This is about the eighth Boston Blackie TV episodes I have seen and quite a few are available for free download at archive.org. While the shows do NOT have the same cast that were in the B-movies from Columbia (such as Chester Morris and George E. Stone), the shows are competently made and enjoyable mysteries. Naturally, Blackie always seems to out-think the police and solve the crimes by the end of each show!
I score this episode a 5 simply because it starts off rather unbelievably. A gang is meeting to plan some caper when one of the members whips out his gun and repeatedly shoots one of the gang. He was clearly a psycho and you marveled that everyone in the gang seemed okay with this insane outburst. There is absolutely no way that the gang wouldn't have simply killed this murderer when he finished--especially since he unloaded all his bullets into the guy! This just made no sense. What also didn't make all that much sense was the murdered man's brother. The brother turns out to be a cop, yet despite his training and commitment to the law, he runs off like a bull in a china shop---determined to mete out justice with his own hands. What tripe! But at least the casting was appropriate, as Tom Neal played this hot-head cop--because in real life, Neal was a walking powder keg and was notorious for his insane temper (having killed his wife and nearly beaten Franchot Tone to death in another incident). Fortunately, after this the show settles down and is quite watchable--with Blackie infiltrating the gang and posing as a safe-cracker (his old profession before going straight). Worth a look--just look past the silly writing in the first third of the show.