Boston Blackie (TV series)
Boston Blackie is an American syndicated crime-detective TV series that aired from September 10, 1951, to May 22, 1953. It ran for two seasons with 58 episodes, each about 22–26 minutes long. The show was produced by the Ziv Company, which had previously adapted Boston Blackie stories for radio. Ziv hoped to make Boston Blackie its first syndicated TV series, but the popularity of Hopalong Cassidy led him to start with The Cisco Kid first.
The lead character is Horatio Black, better known as Boston Blackie, a former criminal who has become a detective. His girlfriend, Mary Wesley, helps him solve crimes before the police arrive. Blackie is played by Kent Taylor, and Mary by Lois Collier. The couple is usually accompanied by a dog named Whitey. Mary is a brave, independent nurse. Inspector Faraday, a typical not-so-bright police detective, is played by Frank Orth. The show is known for its fast-paced wisecracks. Supporting players often included John Doucette, John Eldredge, Herb Vigran, and Ben Welden. Tom Hanlon would introduce the commercial breaks.
Ziv filmed 58 color episodes, each about 30 minutes, in space rented from Eagle-Lion Films. The series is set in Los Angeles, though some exterior scenes were shot at locations such as the Santa Monica Pier and the Japanese Gardens in San Francisco. Each episode cost about $21,000 to produce, and production could be sped up by filming up to three episodes at once, with episodes shot in pieces. Directors included George M. Cahan, Eddie Davis, and Sobey Martin, while Herb Purdum was among the writers. Each episode opened with a shadowed alley and an announcer saying, “Danger. Excitement. Adventure. Boston Blackie — enemy to those who make him an enemy; friend to those who have no friends.”
Ziv later sold Boston Blackie and four other programs to Australia’s Amalgamated Television Services and to Italy’s Radio-Audizione Italiana for broadcast on four networks. The series has been described as a memorable B-grade TV show with energy and humor that compensated for its modest production values. Media critic John Crosby noted Ziv’s cost-saving approach, comparing Boston Blackie’s “bits and pieces” filming to the more spontaneous feel of I Love Lucy.
Before the TV series, a pilot of Boston Blackie aired on WLWT in Cincinnati on August 17, 1949, with Bob Middleton as Blackie and Laura Frazer as Mary Wesley. Other cast members in the pilot included Bob Benchely, Tom Kane, Allan Lurie, William Querner, and Golda Seiter.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:23 (CET).