.

I didn't really catch the plot of this film very well as it went by, and I really hope to see it again, because I enjoyed it very much. Boston Blackie films are fairly fast paced comedies of error rolled up inside the usual amateur sleuth beats out the dumb police B movie staple fodder. These are light hearted films, and they're made for simple enjoyment.Beautiful blonde Gerry Payton is rescued by Boston Blackie as she is apparently about to be abducted by some thugs who are trying to drag her into their car. She asks him for help, and of course, he can't refuse such a gorgeous woman.There is a complex plot which I didn't follow and to heck with it. But, the babe is a crook, and her boyfriend is a crook, and half of the cast are crooks, and everyone but the cops are out to convince the cops that Boston Blackie is a murderer,and the cops didn't need convincing in the first place, so Boston Blackie is sunk and there is no way out for him. And part of the plot is that the criminals have made up a fictional baby boy, and have somehow managed to convince the grandfather of the non-existent baby boy that he should buy the boy from them for a large amount of money. Also, for some other unknown reason, they have actually managed to obtain a real baby boy, whom they are making no attempt to disguise as the fake Payton scion, since there is no one of any importance to them to see it, but nevertheless they are taking great pains to maintain this useless fiction.Can Boston Blackie and his partner The Runt figure out the plot, clear Blackie's name, rescue the child and put the criminals into the hands of the incompetent police?Well, maybe.