Month: March 2022

The Falcon in Mexico (1944)

The Falcon in Mexico (1944)
Article 6048 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-13-2022
Directed by William Berke
Featuring Tom Conway, Mona Maris, Martha Vickers
Country: USA
What it is: Mystery

The Falcon is under suspicion for the murder of an art dealer who has a painting supposedly from a painter who has died in Mexico. He flees to Mexico in order to clear himself and find the real murderer.

If I really squinted a lot, I might make the argument that the movie can be classified as horror since there seems to be a dead man walking about, but that would imply this movie is trying for effects it is not going for. In truth, there’s no fantastic content here to speak of, and the only reason I’m covering it is that the Lentz guides have a bad habit of including all the movies of certain series in which only one or two of them have sufficient fantastic content. Still, this is an entertaining little programmer, with Tom Conway giving a solid performance in the title role and a few interesting twists and turns in the plot. Nestor Paiva is also memorable as a persistent tour guide who attaches himself to the Falcon, though he has a secret of his own. If this entry is any indication, it looks like the Falcon movies make for an entertaining series.

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Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (1990)

Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (1990)
Article 6047 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-6-2022
Directed by Damian Lee
Featuring Jesse Ventura, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Damian Lee
Country: Canada
What it is: Cheap SF actioner

A child with the ability to calculate the anti-life equation is born on Earth due to the machinations of an inter-galactic criminal. When the criminal returns to Earth to find the child and get the equation, an intergalactic policeman is sent to prevent it….possibly by killing the child.

According to IMDB’s trivia section, Arnold Schwarzenegger was offered the title role in this movie but turned it down in favor of doing TERMINATOR 2, a movie that has similar plot details. If this is true, the decision was a no-brainer; there was no way this cheap little Canadian film was going to look as impressive on his resume. The tagline was “An adventure across time and space” and it is deceptive; almost all of the action takes place on Earth, and outside of a couple of scenes that take place a few years earlier, the action mostly seems to occur over a span of two to three days. It’s a cheaply made Canadian-made film starring a wrestler with a rating of 2.9 on IMDB with poor action sequences, but at least it has a bit of a sense of humor; the scene where the villain has to deal with his restaurant bill is the best moment in the movie. The movie sets itself up for a sequel in the final moments, but unsurprisingly, none emerged. Not a cinematic high point.

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