Starting down south where they grow oranges but ending up on the way there to the other coast where they also grow oranges. So while Florida is the initial destination, Californy is the place that Boston Blackie ends up, involved again with sidekicks Lloyd Corrigan and George E. Stone, as usual followed around by his friendly foil, lieutenant Richard Lane and his increasingly dumber sidekick Walter Sande. All it takes is putting Morris to outwit these two idiots, and there's no game even to begin other than against the bad guys, lead by William Wright. This entry has Morris and Stone heading out to California to deliver money to Corrigan to get him out of a jam, only to find more trouble. Corrigan's got involved with slick con-artists, a plot line that could take place in any city, let alone the L.A. district of Hollywood. A beautiful con artist (Constance Worth) gets Corrigan involved in a scam he's too naive to get out of on his own, and all he needs is Blackie, not sidekick Stone or the annoying Lane, outlasting his usefulness. Forrest Ticker is pretty unrecognizable as one of the racketeers out to fleece Corrigan. While the dialog is pretty smart and the film moves fast, the plot on this one is mostly just ludicrous.

This time, Boston Blackie REALLY gets a taste of his old 'job': a rich friend of his phones him to 'break' into his apartment and crack his safe to take out 6000 dollars and bring them to him in L.A. - but... Inspector Faraday catches him right 'in the act', with the safe open and the money in his hands; so THIS time, he thinks, he's got him for good! Of course, now the usual cat-and-mouse game follows, with the money and a precious jewel changing hands countless times (and Blackie meeting some of his old 'pals' from Sing Sing days...), with escapes from planes, hotel rooms and even elevator shafts - hilarious fun, as always! (With the cops being dumber than ever before...) And for a change, nobody gets murdered this time - so you could really call this a VERY entertaining, funny family crime movie, suited perfectly for any 8- or 10-year old; but nonetheless equally fun to watch for adults...

Turner Classic Movies just recently showed most of the Boston Blackie 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 noticed that the same stupid inspector and his subhuman sidekick are accusing Blackie of committing the crimes in question. And, each time, Bost Blackie 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 Blackie solve the crime! Plus, in the process, the Inspector almost always gets himself captured or is tricked by Blackie. 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.About the only new thing about this film is that now in addition to the idiotic cops, Blackie has a rich friend who is introduced to the series and he manages to be even dumber than the police!! While it would have been easy for even a two year-old to figure out what was happening, this Neanderthal was clueless--making the film itself seem pretty lame in spots. Still, the snappy dialog and able support by Blackie's buddy, Runt, is pretty good and make this film an amiable time-passer--just don't expect anything particularly new or interesting except for appearances by very young actors Forrest Tucker and Lloyd Bridges.

One of the more consistently funny entries in this series (4/14) has Blackie & Runt in NY helping out Arthur who is being shaken down by a gang of rogues in California. Farraday & Matthews go along for the (plane) ride along with hundreds of ants (that Blackie planted on them) they're busy scratching at for most of the picture.*** Some nice comic routines amidst the actual crime story, maybe in the last 5 minutes it wore a bit thin. But you have to see the hotel room scene where the baddie Slick ties up 5 of them hands to ankles and kneeling, including his henchmen, and lams with a parting "Happy Hobble"! Farraday bursts in then with a "Aren't you boys a little old to be playing marbles?" It's deliciously ridiculous, and was a routine they tried again with variations in later entries. ***For that, and the fact it does pleasantly fill an hour, one of my favourite Blackies.