Buchanan (Ralph Theodore), Eric Allison (Walter Soderling) and Caulder (Kenneth MacDonald) are unscrupulous art dealers. They have been commissioned to auction off a valuable full size statue of Augustus Caesar for Diane Parrish (Harriet Hillard). Diane desperately needs the money from the sale to take her sick brother Jimmy (Martin Spellman) out of the city and to a better climate. She has been waiting for weeks for the auction. During that time Allison has been creating a fake statue to auction off in its place while keeping the real statue in a vault.
When the auction is finally underway Diane sneaks into the auction house even though she was told not to attend. While checking out the bidding she notices something wrong about the statue. She figures out that the statue being auctioned is a fake. Buchanan tries to shoot Diane before she can raise the alarm. At the same time Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) is in the audience with his friend Arthur Manleder (Lloyd Corrigan). Blackie sees what going down. He pulls his gun and shoots at Buchanan missing him. Buchanan’s bullet grazes Diane and hits Allison, who is sitting behind her, in the chest, killing him.
Blackie tries to go after Buchanan but is stopped by Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) who believes that Blackie shot Diane and killed Allison. Blackie breaks away and goes after Buchanan but loses him when Buchanan knocks him out and hides inside the hollow statue of Caesar. When everyone is out of the room Buchanan puts Allison’s body inside the fake statue. Now that Allison’s body has disappeared there is no way to extract the bullet and prove that it didn’t come from Blackie’s gun.
Manleder buys the fake statue as a lark for $200 from the Auctioneer (Eddie Kane). Manleder plans a party to show off his statue not knowing there’s a dead body inside it. When Buchanan finds out he sends Caulder to try to buy it back since on Allison’s body is a notebook with the combination to the vault where the real statue is hidden. When Blackie learns that someone is anxious to buy the fake statue he has Manleder sell it to Caulder so he can follow the statue to try to find the crooks and the real statue and hopefully get himself out of hot water with Farraday.
“Confessions of Boston Blackie” was released in 1941 and was directed by Edward Dmytryk. It is the second film of the fourteen films that comprise the “Boston Blackie” series with Chester Morris playing the title role. The character Runt is now being played by George E. Stone.
There is a lot of comedy to the point of being slapstick in the movie. Blackie’s inept sidekick Runt is permanent comic relief. A girl named Mona (Joan Woodbury), from Blackie’s past, claims to be his wife and tries to blackmail him. She ends up trashing Blackie’s apartment. There’s a recurring bit with an ice cream vendor (William Benedict) where Blackie steals his uniform twice. Once to sneak out of jail and again to sneak into a hospital pretending to be a doctor to visit Diane. Blackie’s friend Manleder, who supposedly represents the gay character, gets handcuffed to a candelabrum. Runt and Manleder both get arrested. Some of the bits are funny and some are not.
Even though the humor is variable the movie itself is fun and fast paced. Perhaps a little corny but the patter between the characters is amusing and the Boston Blackie films are more in the line of embellished mystery than film noir.