Look deep into my eyes!
The title may be a mystery, but the movie’s goals aren’t. In Boston Blackie And The Law (1946), the goals are the good-natured ribbing of the boys in blue, keeping the police at bay long enough to remove the cloud of suspicion that has inevitably formed over the heads of Blackie and his trusty sidekick, The Runt, and to solve the sordid murder which happens midway through the story.
This is an above average example of this 14 movie series. If there are any troubling plot holes, they escaped my attention, and Blackie impersonating a magician makes for some unusual scenes. Not that this is a sparkling movie, of course. The pacing could have been peppier, the dialog is mostly highly mundane, with few if any lines that raise the eyebrows, and the cops as latter-day Keystone Kops are a trifle tiresome. How either of the lead cops don’t end up in the welfare office is an eternal mystery.
But the guns roar, the bodies fall, the clever ploy wins the day, and in the end we’re exposed to the great lesson of America, honored almost entirely in the breach, that the lust for money will lead to a bad end.
