Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture

Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) is seen leaving a Chinese laundry moments before the owner is discovered murdered inside. Shockingly, Inspector Farraday does NOT arrest him but lets him go due to lack of evidence. Blackie investigates the case himself before Farraday realizes this time he actually did have just cause to take Blackie in.

The last of the Boston Blackie series is far from the best but still enjoyable. Chester Morris and Richard Lane are good as always but this time George E. Stone is missing. His character, The Runt, is here alright but he's played by Sid Tomack. Charlie Chan fans might like to know that two of the actors who played his sons, Victor Sen Yung and Benson Fong, have bit parts here. The humor is the best part of this one, such as the funny one-liners or the phony tour of Chinatown's underbelly. At least they had the sense to end the Boston Blackie series before it became pathetic like some of them did. I'm looking at you, Monogram Charlie Chan.

"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.

For the Boston Blackie series finale once again Blackie and the Runt are in wrong place, wrong time. They can't even check on the laundry without getting mixed up in some kind of escapade where fatalities occur.

Chester Morris and Sid Tomack who plays the Runt in the farewell film leave a Chinese laundry where the laundryman is later murdered. Tomack is a good comic actor who occasionally essayed serious parts, most notably in the Humphrey Bogart classic Knock On Any Door. But he doesn't have that runt like quality that George E. Stone did.

A little investigation and Blackie discovers a gem smuggling operation that is worked out of a tea shop owned by Philip Ahn with a Chinatown tour bus used as the shuttle. As usual while avoiding the ever suspicious Inspector Richard Lane and his faithful stooge Frank Sully, Blackie gets the goods.

This was not a bad film, but the series was clearly getting stale. How many variations of Blackie and the Runt caught up in a situation not of their own making and be accused of homicide and him clearing himself can there be? Blackie would later appear on television briefly with Kent Taylor starring.

Anyway Boston Blackie had a good run while it lasted.

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.

As usual, Blackie and Runt (oddly, NOT played by George E. Stone in this film) are at the wrong place at the wrong time and are accused of murder. However, as the film progressed, it was obvious that some deeper conspiracy was afoot. Stupidly, this conspiracy became unbelievably complicated--far more than common sense would dictate and you're left wondering why the thieves went to so much trouble. After all, after stealing diamonds and re-cutting them, why have all the complicated business involving the tour guide, the theater and the lady?! Also, the stunt doubles towards the end for the fight scene were just awful--making it pretty obvious that they were NOT the star fighting with a criminal.

While this movie is far from great, considering that it is much more original than many of the previous films in the series, it's a pretty good movie. Up until then, Chester Morris had played the title character in more than a dozen films in less than a decade and the scripts had become very repetitive and formulaic. Unfortunately, it still has Inspector Farraday AGAIN blaming Blackie for a crime--even though Blackie ALWAYS finds the real criminals by the end of EVERY film. But, apart from that, the film's change in locale (to Chinatown) is a welcome relief--thank goodness for SOME originality! What you think about this and other Blackie films probably does depend on how many you've seen. If you've only seen a few, this one is probably one of the lesser efforts but after seeing more than a couple, this is quite different.

By the way, in a very small scene you have a police lab scientist talking to Farraday about an analysis he did on a package of tea leaves. This lab man was very funny--too bad he was only briefly in the film, as he was sarcastic and offered a nice respite from the usual material.