If you have watched several Boston Blackie films, then it is very possible you had a sense of Déjà Vu when you saw this film. That's because due to some VERY lazy script writers and a studio that apparently didn't care, the exact same script was rewritten as BOSTON BLACKIE AND THE LAW. Both films featured Blackie visiting a prison to do a magic show and both then had one of the prisoners escape while this was occurring and both featured the bone-headed detective blaming Blackie for this! I recently read a book about Harry Cohn (the head of Columbia Studios) and it said that he had his hand in every production and knew exactly what was happening in all of them--except for the B-movie unit, which he cared practically nothing about and never bothered with the details. Had he been involved, knowing how his employees often hated and feared him, they never would have tried doing a remake so quickly.
As this is the first (and best) version of this script, I recommend you see this one and skip BOSTON BLACKIE AND THE LAW unless you are a nut like me who likes to try to see every film from each detective series (even the bad ones).
As this is the first (and best) version of this script, I recommend you see this one and skip BOSTON BLACKIE AND THE LAW unless you are a nut like me who likes to try to see every film from each detective series (even the bad ones).