Chick Carter, Detective

The Blue Diamond is stolen from Joe Carney's Century Club. It seems Joe was to hand it over to Nick Pollo to pay off a debt, but Joe wanted it stolen on purpose so he could collect on the insurance. Nick had singer Sherry Martin toss him the diamond, while she wore an imitation during the number, but when it comes to finding the real diamond, Detective Chick Carter is at a loss since there are so many factions involved: Joe's bodyguard Mack (who is using the diamond as bait to save his neck), Pollo's henchman Lasky (who didn't stop at murder to get his hands on the stone), and Ellen Dale, a new cigarette girl at the club who has taken more than a passing interest in the diamond. For 15 chapters Chick, newspaper reporter Rusty Farrell, and photographer Spud Warner have to follow every clue, analyze every false lead, and still wonder if they have the real or fake Blue Diamond. This serial is a B mystery that was bad enough to begin with but was stretched over 15 seemingly unending chapters. Talbot is too old to play Chick, but Fowley and Acuff are the real stars here. After about chapter 7 this was getting repetitive enough, but the last couple of episodes were quite good. Terrible cliffhangers where we have cheats, the people in peril actually dying, and one where a henchman is in peril. Terrible. Rating, based on serials, 2.