Mystery in Mexico

MYSTERY IN MEXICO is a unique film from 1948. The unique points are as follows: 1. It was shot in Mexico with great locations. 2. An earlier directing effort from two time Academy Award winning director Robert Wise. 3.I liked how the Mexican Police were portrayed as helpful and saving the day instead of always the usual stigma of being corrupt. The movie begins with an Insurance Investigator given the assignment of finding a missing investigator in Mexico who may or may not have stolen a valuable necklace. On a collision course, the missing investigators sister played by Jacqueline White is followed by Steve Hastings the insurance investigator played by William Lundigan. They team up to find the brother and necklace and they have many adventures and encounters leading up to the climax of the film. This film would be perfect for a remake because so few have seen this original film. It could be improved by taking out the obnoxious behavior of the Steve Hastings character at the beginning of the movie. His banter at Jacqueline White on the plane headed for Mexico made me want to have him maced or tazed. He calms down into a normal person after that and gives a good performance.

This is quite a decent little crime thriller that starts with what looks like a burglar being shot. Turns out, though, that the victim was an insurance investigator and "Hastings" (William Lundigan) is now despatched to Mexico to find out just what happened to him. In trying to piece things together, he encounters the sister of the missing man. "Victoria" (Jacqueline White) is also trying to track down her missing brother. Quite what she sees in him is anyone's guess - he's actually quite an odious fellow - but click they do and are soon on the case of the rather obvious villain of the piece. This film is probably only notable as a project from Robert Wise but it doesn't hang about and though the plot does follow the usual tram lines a little too readily, there's a lively effort here from White and it passes an hour easily enough.

An early film from Robert Wise, the much acclaimed director of different science fiction and musical films, this is quite different stuff to what he would later be best known for, and in all honestly it is noticeably inferior too. It is far from being a poor film, but the production is far off being great too, with a quite lifeless, underdeveloped central romance and not too much to get excited over in terms of the mystery plot and technical credits. To fans of its director, the film will certainly be of some interest, but to other viewers it might well sit as mediocre: neither really good nor really bad.

I am not a great fan of this movie, despite it is a RKO product. But mystery topics have always bored me to death. It is short, rare and from a great director whose it is always interesting to watch the movies. Typical B movie with second rank actors and with also an atmosphere that you could purchase only in forties films: settings, music, camera work, actor's play, topics. Robert Wise will do better for RKO pictures with BORN TO KILL, GAME OF DEATH, THE BODY SNATCHER and many more short features made for Howard Hughe's company. Another future great director began with RKO: Richard Flesicher. And I also forgot Mark Robson.

There's not much of one -- a mystery, that is -- but that's S.O.P for these programmers that run a longish hour. But Robert Wise keeps things brisk and watchable, which isn't to be sneezed at. It's about an insurance investigator (William Lundigan) who follows a suspect (Jacqueline White) south of the border while trying to solve a jewelry theft. The whole shebang was filmed in the studios in Mexico City, with a largely native cast; among them is Ricardo Cortez, a big Latin heart-throb from the earliest talkies (when he was often paired with Bebe Daniels).

This seems a bit of a comedown for Wise, who the previous year had helmed the excellent noir Born to Kill, starring Clare Trevor and Lawrence Tierney, and for that film we can almost forgive him for The Sound of Music, many years later.