Family Plot
Spiritualist Blanche Tyler and her cab-driving boyfriend encounter a pair of serial kidnappers while trailing a missing heir in California.
Fiction and Radio's thrill idol...at his eeriest best!
Boston Blackie, in the 11th film of the Columbia series, indulges in some wit-trading with a squirmy spiritualist who deals in blackmail, murder and the occult. "Blackie" out to help his pal, "Runt," recover some jewels, finds himself involved in the homicides, and also finds himself as the prime suspect, and now has to find the real culprit in order to clear himself. So "Blackie,", a man of many talents and already a proved magician from cases past, shows he knows a little bit about dancing skeletons, walking phantoms and spiritualism himself, and holds a séance to unmask the murderer.
Spiritualist Blanche Tyler and her cab-driving boyfriend encounter a pair of serial kidnappers while trailing a missing heir in California.
Just out of jail and vowing to go straight, former jewel thief Boston Blackie, undertakes the reformation of a pretty blonde who has stolen a necklace from a cabaret dancer. He learns that the jewel belongs to the mother of the blonde girl, and the blonde's philandering father gave it as a gift to the cabaret girl. Now, Blackie must find a way to return the necklace to the owner's safe without arousing the suspicions of the girl's family.
Frederick Loren has invited five strangers to a party of a lifetime. He is offering each of them $10,000 if they can stay the night in a house. But the house is no ordinary house. This house has a reputation for murder. Frederick offers them each a gun for protection. They all arrived in a hearse and will either leave in it $10,000 richer or leave in it dead!
In a barn, the skeleton of a farmer is found, who was still enjoying good health the night before. His flesh has apparently evaporated overnight, and Inspector Reno Roc is once again at a loss. Then, during the autopsy, it turns out that strange holes have been drilled into the bones of the corpse...
This Crime Does Not Pay entry focuses on fake spiritualists. A mother is worried about her son, who is missing in action. Over time, she gives a con man all of the family savings to find reassurance that her son is all right. When she can no longer pay, events take a tragic turn.
Boston Blackie Dawson gets some jewels that belonged to the imperial family of Russia. A gang of terrorists is after the jewels.
A young man searches for the body of his sister years after her tragic disappearance.
Charlie Chan's investigation of a blackmail-induced suicide as a case of murder leads him into a world of magick and mysticism peopled with a stage magician, a phoney spiritualist, and a for-real mind reader.
Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Southmere, a Queen's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies.
It is the Christmas Holidays and reformed thief, Boston Blackie goes to Castle Theater to pick up players who will perform for prisoners that are still in prison. He takes a girl with him who has a brother already in prison. She has visited the prison twice in the month, so is not suppose to visit again. However when the group is completed the girl is included as well as Inspector Farrady. One of the clowns in the show is kidnapped and replaced by a con who wants to get even with two ex-partners. Boston Blackie figures out that a con has replaced one of his clowns but is unable to stop him. Blackie's clothes are stolen and a murder is committed. Of course, the Inspector immediately suspects Blackie of being involved. Now it is Blackie's job to find the killer, exonerate himself and help the girl free her brother.
The daughter of a dead magician who accidentally killed his wife, her mother, while performing a guillotine trick must spend the night in his house in order to collect her inheritance. Is the house haunted or is it all magic?
A gang of clever thieves kill a wealthy woman in hopes of stealing her gems. But the thieves aren't clever enough to ascertain the location of those gems, so they consult a phony spiritualist. Then they decide to dispose of the mystic by framing her for the murder.
Blackie is arrested when retrieving stolen gems from a safety deposit box for a friend.
Blackie helps the police rescue hostage from an escaped maniac on a killing spree.
Blackie performs in a magic show at a women's prison, which gives an inmate an opportunity to escape.
Blackie receives a call from a friend who asks him to retrieve some money from his apartment and deliver it to him in California. Performing this good deed, he is accused of theft, but is allowed to proceed to Hollywood to help the police find a lost diamond.
Blackie is seen leaving a Chinese laundry where the proprietor has been murdered, and must track down the real killer in Chinatown.
A murder is committed during the auction of a valuable statue. The prime suspect is Boston Blackie, whose reputation for living on the edge of the law makes him an easy target for the police. When the body disappears, Blackie must find it to prove his innocence.
When a murder occurs on an ocean liner docked in New York, the trail leads to Coney Island and a spy ring.
After a rare gem is stolen from an exhibition at a posh hotel, Inspector Farraday decides to recruit former thief Boston Blackie to find the stone. Along with his assistant, "The Runt", Blackie focuses his investigation on the hotel manager, George Daley, and his sister, Eileen. Through disguises and ruses, Blackie and the Runt try to trick their way to discovering the thieves.