Appointment with Murder

In the second of three 'Falcon' mysteries starring John Calvert, he is working for Lyle Talbot's insurance company recovering stolen paintings. The trail leads to Italy, where an interesting variation on the 'Gold Ring' confidence game is in operation. Artist Peter Brocco offers Calvert a painting by the artist of the stolen paintings. While Calvert is thinking the deal over -- because he's not sure they're real -- he is offered a huge profit on them; the confidence game will end after he has paid and taken possession, whereupon they will be stolen from him.

It's a nicely tangled mystery that leads him to Catherine Craig, a gallery owner and art authenticator in Los Angeles, and cross and double cross. Every time Calvert seems to have been swindled, he gets out of it with such nonchalant ease that all suspense is drained out of the movie: demonstrating that it takes more than a pencil-thin mustache, an erratic Ronald Colman imitation, and the writers on your side to make a movie star.

This is the 15th of the 16 Falcon films, and the second starring John Calvert as the Falcon. There are no witty lines in this film at all, which is entirely without humour, and it is all played absolutely straight. There is no pet dog, as the rather inadequate dog of the previous film has been dropped without explanation, and Calvert does not try to be 'cute' this time. (In the previous film he did a few magic tricks with things appearing and disappearing in his hands, which were not very good either, and they have been ditched too.) The story is about two stolen paintings by the renaissance artist Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), the intrigues, two murders, and other attempted murders, connected with them. Are they fakes? Are they real? Some of the characters believe one thing and some believe the other. No less than two corpses are left lying while the characters go off and do other things. In one case, the Falcon flies to America leaving a dead man lying in a room in Milan. And in the other case, a hotel desk clerk's corpse is left lying behind his desk, entirely forgotten by both the Falcon and the police as they leave the hotel. Evidently, the script writer did not remember that murder victims cannot be disposed of simply by turning a page in the script, but require people to collect and bury their bodies. This is another extremely low budget effort, and an undistinguished one. Calvert has the annoying habit of grinning most of the time, for no particular reason. Either he was sternly lectured as a child to 'smile, Jonnny, smile', or some acting coach told him he must lighten up, so that he thought contorting his face in inappropriate grins was the way to do it. You know how some dogs attempt to imitate the smiles of their owners, well Calvert is like a dog who does that. As for this film, undemanding fans of old mystery films will find it interesting for the complexities of the story.

During the 1940s, there were 16 different Falcon movies starring three different actors. The first to play the character was George Sanders. When he tired of the role and wanted to do other projects instead, his real life brother, Tom Conway, took over the role. Then, after making nine of these films, Conway was replaced by John Calvert*. "Appointment with Murder" was the second of three Falcon films starring Calvert.

When the story begins, Michael Waring ('the Falcon') is in Italy. He's there investigating some forged and stolen paintings. When it appears he has everything wrapped up, someone tries to burglarize his room AND they also kill the forger and ransack his flat. Waring then heads back to the States and continues his investigations.

This is not a bad film but after seeing and hearing the very smooth brothers play the Falcon in other films, the much more ordinary Calvert is a huge letdown. It's not that Calvert is bad....but Sanders and Conway were much more memorable and sophisticated. You can't help but compare the actors if you've seen any of the previous films. Plus, the writers had Calvert involved in far more fighting than the previous two...and he punches and gets punched a lot in "Appointment with Murder". Overall, a modestly interesting film...one that is not up to the standards of the earlier Falcon films.







*Calvert only made a baker's dozen films. His main claim to fame was as a magician...one of the more famous ones of the 20th century.

Another forgettable in-name-only Falcon movie from Film Classics starring John Calvert. The plot has the supposed Falcon Michael Watling (Calvert) tracking down stolen paintings for an insurance company. Riveting stuff. Most scenes involve Calvert walking into a drab room and exchanging boring lines with someone you wouldn't be able to pick out of a lineup five minutes later. It's a cheap-looking film with little action or humor. Just lots of talking and not a single line of memorable dialogue. Calvert is very dull. He may sound a bit like Lee Van Cleef but has none of his screen presence. I miss Conway and Sanders. This is not a good movie. Only of interest to insomniacs.

APPOINTMENT WITH MURDER is a late entry in a long-running series of films about The Falcon, an international crime fighter who tours the globe bringing various criminals to justice. I haven't seen any of these films before - at least, I don't think I have - so I wasn't sure what to expect from this one.

What I got was a murky little potboiler with a few neat action sequences to recommend it, but a film which is overall let down by a convoluted plot line and a poor choice of hero. The pockmarked John Calvert has a face that is permanently contorted into a sneer, so he ends up looking more like a villainous henchman than the hero of the piece. By contrast one of this movie's chief villains looks like a cuddly teddy bear so you can't take him seriously as a menacing figure.

The plot is about the hunt for a couple of stolen and priceless paintings but it doesn't really amount to much apart from lots of back and forth sort of stuff with the authorities and some tacked-on romance type material. You have to laugh at the way the police don't bother getting involved in the proceedings and corpses are left laying around at various intervals. I didn't mind the brief fight scenes but overall APPOINTMENT WITH MURDER is a letdown.