Boston Blackie
Boston Blackie is a fictional character created by author Jack Boyle. Blackie, a jewel thief and safecracker in Boyle's stories, became a detective in adaptations for films, radio and television—an "enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend."
Actor Chester Morris was the best-known Blackie, playing the character in 14 Columbia Pictures films and in a 1944 NBC radio series. Boston Blackie is the role for which Morris is best remembered.
Literature
Writer Jack Boyle grew up in Chicago, Illinois. While working as a newspaper reporter in San Francisco, he became an opium addict, was drawn into crime, and was jailed for writing bad checks. Later convicted of robbery, Boyle was serving a term in San Quentin when he created the character of Boston Blackie. The first four stories appeared in The American Magazine in 1914, with Boyle writing under the pen name "No. 6066". From 1917 to 1919, Boston Blackie stories appeared in The Red Book magazine, and from 1918 they were adapted for motion pictures.When Boston Blackie began to find success on the screen, Boyle edited the Red Book magazine stories into a book, Boston Blackie. He revised and rearranged the order of the stories to create a cohesive narrative—a common practice at the time known in publishing as a fixup. This was the only appearance of Boston Blackie in book form, but his adventures continued to appear in periodicals.
Short stories
| Year | Title | Publisher | Publication date | Notes |
| 1914 | "" | ' | July 1914 | As No. 6066 |
| 1914 | "" | ' | August 1914 | As No. 6066 |
| 1914 | "Death Cell Visions" | ' | September 1914 | As No. 6066 |
| 1914 | "" | ' | October 1914 | As No. 6066 |
| 1917 | "Boston Blackie's Mary" | ' | November 1917 | |
| 1917 | "" | ' | December 1917 | |
| 1918 | "Fred the Count" | ' | January 1918 | |
| 1918 | "Miss Doris, Safe-Cracker" | ' | May 1918 | |
| 1918 | "Boston Blackie's Little Pal" | ' | June 1918 | |
| 1918 | "Alibi Ann" | ' | July 1918 | |
| 1918 | "Miss Doris's 'Raffles'" | ' | August 1918 | |
| 1918 | "" | ' | October 1918 | |
| 1918 | "" | ' | December 1918 | |
| 1919 | "" | ' | January 1919 | |
| 1919 | "" | April 1919 | ||
| 1919 | "" | Cosmopolitan | June 1919 | |
| 1919 | "Alias Prince Charming" | Cosmopolitan | July 1919 | |
| 1919 | "Black Dan" | Cosmopolitan | October 1919 | |
| 1919 | "" | Cosmopolitan | November 1919 | |
| 1920 | "Grandad's Girl" | Cosmopolitan | March 1920 | |
| 1920 | "" | Cosmopolitan | May 1920 | |
| 1920 | "" | Cosmopolitan | October 1920 | |
| 1920 | "Boomerang Bill" | Cosmopolitan | December 1920 |
Films
The earliest Boston Blackie film adaptations were silent, dating from 1918 to 1927. Columbia Pictures revived the property in 1941 with Meet Boston Blackie, a fast, 58-minute B movie starring Chester Morris. Although the running time was brief, Columbia gave the picture good production values and an imaginative director, Robert Florey. The film was successful, and a series followed.In the Columbia features, Boston Blackie is a reformed jewel thief who is always suspected when a daring crime is committed. In order to clear himself, he investigates personally and brings the actual culprit to justice, sometimes using disguises. An undercurrent of comedy runs throughout the action/detective series.
In one of these films, After Midnight with Boston Blackie, the character's real name was revealed to be Horatio Black.
Morris gave the Blackie character his own personal charm: he could be light and flippant or stern and dangerous, as the situation demanded. His sidekick, the Runt, was always on hand to help his old friend. George E. Stone played Runt in all but the first and last films. Charles Wagenheim and Sid Tomack, respectively, substituted for Stone when he was not available.
Blackie's friendly adversaries were Inspector Farraday of the police and his assistant, Sergeant Matthews. Matthews was originally played as a hapless victim of circumstance by Walter Sande; he was replaced by Lyle Latell, who played it dumber, and then by comedian Frank Sully, who played it even dumber.
Blackie and Runt were often assisted in their endeavors by their friends: the cheerful but easily flustered millionaire Arthur Manleder, and the streetwise pawnbroker Jumbo Madigan. A variety of actresses including Rochelle Hudson, Harriet Hilliard, Adele Mara and Ann Savage took turns playing various gal-Friday characters.
