O Mistério do Morto

"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.

So is artist Wade alive or not. His daughter seems to think so even though he's supposedly ensconced in a crypt in Mexico. Fear not, however, the Falcon (Conway) is on the case. Actually the ingredients of a good mystery are present but the script mixes them up in a sloppy fashion. Much of the problem, as other reviewers note, is the big travelogue part, which only gets out of Hollywood proper thanks to some artistic Orson Welles stock footage. Otherwise it's process shots and RKO's backlot, along with that all-purpose ethnic Nestor Paiva (Manuel) furnishing a dollop of comic relief. Then too, the musical interludes tend to interrupt at inconvenient times. (Still, I really like the enchanting two little girl singers Hunter & Alvarez.)

What's worth watching for the guys, at least, are the gals, especially Vickers who's downright beautiful, at least in my book. I could have used a couple dozen more close-ups. Too bad the director treats her so casually. Anyway, the smooth-as-silk Conway is on hand to lend this slapdash programmer some class. But he really was better off with the great Val Lewton and his classic horror fests than he is here.

Something happened to the Falcon on his flight down to Mexico. He was never the same after he landed.

For the first 15 minutes or so of this movie -- set in a large U.S. city -- everything is terrific. The Falcon meets two beautiful women, commits two minor crimes, finds a corpse, gets wrongly accused of murder, escapes from custody and learns that something mysterious is going on south of the border. It doesn't all happen in exactly that order, but there's plenty of fast-paced fun.

But once the Falcon and one of the women fly to Mexico, the excitement levels off. The plot slows to a crawl. Events, including murders, seem almost random, and even the characters appear bored at time. At one point, the Falcon warns a Mexican gentleman that somebody may try to kill his daughter. The man shrugs off the tip and assures our hero that Mexico is a very safe place. He's not even curious about where the threat comes from!

The problem with the main part of this movie is that there's so much Mexico, there's no room left for mystery. There's travelogue-style footage of lakes and mountains, and some of it is very good. There are songs in Spanish, performances of masked Mexican dancers and shots of Mexican fishermen at work. There are even stereotypical "comic" Mexicans who talk like Speedy Gonzales. But there's no suspense, and the ending is very weak.

Considering when it was made, "The Falcon in Mexico" probably had a public relations component. During World War II, the U.S. government encouraged Hollywood to portray Latin America in a favorable light. But in a mystery movie, an exotic setting goes only so far. After a crackerjack start, this little whodunit is ultimately unsatisfying. It's at its weakest where it should have been strongest.

after 16 minutes anyway. Not that it detracts from a nice little comedy-mystery, but this was an even cheaper affair than usual from RKO as they used up a lot of stock rustic Mexican background film to lilting music here while the main characters glided or drove about in front. Tom Conway as the Falcon looked as handsome and debonair as ever (no. 9/13 – I don't count those last 3 non-RKO efforts with John Calvert), and had to do without the comedy double act of Clark and Gargan from now on.

Investigation of a painting painted by a dead man (with an art gallery eerily similar to the one in Woman In The Window) leads to murder and theft; the Falcon is chased by the cops while he's chasing the baddies all the way into deepest Mexico. The dead painter's daughter was played chockful of feminine intuition by Martha Vickers, next step for her was the cute Big Sleep. She also uttered my favourite line from all of the Falcon films – "My father lived at this inn while he was alive" – wonderful stuff! Nestor Paiva played a helpful ambiguous peasant and Joseph Vitale a rather unhelpful serious dancer, some of their best stuff was to come later with Paramount. The only downer was the climax could've been handled with a little more sensitivity, but in these pics time was money!

Another excellent and engrossing Falcon outing for the cognoscenti, serious people shouldn't waste their valuable time.

This "Falcon" entry relocates to Mexico and features all the stock characters and situations that one would expect from Hollywood in that setting - some of which (the repeated footage of songs in the cantina, for instance) is obviously used simply as filler. But what raises the resulting film somewhat above average is the unexpected twist it manages to place on much of its material. Barbara's exotic young stepmother turns out to be genuinely attached to her, for instance, while the grinning, thick-witted Mexican who seems to be playing a part in a bad film turns out to be a very cool bird indeed.

There is some artful photography and some smart dialogue, and while there does seem to be a certain amount of tourist advertising blatantly inserted -- literally, as in photographs of travel brochures -- this film is more interesting than I thought it was going to be. Oddly enough, while it features a number of murders they are all left more or less in the background to the main mystery, which is the question of who faked the stolen portrait... or indeed, if it was faked at all...