Supelice Dreadfully Boring

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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.

James Hitchcock The character of the Falcon, an amateur gentleman detective similar to Leslie Charteris' "the Saint", was created by Michael Arlen, a Bulgarian-born British writer of Armenian descent, and was then taken up by Hollywood in a series of crime dramas. Arlen's hero was named Gay Falcon, but in the films he was, for unknown reasons, renamed Gay Lawrence, "the Falcon" being a nickname. (Arlen's choice of a forename for his hero was a strange one. I am well aware that in the thirties and forties the word "gay" did not carry its modern meaning of "homosexual", but even then "Gay" was well-established as a feminine Christian name). In the first four films the Falcon was played by George Sanders, who had also played the Saint in a series of films based on Charteris' books. Feeling that he was becoming typecast, Sanders dropped out of the series after the fourth film in which a new Falcon was introduced, Gay Lawrence's brother Tom. This character was played by Sanders' real-life brother, Tom Conway. (His real name was Tom Sanders; "Conway" was a stage name)."The Falcon Out West" (aka "The Falcon in Texas") is one of Conway's contributions to the series. The Falcon is called in to investigate when Tex Irwin, a wealthy Western rancher, collapses and dies in a New York nightclub. The cause of death is established as rattlesnake venom, and as New York nightclubs are not the natural habitat of the rattlesnake the Falcon correctly suspects foul play. The action then moves to the Irwin ranch in Texas where the Falcon has no shortage of suspects- Irwin's ex-wife, his gold-digging fiancée Vanessa Drake, his business partner Dave Colby, his foreman Dusty and Colby's beautiful daughter Marion.The film rather incongruously combines the conventions of the detective murder mystery with those of the Western. The film was made in 1944 and the action is supposed to take place in that year, but the Falcon seems to travel backwards in time, from a 1940s New York to a Texas that does not appear to have changed much since the Wild West of the 1870s or 1880s. It incorporates what have been described as all the "standard horse-opera clichés", including ambushes, shootouts, stage coaches and Indians. As in many standard Westerns of the period the portrayal of the Indians is rather stereotyped and condescending.I preferred Tom Conway's interpretation of the Falcon to that of his brother, who struck me as being just a little too laid back, even when serious matters like murder were at stake. Conway manages to achieve the necessary lightness of touch without descending into frivolousness. As a murder mystery, however, this is not a very interesting one; I could spot who the murderer was a mile off, long before the solution to the crime was officially announced. The Western setting adds little of interest; trying to cross the whodunit with the horse-opera was not a great success. 5/10

MartinHafer While the film began in the big city, it soon changed venues to the American West and naturally involved an unsolved murder. Changing the locale to the West was certainly unusual and the lead seemed very out of place in such a rustic setting. However, while the locale changed, the overall story is just a typical Falcon mystery.When the series began, the Falcon films were exceptional for the genre with wonderful acting and a freshness that set them apart from the typical B-detective series films. However, as time passed and George Sanders left the series to pursue other acting opportunities, the series began to wane. While Tom Conway (Sanders' real life brother) was excellent and bore a close similarity to Sanders, he wasn't quite as good and he was also saddled with scripts that simply lost their zip and seemed more formulaic. As a result, this film was something that previous Falcon films were not--a tad dull.