The Falcon In Mexico

Mexican Graffiti

The Falcon In Mexico
USA 1944
Directed by William Berke
RKO/Warner Archive
DVD Region 1

Well The Falcon In Mexico is certainly a strange entry in this film series, make no mistake. Despite the last movie, The Falcon Out West (reviewed here), having an ending on the usual pseudo-cliffhanger where Tom Lawrence, alias The Falcon (as played by Tom Conway) is hooked into another adventure and it looking like it could well actually continue, for once, into the next movie... it’s completely ignored, once again and, this one starts off in New York. Not only that but, for literally the opening scene, it seems The Falcon is once more with a girlfriend, or possibly a fiance, to whom he has promised not getting mixed up in anymore detective shenanigans. And... bizarrely... within less than five minutes of the girlfriend’s exit from that brief moment, he suddenly becomes embroiled in a strange affair about a stolen painting and suspected by the police of murder. And so he heads to Mexico, to the hometown of the dead artist who somehow seems to be still painting ‘aged’ pictures and... well... we never hear one thing from Lawrence’s gal again. It’s like they were trying to set her up as a familiar meddlesome presence in the movies, just like the earlier Falcon films but, then decided against it after all. With no other mention of her, it seems more than a little odd that they’d bother setting the character up, no matter how briefly, in the first place.

Sandwiched in the few seconds between the exit of his ‘girlfriend’ and the entrance of a new Mexican lady who is after a specific painting, which starts off The Falcon’s newest adventure, he has a black cat cross his path. One has to wonder if this is a reference to the character Conway played in the Val Lewton produced Cat People of 1942... a character he’d just played again in a sort of sideways sequel called The Seventh Victim in 1943 (actually, I really don’t want to go near this one again yet, because the character dies in Cat People and the fact that his character is up on his feet again unscathed but still able to reference what happened in the original film with no explanation just gives me a headache... supposedly everyone was just supposed to forget his character died?).

Anyway, embroiled in adventure he is and it’s a nice little mystery involving stolen paintings, the possible ghost of a woman’s father and a plot to keep the supposedly dead artist’s work valuable for those who wish to trade and own them. It’s been a while before The Falcon has had an assistant in the movies but he kinda gets one in this when a ‘personal chauffeur’ latches onto him and becomes his companion during the film. I was pleased to see that the part of the chauffeur, Manuel, is played by none other than Nestor Paiva, in probably the closest thing to a major role I’ve seen him in. Horror fans will of course know Nestor as he went on to play the captain of the boat in both Creature From The Black Lagoon (reviewed here) and Revenge Of The Creature (reviewed here).

And it’s business as usual. An enjoyable romp with some nice moments of puzzle solving for Tom Lawrence and even Manuel has a twist to his character... and not the one I was expecting, which is a pleasant surprise. But perhaps the biggest mystery in the picture is how... at the start of the movie, when he has to suddenly break into an art gallery there and then with no knowledge that anything was going to happen to him... is The Falcon able to suddenly produce a big torch as required? Does he just carry these big, bulky objects around in his jacket pocket somehow in case it could come in handy? And wouldn’t we have noticed if he was carrying something that large under his jacket? It seems kinda strange.

However, the film is quite fun and also has some silly moments in it too. For instance, whenever people are walking down the road in Mexico (or even paddling down a lake in one memorable scene), most of the time the actors are just studio bound and walking in front of a projected, moving backdrop as they walk on a treadmill. The background looks fine but there’s something about the way they are ‘walking on the spot but moving’ that is a give away. And when a young flower seller girl catches up, sells a flower to The Falcon and then just kinda floats away on the treadmill by standing still... well, it’s fun but even more of a giveaway. However, it’s always fun to spot this kind of set up and The Falcon In Mexico is another hugely entertaining installment in the adventures of The Falcon (or The Falcon’s brother if you want to get technical about it). Another odd thing about this movie, however, is that it’s the first one in the series, I think, which eschews the lead in to another adventure for the title character. This one just ends on a shot of a plane with The Falcon inside, flying home from whence he came. Which is fine with me, the next movie in this series of films which I can barely remember (since I last saw them in the 1980s) is set in Hollywood. So, yeah, I’m looking forward to that one.