Movie review – Falcon #9 – “The Falcon in Mexico” (1944) **

The Falcon gets involved in a dodgy art fraud and heads south of the border. There’s no need really why this should be set in Mexico – but at least that’s a point of difference. There are some haciendas, comic Mexican relief to act as the Falcon’s sidekick, sombreros and documentary footage quite well integrated. I enjoyed the climax with lots of people dressed in masks and it’s a pretty decent story with some standard twists – the artist you think is dead turns out not to be dead, the Mexican sidekick turns out to be an undercover cop, etc. Still, not top-flight Falcon. The cast includes Martha Vickers, so caught lightning in a bottle with her performance in The Big Sleep but never managed to repeat it.