Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

BOSTON BLACKIE ON SCREEN AND TELEVISION (1941 and 1951)

Boston Blackie was a jewel thief and a safecracker who was created by Jack Boyle (1881-1928), an opium addict who was serving time at the Colorado Stare Prison for robbery when he created the character.  Boyle wrote the first four Boston Blackie stories under the pen name (an apt description) of "No. 6066"; they appeared in The American Magazine in 1914.  three years later, a fifth story, published under Boyle's own name appeared in Redbook, which went on to publish eight further adventures through January 1919.  Two Boston Blackie stories was published in The Strand (1918-1919), and the final eight stories in the series was published in Cosmopolitan in 1919 and 1920.  In 1919, Boyle took the Redbook stories and adapted them into a novel, Boston Blackie, the character's only book appearance.

The stories were popular enough for Columbia Pictures to begin a series of films about the character, transforming him into a detective who was an "enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend."  The first film, Boston Blackie's Little Pal, appeared in 1918 with Bert Lytell playing Blackie.  From 1919 to 1927, another ten Boston Blackie films were released; playing the character in these various films were Lytell, Walter Long, Sam De Grasse, Lionel Barrymore, David Powell, William Russell, Thomas Carrigan, Forrest Stanley, and Raymond Glenn.  Columbia revived the character in 1941 with Meet Boston Blackie, starring Chester Morris.  Morris -- the actor most people place with the character -- was featured in fourteen Boston Blackie movies through 1949 and in a summer replacement series on NBC Radio from June 23 through September 15, 1944.  Boston Blackie  was revisited as a syndicated radio program on April 25, 1945, running for 220 episodes, and featuring Richard Kolmar as Blackie.  The syndicated aeries lasted until October 25, 1950.

Boston Blackie also made it to television with a syndicated program -- "a memorable B-grade television series" -- that last for 58 episodes (1951-1953), with Kent Taylor taking the starring role.

Over the ensuing years, Boston Blackie has not been entirely forgotten.. Stefan Petrucha and Kirk Van Wormer put out a graphic novel, Boston Blackie, in 2002.  The character has been referenced in popular culture by Jimmy buffet, Daffy Duck, The Coasters, Bewitched, Mad Men, Robert b. Parker, and Errol Morris.

In case you are wondering what Boston Blackie's real name was, so am I.  In After Midnight with Boston Blackie (1943), the character's name was revealed as Horatio Black, but I maintain that that was some scriptwriter's (possibly Howard J. Green) wishful imagination.


Here's Chester Morris in Meet Boston Blackie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIpN023LXRc


And Kent Taylor in an episode from the television show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUeKK_gIoZ0&list=PLSRNHuXkF8ZLeycm0u4lCGI-SxYPC1jFF

3 comments:

  1. I remember watching some Boston Blackie on Saturday TV when I was a kid. Glad to hear there's a Boston Blackie graphic novel!

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  2. Was it ever explained why "BB" as a name? I've heard a few of the radio episodes over the years of catching WAMU's THE BIG BROADCAST spottily (as it would play the series spottily), but haven't ever read the original stories, nor seen the films.

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