Mystère à Mexico

"Mystery in Mexico" is a pretty good crime film. However, it does suffer from a few writing difficulties....the worst of which occurs near the beginning of the film. An insurance investigator (William Lundigan) is looking for another insurance investigator who has gone missing...and possibly with a $200,000 necklace! The only possible lead is the missing man's sister--who is suddenly bound for Mexico. So he heads to Mexico as well and 'just happens to meet her' on the way to the plane. Now here is a serious problem with the film...he behaves like a boorish pig...sexually harassing the heck out of her during the trip. It's supposed to be some sort of 'meet cute'...but it comes off in 2019 as a guy who needs a sock in the nose. And, later in the film, she inexplicably falls for him!!

So how do I still give the film a 6? Well, the mystery is pretty good and it has a few nice twists. Plus, it's really neat that RKO actually filmed the movie in Mexico...and seeing the countryside and Mexico City was very nice and made it all seem real. Worth seeing....but some folks might really be annoyed by Lundigan's style! My, how times have changed...and in this case, for the better.

By the way, this film also features Ricardo Cortez as a Mexican guy. Well, truth be told, Cortez was really about as Mexican as Chow Mein! He was actually Jacob Krantz, born to Jewish Parents in New York City. Back in the 1920s, there was a Latino leading man craze--with Valentino the biggest star in the world. The studios wanted to capitalize on this and re-christened Krantz 'Ricardo Cortez'...and for many years fans thought he was Mexican. In fact, he didn't even speak Spanish and I was surprised to hear him speaking a bit in the film...though it also didn't sound all that authentic.

An early film from Robert Wise, the much acclaimed director of different science fiction and musical films, this is quite different stuff to what he would later be best known for, and in all honestly it is noticeably inferior too. It is far from being a poor film, but the production is far off being great too, with a quite lifeless, underdeveloped central romance and not too much to get excited over in terms of the mystery plot and technical credits. To fans of its director, the film will certainly be of some interest, but to other viewers it might well sit as mediocre: neither really good nor really bad.

This is quite a decent little crime thriller that starts with what looks like a burglar being shot. Turns out, though, that the victim was an insurance investigator and "Hastings" (William Lundigan) is now despatched to Mexico to find out just what happened to him. In trying to piece things together, he encounters the sister of the missing man. "Victoria" (Jacqueline White) is also trying to track down her missing brother. Quite what she sees in him is anyone's guess - he's actually quite an odious fellow - but click they do and are soon on the case of the rather obvious villain of the piece. This film is probably only notable as a project from Robert Wise but it doesn't hang about and though the plot does follow the usual tram lines a little too readily, there's a lively effort here from White and it passes an hour easily enough.

William Lundigan had been in hollywood for ten years by the time this rolled around. he's Steve, who has been hired to track down what happened to his co-worker and the missing jewels down in mexico. on the plane, he bumps into Victoria (Jacqueline White), and makes a terrible first impression. and now the story line has switched, and now we're following Victoria as she enters what seems to be a haunted house. the script moves rather slowly and linearly. and.. .all of a sudden, its over, very abruptly. directed by Robert Wise. won Oscars for Sound of Music and West Side Story! according to the opening credits, parts of the film were actually filmed at a studio in mexico city. it's ok. a shortie from RKO studios.

William Lundigan complained about always being given and accepting lousy parts;it was not always true : "follow me quietly" by Richard Fleischer he made the following year is a really good thriller and he had a truly great director.

In "mystery in Mexico " he 's got Robert Wise !Wise retained flair for film noir ("the captive city" "odds against tomorrow" and "the set -up");it shows in the very first sequence and in the Mexican family's house in the final scenes;the rest of the movie ,unfortunately,fluctuates between comedy (Lundigan and the supporting cast do not seem to take the story seriously;Jacqueline White has different ways to give "short cuts" );and we don't care about the necklace (probably bought in a dime store).

All in all,this is pretty entertaining stuff if you do not ask too much and the actors have a certain spontaneity,particularly the lead himself.