Boston Blackie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Boston Blackie is a fictional character who has been on both sides of the law. As originally created by author Jack Boyle, he was a safecracker, a hardened criminal who had served time in a California prison. Prowling the underworld as a detective in adaptations for films, radio and television, the detective Boston Blackie was "an enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend."

Jack Boyle's stories first appeared in the early 20th Century. "The Price of Principle" was a short story in the July, 1914 issue of The American Magazine. Boyle's character also turned up in Cosmopolitan. In 1917, Redbook published the novelette, "Boston Blackie’s Mary," and the magazine brought the character back with "The Heart of the Lily" (February, 1921). Boyle's stories were collected in the book, Boston Blackie (1919), reprinted in 1979 by Gregg Press. Boyle died in 1928.

1 Films
2 Radio
3 Television
4 Influence on popular culture
5 Listen to
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Films

The earliest film adaptations were seen from 1919 until 1927. Over a decade later, the screen rights were purchased by Columbia, and a new series ran from 1941 until 1949. Overall, the films were considered B-movies and did not receive critical acclaim. The longest of the films ran for just over an hour, and the scripts were deemed to be poorly conceived. The film's biggest assets were considered to be the lead character, played by Chester Morris, and a solid supporting cast.

[edit] Radio

The Boston Blackie radio series, also starring Morris, began June 23, 1944, on NBC as a summer replacement for The Amos 'n' Andy Show. Sponsored by Rinso, the series continued until September 15 of that year. Lesley Woods appeared as Blackie's girlfriend Mary Wesley, and Harlow Wilcox was the show's announcer.

On April 11, 1945, Richard Kollmar took over the title role in a radio series syndicated by Frederic W. Ziv to Mutual and other network outlets. Over 200 episodes of this series were produced between 1944 and October 25, 1950. Other sponsors included Lifebuoy Soap, Champagne Velvet beer and R&H beer.

While investigating mysteries, Blackie invaribly encountered harebrained Police Inspector Faraday (Maurice Tarplin) and always solved the mystery to Faraday's amazement. Initially, friction surfaced in the relationship between Blackie and Faraday, but as the series continued, Faraday recognized Blackie's talents and requested assistance. Blackie dated Mary Wesley (Jan Miner), and for the first half of the series, his best pal Shorty was always on hand. The humorless Faraday was on the receiving end of Blackie's bad puns and word play.

[edit] Television

Kent Taylor starred in the half-hour TV series, The Adventures of Boston Blackie. Syndicated in 1951, it ran for 58 episodes, continuing in repeats over the following decade.

[edit] Influence on 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.

Scripter Stefan Petrucha and artist Kirk Van Wormer created the graphic novel, Boston Blackie (Moonstone Books, 2002), 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 the truth of what happened that night is awash in a watery grave.

Jimmy Buffett's song "Pencil Thin Moustache" mentions Boston Blackie, as does The Coasters' song "Searchin'" and some versions of "The Wabash Cannonball".

Boston Blackies, a bar and grill chain with five Illinois locations, is designed with a dark Art Deco look and a pulp style illustration behind the bar.

Type designer Nick Curtis of Nick's Fonts in Gaithersburg, Maryland created a bold blackface font called Boston Blackie as a variation on Old English.

In a 1966 episode of Bewitched ("Samantha's Thanksgiving to Remember", Season 4, Episode 12), "Boston Blackie" is mentioned in fond remembrance by Aunt Clara (Marion Lorne), who confuses him as attending the First Thanksgiving with famous Pilgrims. This screenplay takes on significance as the writers, credited as "Tom and Helen August", were in fact Alfred Lewis Levitt (1916-2002) and Helen Levitt (1938-1993). According to the Internet Movie Database [1], Mr. Levitt "[w]as blacklisted for his involvement with the Communist Party by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951 but was not charged with any crime. The subpoena was so damaging to his career, however, that he used an assumed name, Tom August, for almost 20 years after his hearing. [Levitt] [l]ater led the effort to restore blacklisted writers' original names to film credits."