Wed 17 Aug 2022
A PI Movie Review: DEVIL’S CARGO (1948).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[2] Comments
DEVIL’S CARGO. Film Classics, 1948. John Calvert as Michael “The Falcon” Watling, Rochelle Hudson, Roscoe Karns, Lyle Talbot, Theodore von Eltz, Michael Mark, Tom Kennedy, Paul Marion. Based on a character created by Michael Arlen. Director: John F. Link Sr.
This is the 14th of the 16 entries in Hollywood’s series of “The Falcon†movies, and the first to star magician-turned-movie-star John Calvert. I’m going to be generous and say that Calvert never made anyone forget either George Sanders or Tom Conway in the role, but if this happened to have been the first in the series, no one seeing this film would have asked for their money back, either. Suave, he wasn’t in the same league as the other two, but very few movie stars in the 1940s who didn’t mind playing private eyes in the movies were either.
The version of the character Calvert played seems to have been named Michael Watling, not Michael Waring, and at this late date, no one seems to know why. His client first enters while he’s taking a bath and confesses to the murder of a wealthy playboy. A crime of passion, he says, and while he knows he will be exonerated for that reason, he asks the Falcon to help give himself up to the police. For $500, the Falcon says yes.
There is a lot more to the story than that, and a lot of it has to do with a key, a locker in a bowling alley and a safety deposit box. And oh yes, the man doing the confessing has a wife (Rochelle Hudson), who is a looker, but when it comes down to it, she is not very nice, and when the client is poisoned to death in his jail cell, things get really complicated.
In spite of some rather indifferent production values, the mystery is a more than decent one. It actually makes sense, in other words, and when the pieces are all put on the table, they actually fit. When it comes to black-and-white PI movies from the 1940s, this is a huge, huge plus.
NOTE:The obligatory comment that has to be included in every review that’s ever been written of this film, is that there is no Devil in it, nor is there a Cargo. I couldn’t find room to point this out anywhere earlier, so here it is now.
August 18th, 2022 at 7:52 pm
Like the Gerald Mohr and Ron Randell Lone Wolf films or the Tom Conway and Randell Drummond and the Hugh Beaumont Michael Shayne films production values were a bit cheaper, but you wouldn’t have asked for your quarter back at the box office either.
I’m not sure why they split the difference between the movie and radio series this way, but I’m not sure anyone paid much attention to the fact the Falcon’s name really was Falcon after the first film in the series, and I’m sure the Michael Arlen story was forgotten by then.
The television version went a completely different way, but by then Conway was Mark Sabre and tough guys were all the rage.
I know others have written about the history of the Falcon but did one sobriquet ever have so many faces and names hiding behind it? I know there are two Lone Wolf characters (maybe more now), but the Falcon must feel like Sybil.
August 18th, 2022 at 10:31 pm
I would never write something critical of a film called The Devil’s Cargo, but the Conway Falcon films were well produced and they had him, who was better looking, far more suave and terrific compared to George in the part. In fact, I thought Sanders in either his Saint or Falcon incarnations came up wanting — by a lot.
A personal Louis Hayward reminiscence.
By the earl sixties Tom had lost it and was reported on the LA papers to be living in a $2.00 a night flop house. Louis went looking, found him, and gave Conway whatever he had, about $200.00. Back at home, he called Sanders the conversation went like this:
Hayward: Why don’t you give him some money?
Sanders: I did. I gave him $40,000.00 and he just drank it away.
After that, the two friends signed off.
It’s my understanding Zsa Zsa did the same thing Louis did but to no avail.