The films are highly typical of Columbia's B movies of the 1940s, with an assortment of veteran character actors, new faces on the way up and stock-company players familiar from Columbia's features, serials, and short subjects. The series was also a useful training ground for promising directors, including Edward Dmytryk, Oscar Boetticher, William Castle, and finally Seymour Friedman, who went on to work prolifically in Columbia's television department. The Boston Blackie series ran until 1949.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Actor | Notes |
| 1918 | Boston Blackie's Little Pal | ||
| 1919 | ' | ||
| 1919 | ' | Adapted from "Miss Doris, Safe-Cracker" | |
| 1919 | Blackie's Redemption | Adapted from "Boston Blackie's Mary" and "Fred the Count" | |
| 1922 | Boomerang Bill | ||
| 1922 | Missing Millions | Adapted from "A Problem in Grand Larceny" and "An Answer in Grand Larceny" | |
| 1922 | ' | ||
| 1923 | Boston Blackie | Adapted from "The Water-Cross" | |
| 1923 | Crooked Alley | Adapted from Boyle's original story, "The Daughter of Crooked Alley" | |
| 1924 | Through the Dark | Adapted from "The Daughter of Mother McGinn" | |
| 1927 | ' | ||
| 1941 | Meet Boston Blackie | ||
| 1941 | Confessions of Boston Blackie | ||
| 1942 | Alias Boston Blackie | ||
| 1942 | Boston Blackie Goes Hollywood | ||
| 1943 | After Midnight with Boston Blackie | ||
| 1943 | ' | ||
| 1944 | One Mysterious Night | ||
| 1945 | Boston Blackie Booked on Suspicion | ||
| 1945 | Boston Blackie's Rendezvous | ||
| 1946 | ' | ||
| 1946 | |||
| 1946 | Boston Blackie and the Law | ||
| 1948 | Trapped by Boston Blackie | ||
| 1949 | Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture |
Radio
Concurrent with the Columbia Pictures films, a Boston Blackie radio series—also starring Chester Morris—aired on NBC June 23 – September 15, 1944, as a summer replacement for Amos 'n' Andy. Lesley Woods played Blackie's girlfriend Mary Wesley; Richard Lane played Inspector Farraday. Harlow Wilcox was the announcer for the 30-minute program.A new incarnation of the Boston Blackie radio series aired April 11, 1945 – October 25, 1950, starring Richard Kollmar. Maurice Tarplin played Inspector Farraday; Jan Miner was Mary. More than 200 half-hour episodes were transcribed and syndicated by Frederick Ziv to Mutual and other network outlets.
Television
starred in the Ziv-produced half-hour TV series The Adventures of Boston Blackie. Syndicated in September 1951, it ran for 58 episodes, lasting until 1953, continuing in repeats over the following decade. Lois Collier appeared as Mary Wesley and Frank Orth was Inspector Farraday. The series was set in Los Angeles; Mary and Blackie had a dog named Whitie, and comedy sometimes took precedence over crime.Television historian Tim Brooks in The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present described Boston Blackie as "a memorable B-grade television series … The term 'B' is used in all the best senses: a certain vitality and sense of humor substituted more than adequately for the normal criteria of expensive production and famous stars."
Graphic novels
Scripter Stefan Petrucha and artist Kirk Van Wormer created the graphic novel Boston Blackie with a cover by Tim Seelig. A jewel heist at a costume ball goes horribly wrong, and the five-year-old son of the wealthy Greene family disappears and is presumed dead; the body is never found. The main suspect is Boston Blackie, who is still haunted seven years later by what happened that night. Drawn back into the case, he finds that the truth of what happened that night is awash in a watery grave. A sequel to the graphic novel was published years later.In popular culture
- A 1957 Daffy Duck cartoon, Boston Quackie, is a direct parody of the serial, with Daffy as the detective - who needs everyone else's help to solve his case.
- Jimmy Buffett's song "Pencil Thin Mustache" references Boston Blackie, as does The Coasters' song "Searchin'" and some versions of "The Wabash Cannonball".
- Boston Blackie's Restaurant was a bar and grill with locations in Chicago and Deerfield, Illinois.
- In a 1967 episode of Bewitched, "Boston Blackie" is mentioned in fond remembrance by Aunt Clara, who confuses him as attending the First Thanksgiving with famous Pilgrims.
- In Errol Morris' 1988 documentary "The Thin Blue Line", interview subject Emily Miller cites Boston Blackie as an inspiration for wanting to become a "detective, or the wife of a detective." The film's score by Philip Glass also has a cue titled "Boston Blackie."
- In Chuck E. Weiss's 2014 release, Red Beans and Weiss, track 3 is entitled "Boston Blackie" and comprises four verses, sandwiching three repetitions of the chorus; the chorus lyrics include
- In a 2007 television episode of Mad Men, when talking about John F. Kennedy as a potential opponent for 1960 presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon, character Bert Cooper says, "It's going to be Kennedy. 'Boston Blackie' won West Virginia."