After Midnight with Boston Blackie

An old man named Diamond Ed Barnaby is released from prison and is reunited with his now-grown daughter. But the reunion is cut short when gangsters kidnap him and demand he reveal the location of some diamonds he stole years before. The daughter goes to Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) for help. Blackie figures out where the diamonds are but not before Barnaby is killed. When Blackie arrives to get the diamonds, Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) is waiting for him and convinced Blackie murdered the old man.

Pretty good Boston Blackie picture. Not the best but entertaining. Nicely fits in a WW2 backdrop (city-wide blackout drill) as part of the story. Morris, Lane, and George E. Stone as Runt are all in good form. There's one scene that will ruffle some feathers today. Boston Blackie smears soot all over his face in order to pass as a black man and slip by Inspector Farraday's moronic sidekick, Sgt. Matthews.

Oddly, one of the bad guys in this is played by Cy Kendall. Kendall played a criminal type named Jumbo Madigan who gave Blackie information in several other Boston Blackie films, including the ones before and after this picture. However, here he plays a similar but more evil character named Joe Herschel that is much more involved in the plot. I didn't even know they were different characters until one of Joe's goons called him by that name.