Steve Strangles and Chester Corks Up

Offbeat Attractions Of Boston Blackie's Rendezvous (1945)

By this point in the series, Inspector Farrady (Richard Lane) should know well that Boston Blackie could not possibly be a strangle murderer at large, but formula being strictly observed at Columbia, here they'd go again at BB drawing suspicion and thick-head police jumping to wrong conclusions. This series needed every ounce of Chester Morris' likeability; beyond him, most are fairly dim. Comedy's a byword, confusion with a Columbia two-reeler a risk if you enter partway through a Blackie. Speaking of that, Morris and sidekick George E. Stone cork up as hotel chambermaids to "Yowsah, Boss!" dumb cops and a looking mortified Clarence Muse. So how many series detectives donned skirts and did minstrel acts as part of investigation? Unbalanced killer Steve Cochran links charm with bug-eye menace, a perf helped by low light and sections allowing him to dominate (did Steve have a friend on the BB unit? --- he did a couple of them, including his screen debut). Rendezvous might be a best of the Bostongroup for Cochran and blackface antics alone; minus these it would be a slog most of the rest were.