After Midnight with Boston Blackie

Turner Classic Movies just recently showed most of these mystery films starring Chester Morris and while they are pretty good B-detective films, they are also very, very formulaic--even for the genre. I practically saw all of these movies and the same stupid inspector and his subhuman sidekick are accusing the hero of committing the crimes in question. And, each time, Boston solves the crime for them--making their idiocy apparent again and again and again. You'd think that these bumblers would be fired and that any cop with a functioning cortex would realize the best thing to do it just sit back and let him solve the crime! Plus, in the process, the Inspector almost always gets himself captured or is tricked. At first, this is all pretty funny, but by the time this film came out, the formula was wearing a bit thin. They could have easily kept most of the formula but also had the cops not always been so stupid--this would have greatly improved the films.

This film isn't much different from the rest--having a pretty standard plot involving stolen diamonds and a vicious gang who will stop at nothing to get them. Of course, as usual our hero is blamed by the moronic cops for everything and as usual, he is able to easily outwit them. Frankly, if he had played peek-a-boo or "got your nose" with these policemen, they probably would have been surprised again and again--they were just THAT stupid. The only plus is that at the end, the stupid Sergeant did a much better job than usual assisting.

There was one small scene, by the way, that truly amazed me. The detective and Runt were in a cab being followed by the police in another cab. The hero then told the cabbie to pull over. Then, after doing this he told the guy to "back up into the cab behind us"...and the guy DID!!! I'd love to find a cabbie that compliant. I might tell him to give me all his cash, then get out of the cab and drop his pants and sing show tunes!