The Falcon Out West (1944)

the audience applauded

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

As Good As It Gets

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.

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.

This time the Falcon goes Wild West, which was a nice change from the asphalt based crimes he usually dealt with – like a breath of fresh air. It's only a pity that cynical Cliff Clark and gorging Ed Gargan in their last Falcon film weren't given some horse riding to do too!Tom Conway as Tom Lawrence doesn't want to get mixed up in a beautiful damsel in distress's marital problems but immediately takes over when the ex-husband is murdered by snakebite venom in a New York nightclub. The trail takes him – and all of the suspects too - back to the dead man's ranch and his Will, where the plot thickens. Favourite bit: the sudden late night poker game trying to hide the fact there was something to hide from the cops, to their disbelief. The barbecue evening was lovely with young Barbara Hale adding nicely to the scenery, Gargan concentrating on the food, Clark smoking in the background with the host and the Falcon concentrating on solving the crime – it only needed the Merry Mac's to round it off!If you prefer serious meaningful modern films you sure wasted your time! It was a nice little unassuming atmospheric whodunit without being either heavy or too taxing of course, just how I like 'em in fact.

Tom Lawrence aka The Falcon is out enjoying himself in a New York nightclub full of society types. Among them is a Texan playboy who suddenly starts complaining of a pain that feels like a snakebite, before dropping to the floor and dying. Investigating the body, Lawrence finds two marks indicating a snake had indeed bitten the man but soon finds that a minor detail as the man's fiancé flees the scene and catches a train back to Texas. Lawrence follows her and finds the police have already gotten to Texas via plane and are waiting legal papers to take her back. Lawrence investigates the murder with all the suspects on the victim's ranch in a case where he risks his own life.By this stage in the series, things were looking like flagging and the location being built into the title (Texas and, later, Hollywood) suggested to me that the series wasn't relying on plotting and character to bring the audience in but seemed to be looking to the switching location to be enough to make the series suddenly feel fresh and interesting. In this regard the film fails because this is just the same formula but this time put into a setting that is poorly used and never really fits with the Falcon's style. The mystery story is still worth watching though because it is enjoyable in a b-movie sort of way. The setting is annoying and just seemed to be a way to drag in lots of western clichés into the film – Indians, shoot-outs, horse riding etc without really adding value at all. Fans will feel that this could have been better and they would be right because it is only average at best and isn't the best of the series by a long shot; meanwhile the causal viewer will probably not bother with this at all.The cast are OK, filled as it is with the usual b-movie actors. Conway is a great Falcon and is the main selling point of the series with a smart performance that is lacking Saunders' rather snide edge. Hale was a nice surprise since I only know her from the Perry Mason series and she is interesting in her character. Gallagher is a bit bland and blonde and isn't very impressive. Without a sidekick for the Falcon, Gargan is the sole comic relief and he does it reasonably well without interfering with the main thrust of the film, meanwhile Clark delivers a much more serious performance as the Inspector. Talbot has a few seconds of screen time and the rest of the cast are pretty clichéd Texan role although the Indians have some minor revenge by mocking Detective Bates' assumptions of their intelligence! Overall this is an average entry in the series but it is still good enough for fans to consider it worth seeing. The location is a big distraction and isn't used very well at all but the plot is reasonably interesting and the playing is quite enjoyable for a b-movie. Like I said, worth seeing it for fans of the series like myself but I doubt that this will be the Falcon film that wins over the casual viewer.