Appointment with Murder

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.

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.

The remarkable John Calvert stars as The Falcon in "Appointment with Murder" from 1948. This was one of three Falcon films made in 1948 by Calvert.

In this film, The Falcon (now called Michael Waring) is working for an insurance company and is sent to Europe to trace some paintings. He becomes involved with art forgers and the murder of an art forger in Italy.

A note about the name - supposedly The Falcon's name here is Michael Waring but it sounded in the film like Watling every time someone said it.

Calvert was debonair and sophisticated, but the movies aren't as much fun as the films with George Sanders. This film was very dry without the usual humor seen with The Falcon.

Calvert's actual career was that of a magician. He was the inspiration of Siegfried and Roy, and Mrs. Houdini said he was second to Harry as far as talent. Throughout his life, he traveled extensively doing magic shows, teaching, and occasionally doing a bit of acting.

Calvert was invited to perform his magic act both on Broadway in New York City and at the London Palladium Theatre on his 100th birthday. He died at the age of 102.

After the Falcon series ran its course with Tom Conway at RKO, the character was taken over for a few films with John Calvert in the role, made on a low budget for the interesting "Film Classics" company, which specialized in indie crime/noir/mystery films for a few years in the late 40s--this was the 2nd of 3 such Falcon entries. It most resembles the later PRC product, but is a step below PRC in the professionalism department, with a mix of veterans and seeming amateurs in the cast, and with a few small cheap sets. The plot revolves around art theft and fraud, and setting is LA and Italy, Italy being represented by a room and a staircase! John Calvert is quite different from Tom Conway as an actor--yes,he is tall and has a thin moustache, and he speaks in an subdued, educated manner, but he isn't the charmer or the wit of Conway's character, and here he is in the employ of an insurance company, where he reports to the hardest-working-man-in-b-movies, Lyle Talbot. There's never really any doubt about who does what to whom, but the various characters are all attempting to fool other characters as to their true identity and motives, so the "mystery" is how long that will keep up... as well as whether the Falcon will be able to resolve the art fraud situation. I've watched this film twice in the last year, and it's a decent late 40s low-budget mystery that's as good as the average 45-47 PRC film or late 40s/early 50s Eagle-Lion/Lippert output. Like a good little-known detective novel that you stumble across from the 40s or 50s, this film does what it needs to do and no doubt satisfied its audience in its day. Director Jack Bernhard--who made the amazing Decoy and the almost-as- amazing Violence the year before at Monogram--doesn't have the same kind of over-the-top, pulpy material to work with here, but no doubt could work efficiently in the vein of a William Berke or a Sam Newfield. Don't expect another Decoy here. Anyone who is seriously into low-budget post-WWII detective movies enough to even know what this film is will probably want to see it.

Not that RKO was the cream of studios in Hollywood. But those Falcon movies that were done there looked like Gone With The Wind next to these last Falcon movies with John Calvert. In fact this independent makes a typical PRC film look good.

Calvert is off to Italy and back searching for a pair of paintings that the owner Peter Brocco claims were stolen. When Calvert finds one of them he finds out also it's a fake and the artist who copied it is murdered.

So it's back to Los Angeles and to art dealer Catherine Craig who is involved though Calvert does not know how much.

These Falcon films aren't a patch on the George Sanders/Tom Conway films done at RKO. This one is one dull snooze.