Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

kvnsmith Disappointing, to say the least. Most of the Columbia films, while not by any stretch great art, are passable enough B-entertainment, with good production values, fairly logical plots and some decent characters. This one has got to be one of the weakest of them all, though. It suffers not just from a sloppy, coincidence-laden plot that makes no sense at all, but also a narratively dubious, cringe-worthy bit where Blackie and Runt don black-face to avoid capture by the cops. Even in 1945, such broad, ethnic-based "humor" would have seemed, if not quite outdated, at least hopelessly old-fashioned. And while I can see Lt. Faraday's obsession with nailing Blackie for some crime (any crime!) being a fun running gag in these films, it's still an awful stretch for audiences to believe he honestly sees Blackie as a crazed killer.

mark.waltz Just when I thought that the "Boston Blackie" series couldn't get any better comes along this episode with a genuinely spooky performance by future film noir anti hero Steve Cochran. Known as "the man who sailed to Tahiti with an all girl crew" (and didn't return), Cochran had a brief leading man career and quite the off screen life, apparently. He's obvious damaged goods from the moment he's seen on screen, overhearing estranged uncle Harry Hayden describe him to Chester Morris's Boston Blackie. Sweet Nina Foch (in a wig straight out of a Val Lewton film) and brassy Iris Adrian add the feminine touch, although Adrian seems to be trying to swallow her own head as she talks. Sociopath Cochran sets off on a reign of terror with Boston Blackie accused of his crimes. There's no mystery, obviously, but in being presented as a thriller with horror elements (comedy inserted thanks to sidekick George E. Stone and cynical detective Richard Lane), and ending up with a film that is beautifully played out. Forgive the one sequence of Morris and Stone in horrible blackface, acting absolutely absurd. No indication of why Cochran is the way he is other than contemptuous relationships with his family is given, but in life, sometimes the eggs are just bad and no amount of psychology can explain it.

bkoganbing The one constant thread in the Boston Blackie series is Richard Lane's obsession with nailing Chester Morris for some big crime. And of course Morris has to go to work to nail the real crooks to prove his innocence.But Inspector Farraday's obsession with Boston Blackie is a bit much in Boston Blackie's Rendezvous. Whatever else he is society crook Blackie is no homicidal maniac and Farraday should know that. Still the writers here think he's a strangler.This all begins when Blackie's playboy friend Arthur Manleder calls late at night on Blackie and the Runt to find his nephew Jimmy Cook who has escaped from an asylum for the hopelessly insane. Cook is played with sardonic brilliance by Steve Cochran in one of his early films. Cook breaks in on Blackie after Manleder leaves and nearly kills him, but does rob him of one of his suits for a disguise.Then he goes after an obsession of his, taxi dancer Nina Foch. Quite frankly if Farraday wasn't so obsessed with Blackie the film might have been over in 15 minutes.Arthur Manleder is played in this film by Harry Hayden taking over from Lloyd Corrigan. The Manleder character was dropped from future Boston Blackie films. And Iris Adrian is at her brassy best as Foch's roommate and general protector.Boston Blackie's Rendezvous is good for the presence of Steve Cochran and Nina Foch and bad for Richard Lane's obsession taken to truly silly lengths.

Alonzo Church Boston Blackie movies have some strengths -- mostly in that the pacing is swift and the hero is cheerfully unfazed in even the worst circumstances. But the plotting is frequently atrocious, and the unrelenting comic bits often kill the pacing (if the plot happens to be atypically good) or are just unfunny and inappropriate.This one involves Blackie chasing an escapee from the asylum (Steve Cochran in a really poor performance) who has become fixated on beautiful Nina Foch (who puts in a nice, rather subtle acting job). Inspector Farraday, of course, believes Blackie has gone homicidal maniac (he at least has some evidence in this one for that), and is incompetently trying to jail him as Blackie goes after the real killer. The plot has possibilities, but any time any real tension gets going, we a get a not funny comedy routine. It doesn't seem like anyone at Columbia understood that, in a movie about a pursuit of a really dangerous maniac, cute little comedy scenes about hiding an inconvenient body from the inspector disrupt any willing suspension of disbelief. (One just concludes our clever hero is an idiot -- deadly for a film like this.) This one is not worth the time. For a well plotted episode of this series, see Alias Boston Blackie.