Moviecut—The Falcon in Mexico

source: The Falcon in Mexico

The Falcon in Mexico

Tom Conway is the Falcon in this one... the role he shared with his brother George. An art gallery owner is knocked off, and of course, the falcon is on the hook for it. and suddenly we're off to mexico, following the clues. and headed to Patzcuaro, southeast of Jalisco. some really pretty songs sung by Ruth Álvarez, Nita Hunter, and Mona Maris. co-stars Martha Vickers and Emory Parnell. an artist may or may not be dead, and when the falcon figures out why, he will know who dunnit. or who didn't dunnit. and who exactly is Manuel? he keeps showing up at the best (and worst) times. he has such a great command of English that he keeps turning clever turns of phrase that even most Americans couldn't think up. fun script. good stuff. not too challenging, but a fun adventure in mexico. Directed by Bill Berke. died young of a heart attack, according to some websites.

Two or even three movies for the price of one! The first is a travelog that was shot somewhere south of the US border. There are some excellent scenes of local fishermen and the culture of ordinary folks. Rumor has it that these are from Orsen Wells circa 1942. The second movie is unabashed marketing for tourism in Mexico - the last shot is of a tourist poster that melts into a plane flying to or from our neighbor to the south. The third movie is a lackluster mystery of sorts with Tom Lawrence at his worst. It is not that all of his Falcon movies are terrible, some are decent. The Falcon in Mexico is not one of his stellar performances and not really worth your time viewing. Half an hour after the movie, you won't rember who did it or care. Costume design by Renié.

Michael Arlen's radio-serial detective returns for another movie mystery (actually, it's the Falcon's brother this time, with George Sanders having since exited from the role and real-life sibling Tom Conway assuming his duties). For reasons unknown, the Falcon is down Mexico way, being conned by a Señorita who needs his help in retrieving one of her paintings from an art gallery. They break in after-hours (despite a sign near the door--in English--warning that police are on constant watch), only to find a dead man on the premises. Globe-trotting yarn wants us to believe that New York City and Mexico are just a stone's throw from each other, or that this Falcon is really just a nice guy, quite used to helping out desperate females. Neither washes, while the solving of the crime is rote and unexciting. ** from ****

Tom Conway has just promised his lady love to not take ay more cases, when Mona Maris asks him to help recover a painting of her. It turns out that the painter has been dead for fifteen years, and it's of a lady who died a couple of years ago, which eventually sends Conway down to Mexico with the painter's daughter, Martha Vickers. There the case grows a bit more tangled amidst all the cantina entertainment that RKO can provide on a B budget, plus more of the worst backscreen work I've ever seen, of Conway and a lady walking past a central square somewhere in Mexico. Shoddy technicals aside, this is another Falcon movie with a nice little mystery story, and Frank Redman's usual fine camerawork -- except for that darned backscreen. Director William Berke does't add much oomph to the movie, and there is a shortage of pretty, underdressed girls, but you can't have everything.

When Tom Conway met that black cat determined to cross his path he should have gone blocks out of the way. He didn't though and wound up helping Cecilia Callejo break into an art gallery to retrieve a painting for which she modeled. But the gallery owner is dead Callejo flees through a window and Conway has to run from the San Francisco police. The daughter of the dead artist who painted it played by Martha Vickers might provide answers. So might Vickers's stepmother Mona Maris and her new husband Joseph Vitale. So might millionaire Emory Parnell who bought several of the dead artist's paintings. They all wind up meeting in old Mexico providing The Falcon with a host of subjects. Along with ever helpful driver Nestor Paiva and his young son Fernando Alvarado. A middle run Falcon film, the exotic location helps, but it's not anything but a studio created Mexico.

Falcon in Mexico, The (1944) ** (out of 4) The Falcon (Tom Conway) travels to Mexico where he gets involved with murder and a mysterious painting. This entry gets a minor leg up from the Mexican locations, which are probably just backlot shots but the actual mystery itself is rather bland. The screenplay is all over the place and even when the killer was revealed it still didn't make too much sense. Conway is really hit and miss in this series and I'd have to call him a major miss here. The supporting cast isn't any better and many of the members from previous films, including Cliff Clark, are missing here, which doesn't help matters.

"The Falcon in Mexico" is a 1944 entry into "The Falcon" series, by now starring Tom Conway. In this story, Tom Lawrence (The Falcon) is in Mexico investigating the possibility that a dead artist might not be so dead after all, after he sees the model for one of the artist's portraits. The artist has been dead 15 years, but if that's the case, this woman has discovered the secret of eternal youth - until she winds up dead. Did I mention the portrait looks like a paint by numbers? Martha Vickers plays the artist's daughter, who keeps "seeing" her father. Mona Maris is her remarried stepmother who dances in a Mexican club with her new husband. The movie is okay, with an abrupt ending, which isn't unusual in these films, and the movie seems like an ad for visiting Mexico. Supposedly some of the footage is from the Orson Welles' debacle "It's All True." If so, I'm glad RKO found good use for it.