THE FALCON TAKES OVER

US, 1942, 65 minutes, Black and white.
George Sanders, Lyn Bari, Allwn Jenkins, James Gleason, Anne Revere, Ward Bond, Turhan Bey, Hans Conreid.
Directed by Irving Reis.

This was to be the last Falcon film for George Sanders. The role would be taken over by his brother, Tom Conway.

On the surface, this film seems much the same as any other Falcon film, the very suave George Sanders as the playboy and lightly philandering Gay Laurence, known as The Falcon, solving crimes that the police seem to be unable to solve. He has his sidekick, sometimes dumb, sometimes humorous, Goldie Locke, Allen Jenkins. The slow police are represented by James Gleason – and there are plenty of criminals.

However, while the characters are those of Michael Arlen, creator of The Falcon, there is a credit to Raymond Chandler and the plot of his celebrated novel, Farewell, My Lovely. There were to be two later film versions of this novel, in 1944, with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe, Murder, My Sweet, and the 1975 version with the same title as the novel, with Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe.

This film has the same basic plot and keeps a number of the key names, including the famous Moose Molloy, here played by Ward Bond, the mysterious Velma, played by Helen Gilbert, the alcoholic Jesse Florian, played by Anne Revere, the fortune teller played by Turhan Bey, Marriot played by Hans Conreid, and Burnette, here the owner of a nightclub.

Moose Molloy, with the Ward bond filmed to make him look larger, has escaped from prison and is searching for his Velma. This leads to a number of killings, a nightclub manager, an alcoholic woman who is afraid of him, to fortune tellers, a playboy who is part of the plot. Lyn Bari portrays a newspaper reporter, a feisty character, who is in on the investigation and ultimately saves The Falcon’s life. Moose threatens Goldie, The police ask Goldie to give information to them about The Falcon’s movements. The Falcon is attracted by a wealthy woman, whose jewellery has been stolen, who turns out to be Velma and is not above killing The Falcon.

The film is enjoyable in its own right – and comparisons with later films are critically interesting but are not actually very relevant to this film in its own right.

The film was directed by Irving Reis who directed three of the Falcon films.