utgard14 The Falcon heads to Texas to solve a rancher's murder. In most of the classic film series from the '30s and '40s, detective or otherwise, it seemed mandatory that they put the main character in a western setting at some point. I'm not sure whether this was done because audiences loved cowboys or to get more use out of existing western sets, as well as easy on the writers to reuse tired plots and clichés. This is the weakest Falcon movie up to this point. It isn't much fun despite some forced comedy and the mystery is pretty limp. The western stuff is more corny than exciting. When they found an excuse to add a runaway stagecoach gag, I knew it would be a long hour. Tom Conway and the regulars do their best, but they are out of their element with this setting. Sadly this is the last appearance in the series for both Cliff Clark and Edward Gargan. The obligatory lovely ladies this time are Carole Gallagher, Barbara Hale, and Joan Barclay. Lyle Talbot has a surprisingly small part, being killed off in the first five minutes of the picture. It's not a bad movie but a bit of a disappointment following the extremely enjoyable Falcon and the Co-Eds.

jacobs-greenwood By utilizing other talents from within RKO Studios, the Falcon series was given a Western locale similar to those found in so many B Westerns from the same time period, with a screenplay from Morton Grant (and Billy Jones) and cinematography by Harry Wild.Based on the character created by Michael Arlen and directed by William Clemens, it features Tom Conway as Tom Lawrence aka The Falcon, an amateur sleuth that helps the police solve crimes whether they like it or not; Cliff Clark repeats as Inspector Timothy Donovan, Edward Gargan is Detective Bates. Three ladies are on hand for the Falcon's pleasure (and ours), including a Lana Turner lookalike Carole Gallagher as Vanessa Drake, Barbara Hale (years before she assisted TV's Perry Mason) as Marion Colby, and series regular Joan Barclay as Mrs. Irwin. Lyle Talbot plays Tex Irwin, whose murder begins this B movie crime mystery comedy; Minor Watson plays his business partner-Marion's dad, rancher Dave Colby and Don Douglas plays Tex's attorney Steven Hayden. Lee Trent plays Tex's ranch hand Dusty; Perc Launders is Colby's hand Red.After Tex dies in a New York nightclub of a rattlesnake bite, the Falcon follows the rancher's fiancée Vanessa to Texas, where Inspector Donovan, Detective Bates, and Tex's attorney Steven Hayden catch up with them. But without extradition papers, the police's only choice is to accept Vanessa's hospitality at the ranch that Tex had signed over to her as a wedding present. After a runaway stagecoach incident, the gang meets Marion Colby, and later her father Dave, neighbors of the Irwins. A few more curious events cast suspicions upon the Colbys as suspects in Tex's murder, though most of them occurred after Mrs. Irwin's arrival and the return of the ranch's Indian servants. Attorney Hayden is no longer a suspect when he too is killed with rattlesnake venom, and the fact that Colby has a 16th century Spanish ring to deliver the poison doesn't bode well for the rancher, especially when the Falcon also discovers the Irwin ranch deed in his possession. But Colby says that Tex had second thoughts about giving Vanessa the ranch when he'd discovered that she was having an affair with someone else. Apparently only the Falcon was paying attention to how protective Dusty was being of Vanessa because while the police were taking Colby off to jail, he was accusing her of double homicide. When Inspector Donovan finally gets a clue, a shootout ensues between he and Dusty until the Falcon steps in and saves the day. The movie ends in the typical way, a beautiful woman pleading for the Falcon's help.

dougdoepke Average Falcon entry, with several notable touches. A wealthy Texan in a sophisticated New York nightclub dies suddenly on the dance floor. Okay, that's fairly standard B-movie plotting, except Tex dies from a rattlesnake bite of all things. Now last time I checked, rattlesnakes were not accepted on New York dance floors. Maybe they're found among celebrity gossips, but not between sashaying couples. So the unusual mystery deepens, taking Falcon and company out West to figure things out. Happily there're better humorous touches than usual, especially a twist on the stereotyped Indian use of "How". Still, Hollywood's version of Texas West means the rocky hills of greater LA, familiar from hundreds of cowboy matinees. Not that scenery really matters since plot and humor remain uppermost.Then too, it's a good chance to catch Della Street, oops!, I mean Barbara Hale on horseback stop a runaway stagecoach and save our hero the Falcon from an untimely crack-up. And here I thought it was supposed to be the other way around—hero saving girl, not girl saving hero. But never mind, the suave Falcon takes it all in stride. Note too that the 1944 movie was circulated among overseas GI's. The guys may not have cared who killed Tex, but for darn sure, I'll bet they liked the three shapely ladies who are a part of it.Anyway, it's an entertaining hour, courtesy RKO's slickly done detective series.

robert-temple-1 This is the eighth of the Falcon series. At this point, the series gets a bit silly. Perhaps inspired by The Marx Brothers Go West (1940), this misguided attempt to combine a detective thriller with a stagecoach (still used by an eccentric) and men riding around with six-shooters on their hips (although it is 1944), seems a bizarre attempt to import an urban thriller into a Roy Rogers movie. The rocks and trees are the very same ones remembered from childhood, past which all the cowboys rode in all those black and white Westerns. There are even morose Indians, useful for a few gags, since when a white man says 'How' to one of them, the Indian answers: 'Very well, thank you.' There is a lot of humour, and some lively lines are spoken. The plot is sound, with some interesting twists like a ring containing rattlesnake venom with two sharp spikes, which can be jabbed into someone to simulate a rattlesnake bite. If some restraint had been shown (but none was, and all was thrown to the winds), this thriller-out-west could have worked, cowboys and all, with Tom Conway wryly observing the quaintness of Texas customs. However, all the good points of this Falcon thriller are drowned in a sea of Western silliness, like a gun floating in a bowl of mush. Falcon fans will want to watch it anyway, because they are forgiving souls.