This week’s mystery movie was the 1939 Warner Bros. film Blackwell’s Island, with John Garfield, Rosemary Lane, Dick Purcell, Victor Jory, Stanley Fields, Morgan Conway, Granville Bates, Anthony Averill, Peggy Shannon, Charley Foy, Norman Willis and Joe Cunningham.
Screenplay by Crane Wilbur.
From an original story by Crane Wilbur and Lee Katz.
Dialogue director Harry Seymour.
Photographed by Sid Hickox.
Art direction by Stanley Fleischer.
Edited by Doug Gould.
Sound by Leslie G. Hewitt.
Gowns by Howard Shoup.
Musical direction by Leo F. Forbstein.
Directed by William McGann.
Further information on Blackwell’s Island is available from the AFI Catalog.
Blackwell’s Island is available on DVD from Critics’ Choice Video.
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I picked this movie, as always, by going through the trades and I was dismayed to discover that it’s an absolute dog. Not even John Garfield as a reporter can save it. It is at best a mediocre, second-class gangster picture that can’t decide whether it wants to be serious or a comedy and fails at both.
Will Frank S. Nugent bash the heck out of it or will it go to one of the alphabet critics?
Frank kind of likes it! (The New York Times, March 2, 1939):
There is the usual prefatory splutter to Blackwell’s Island, which the Warners presented at the Globe yesterday. The events depicted are fictional, and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental. Naturally, it would not be a filmic take-off of Austin MacCormick’s famous raid on the Welfare Island prison in 1934, which revealed a cheap gangster in full control of the place. Obviously its Bull Bransom bears no relation to Joey Rao, the mobster who took over the prison hospital and converted it into a residential hotel known as “politician’s flats.” Patently its talk of political fixing, waterfront rackets, cop-beating and magistrate’s court squaring is just so much make-believe with no relation to fact. Obviously!
Well, it’s sound melodrama nevertheless and amusing, too, in a cynical way. There is bitter laughter in the phenomenon of a protected mobster accepting a face-saving six-month rap in jail and dictating his terms to a pension-conscious warden. We can grin, ruefully, at the sight of convicts making book on races, playing poker, lolling about in striped silk pajamas, ordering the keepers about like lackeys. The Warners find it laughable and so, reluctantly, must we.
For Monday, our mysterious guest has just suffered the ill effects of an exploding cigar.
Update: This is Stanley Fields.
For Tuesday, we have a mysterious fellow.
Update: This is Granville Bates.
Brain Trust roll call: Mike Hawks (Monday’s mysterious fellow), Anne Papineau (mystery movie and Monday’s mystery fellow), Sheila (Monday’s mystery fellow) and Mary Mallory (Monday’s mystery fellow).
For “Hm Wednesday,” we have a mysterious police officer.
Update: This is Dick Purcell.
We also have this mysterious woman.
Update: This is Peggy Shannon.
Brain Trust roll call: Anne Papineau (Tuesday’s mystery guest), Mary Mallory (mystery movie and Tuesday’s mystery guest), FunkyPhD (Tuesday’s mystery guest), Mike Hawks (mystery movie and Tuesday’s mystery guest) and Sheila (Tuesday’s mystery guest).
For “Aha Thursday,” we have this mysterious fellow, who does not approve of such goings-on!
Update: This is Leon Ames.
And this mysterious fellow.
Update: This is Victor Jory.
Brain Trust roll call: Mary Mallory (Wednesday’s mystery woman), Mike Hawks (Wednesday’s mystery guests), Incredible Inman (Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s mysterious fellows) and Anne Papineau (Wednesday’s mystery guests).
For Friday, we have our mysterious leading man.
Update: This is John Garfield.
And our mysterious leading lady with Back of the Head Guy.
Update: This is Rosemary Lane.
Brain Trust roll call: Mary Mallory (Thursday’s mystery guests), Anne Papineau (Thursday’s mystery guests), Greg (mystery movie), Stacia (Thursday’s mystery man No. 1), Mike Hawks (Thursday’s mystery guests), Sylvia (mystery movie and Monday’s and Tuesday’s mystery guests, Wednesday’s mystery woman and Thursday’s mystery guests), Benito (Thursday’s mystery guest No. 2) and L.C. (mystery movie and mysterious cast).
ladailymirror.com 
Is Ed Brophy gold digging in Paris?
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An excellent guess! But not this time!
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Coulda fooled me!
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Stanley Fields.
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Stanley Fields in “Blackwell’s Island.”
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Stanley Fields for Monday?
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Stanley bridges.
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Stanley fields.
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Granville Bates rocking the fedora
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Granville Bates and Blackwell’s Island.
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Tuesday’s mysterious man: Granville Bates?
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Granville Bates in BLACKWELL’S ISLAND.
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Granville Bates for Tuesday?
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Lane Chandler and Peggy Shannon. She died a few years later just a few blocks from me. A month later, her husband committed suicide sitting in the same chair.
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Dick Purcell and Peggy Shannon.
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Granville Bates on Tuesday, Dick Purcell and June Travis today. I think this is “Times Square Playboy.”
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On Wednesday, Dick Purcell and Peggy Shannon
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Eddy Chandler Wednesday, Leon Ames and Victor Jory today. Crane Wilbur our writer goes back to starring opposite Pearl White in serials in 1915. He would write scripts for film noirs into the 1950s.
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Leon Ames and Victor Jory.
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Blackwell’s Island, 1939.
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Aha Thursday’s first man is Leon Ames but that’s all I got!
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I recognize Leon Ames and know that other guy, just can’t think of his name. Always get him confused with Royal Dano.
Guess Ames has to be my way in…hmmm?
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Leon Ames and Victor Jory.
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Blackwell’s Island 1939
Mon – Stanley Fields
Tues – Grandville Bates
Wed – Peggy Shannon and (I think) Lane Chandler
Thu – Leon Ames and Victor Jory
Which leaves Rosemary Lane and John Garfield for Friday.
Had one of my “woo-woo” moments on this one.
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Victor Jory, USCG boxing champ, Errol Flynn puncher, and Tara foreman today
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Blackwell’s Island (1939) w/Stanley Fields, Dick Purcell, Peggy Shannon, Leon Ames, Victory Jory, John Garfield, Rosemary Lane, Granville Bates…
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John Garfield front and back today with Rosemary Lane.
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Blackwell’s Island (1939)! Mystery Man on day one is Stanley Fields, day two is Granville Bates. Peggy Shannon is the mystery lady on day three, but I don’t know the mystery police officer, maybe William Gould? Day four is Leon Ames and Victor Jory. Day five is John Garfield and Rosemary Lane!
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John Garfield and Rosemary Lane.
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Victor Jory Thursday
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