TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** Film has the distinction of the one of the oldest living Hollywood actors John Calvert-who passed away on September 27, 2013 at the ripe old age of 102-in it as the famous detective Michael "The Falcon" Watling. It's "The Falcon" who together with his sidekick pooch "Brain-trust" are out to solve the murder of mob bookmaker Bruce "Lucky" Conroy whom the not so on the ball Ramon Delgardo, Paul Merion, confessed to murdering. Right form the start Delgardo'd confession smelled to high heaven in him claiming he did it, kill Conroy, because he was fooling around with his wife Margo, Rochelle Hudson,whom he caught in the act.It soon turns out that high priced shyster Thomas Mallon,Theodore Von Eltz, jumps to Delgardo'd defense without asking a cent, very unusual for the ambulance chasing lawyer, in fees. things get even stranger when Delgardo is found dead in his jail cell just before he was to stand trail for the late "Luck", who wasn't so lucky, Conroy's murder trial. This has "The Falcon" check out Delgardo'd belongings at a local Salvation Army clothing store that, hidden in a shoe of his, names the person who murdered Conroy and the reason why. That had to do with a long string of losing bets he had booked with Conroy that he didn't have the money to pay back.***SPOILERS*** "The Falcon" uses his wits as well as the assistance "Brain-trust" to figure out not only who murdered both "Lucky" Conroy as well as Delgardo and one of the hoods Naga, Tom Kennedy,who was blown to bits. That's when he jumped the gun and tried to get his hands on the $24,500.00 hidden in a safe deposit box that was meant for Delgardo's killer who actually murdered Conroy whom Delgardo was willing to take the rap for in case he tried to double-cross him. "The Falcon" also called the police to come to his rescue after suspecting that the person who was to call them was in fact working with Delgardo's killer and planning, like Delgardo, to set him up for the kill!

JohnHowardReid The 16 picture "Falcon" series which commenced so promisingly with RKO's The Gay Falcon in 1941, starring George Sanders in the title role, is now on its last gasp. Admittedly, it's not a total waste of time. Aside from its curiosity value, this fourteenth entry does boast an interesting support cast including comedians Roscoe Karns and Tom Kennedy in straight roles as a police lieutenant and a gangster, respectively. In the title role, John Calvert, a professional magician in real life, does attempt a few tricks, but in at least one of them he is obviously helped out by some clumsy special effects work. Although second-billed, the lovely Rochelle Hudson, not seen in movies since 1942, has not much of a role here. Blink, two or three times, and you'll miss her. The movie was directed with a bit more punch than his usual half-steam by slow-paced John F. Link, Sr., a Monogram editor who handled the elongated editing for the poor Charlie Chan entry, Meeting at Midnight. (By "elongated editing", I mean editing that purposely allows scenes to run far too long and well past their interest value, in order to spin out an otherwise too-short film to support feature length of around 60 minutes). This was Link's first film as a director. He followed up with Call of the Forest in 1949, then returned very briefly to the editor's bench in 1952. Devil's Cargo (the screenplay has absolutely nothing to do with either devils or cargoes) is available on a very good Alpha DVD. Rated "5" for its curiosity value!

django-1 This was the first of three films made by the small "Film Classics" company in 1948-49 starring actor-magician John Calvert as The Falcon, and it's very much unlike the latter two films. In this one, Calvert does magic tricks at various times throughout the movie (!!) AND his co-star is a dog named Brain Trust (!!!) who is listed as playing "himself." Calvert actually talks to the dog in some scenes. Perhaps the dog was a nod to the successful Thin Man films, but fortunately the dog routine was dropped in the latter two films, as were the magic tricks (which are a pleasant distraction,actually!). The film starts, and ends, with Calvert sitting in his bathtub! In the first scene, a man named Ramon Delgado comes to see The Falcon and confesses that he killed a man last night because the man was involved with his wife. Delgado feels that the killing was in self-defense and asks the Falcon to help him turn himself in to the police and see that his rights are respected. Of course, as this is a murder mystery, things are obviously not as simple as that, and the plot unfolds in a fascinating way. As in the other films in the series, the resolution is unexpected and quite exciting. This film was directed by John Link, a journeyman who mostly worked as an editor, and it also features some nice location shooting in 1948 L.A. A fine supporting cast of veterans--Roscoe Karns as the police lt., Rochelle Hudson as the seductive Mrs. Delgado, Theodore Van Eltz as a seedy attorney, Lyle Talbot as a mysterious "business man", and comedian Tom Kennedy, who often played a dim-witted copy, as a dim-witted thug! Trivia note: supporting actor Michael Mark appears in small but significant roles in all three Falcon films... in this one, he's the man working at the Salvation Army. Calvert's smooth, laid-back, but witty approach to the Falcon role is a refreshing change-of-pace, and it's a shame they only made three of these films. This is by far the quirkiest of the three, the latter two being more straight-forward detective films minus dog routines and magic tricks. All three Calvert Falcon films are recommended to fans of low-budget 40s murder mysteries/detective films.

Bruce Corneil The handsome and urbane John Calvert gives a tough yet breezy performance as Hollywood private eye Michael Waring - code named "The Falcon" . Although Calvert possessed a polished and charismatic screen presence and appeared in nearly thirty films for RKO and Columbia his first love remained the art of magic through which he became an international variety star.This is a real bargain basement production and there's one particularly curious quirk that's worth listening for. Whenever any of the supporting cast refer to the last name of Calvert's character it's obvious that changes have been made in the post production process. Specifically, it seems that the name "Waring" has been cut out on each occasion and substituted with "Watling". The obvious question is .. why ? Possibly some kind of copyright issue ?