It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The plot in Devil's Cargo (not sure why they went with that title - it has nothing to do with the movie) is easily the best thing the movie has going for it. There are a few nice twists and turns along the way. I'm not sure why I didn't see the end coming, but part of it really surprised me. Anyway, Ramon Delgado (Paul Marion) shows up one morning at Michael Watling (John Calvert) aka the Falcon's apartment to confess to a murder. He says he killed a man named Conroy who was cheating with his wife, Margo (Rochelle Hudson). Delgado claims he warned the man twice before shooting him during a struggle. He has a key he wants Watling to hold for him. He's convinced that once his story comes out, he'll be acquitted and he'll then come by to collect his key. But almost as soon as Delgado is in police custody, two things happen that rouse the Falcon's suspicion. First, there are a couple of hoods that desperately want that key. Second, Delgado is found poisoned to death in his cell. What's so important about the key and why did someone murder Delgado?But once you get past the plot, there's very little here I liked. First, and most obviously, what happened to the Falcon? This isn't the suave character played by George Sanders and Tom Conway. Calvert's Falcon is the kind of guy who I wanted to punch in the face for acting like an idiot one minute and overly cocky and smug the next. And his ever present and unwanted magic tricks serve no purpose - well, no purpose other than to annoy me. Calvert's attempts at humor are almost as bad as the magic bits. Again, it's just annoying. With a plot I enjoyed, a different actor in the lead might have made this a much better movie. The rest of the acting is generally abysmal. I'm not exaggerating when I say I cringed a few times at the poor delivery of some of the lines. And I was really disappointed in the way Rochelle Hudson was used. She's barely in the movie. Finally, I couldn't help but notice at times how bad the music was and generally inappropriate for the action on screen.As much as I enjoy the earlier Falcon movies, Devil's Cargo is a huge disappointment.

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!

First of three post war Falcon films is very different than the Tom Conway/George Saunders series. Certainly the character is unrelated being named Michael Waring as opposed to Gay or Tom Lawrence. This is an extremely poverty stricken film that looks more like the shot on film TV series from a few years later. Still it manages to score points for being its own little engine of entertainment.The plot has Waring, played by John Calvert as a wise talking, magic doing, detective given 500 dollars by a client to hold on to a key for him. He is to give the key to his attorney when he asks for it. The client it seems has just committed a well publicized murder which he thinks he won't be tried for. Not long after the client is taken into custody Waring begins to be tailed, some one wants the key. Someone also wants his client dead and he somehow murdered in his jail cell.While not the Falcon most of us know, this is a good little mystery. The plot takes a few unexpected turns which coupled with Waring's magic and attitude makes this one to watch despite its cheapness. This is one to find and watch with a big bag of popcorn.

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 ?