The Falcon's Adventure

 

Final Flight

The Falcon's Adventure
USA 1946
Directed by William Berke
RKO/Warner Archive DVD Region 1

The Falcon’s Adventure was the character’s swan song from the famous series, in as much as it’s the last of these particular movies based on the adventures of The Falcon, although certain websites might say otherwise and, if any of them do, I’ll point out why they’re wrong at the tail end of this review.

So, the thirteenth story in the series sees Tom Conway return as the titular character, alias Tom Lawrence. This was Conway’s tenth Falcon movie, after taking over halfway through the fourth film in the series, when his fictional brother Gay Lawrence, played by Conway’s real life brother George Sanders, was killed. So Tom became much more familiar in the public eye as the face of The Falcon, for sure.

This one is a plot involving an attempted kidnap of a woman, Louisa Braganza (played by Madge Meredith, more on her later) as just one of many attempts to wrestle free the secret formula invented by her uncle to manufacture industrial diamonds. As he and Goldie try to help her, The Falcon and his faithful sidekick are hindered and chased by the police, for both the murder of her uncle and also the murder of her uncle’s genuine customer for the formula. It’s up to them to stay two steps ahead of the law, protect Louisa and bring the criminals to justice. All in a couple of days work for The Falcon, of course.

It’s the usual romp full of wit, charm, mystery solving and action and, frankly, as entertaining as the best of them. The actors are all pretty good and this time around we have an actor returning too. I mentioned in my review of the previous movie in the series, The Falcon’s Alibi (reviewed here), that the faithful Goldie Locke character had been replaced once again by yet another actor, this time one without much personality for the role. Well, I guess the producers must have been of the same mind because Edward Brophy (aka Timothy Mouse in Dumbo), who had once played Goldie in The Falcon In San Francisco (reviewed here) returns to the role here and he certainly brings a lot more over the top and much needed humour back to the role.

There are a couple of other ‘items of interest’ in this one too. A little way into the Falcon’s misadventure, he has to come to the aid of a second damsel in distress on a long train journey. Turns out it was a ploy to wrestle the diamond formula away from The Falcon but, luckily, he had planned for just such an attempt and he sleeps through the trap... helped along by gas pumped through his sleeping carriage’s door... safe in the knowledge that he’s already substituted the envelope containing the formula with a fake, while the real one is in the safe hands of the conductor. I, on the other hand, was completely taken in by this attempt so, yeah, that was a nice surprise.

The other thing that’s interesting about this movie is a couple of the director’s segues in and out of a scene. The film opens with an establishing shot which the camera then pulls back from so that we can see that it’s merely a photograph being held up (kinda unnaturally but it makes the shot work) by Goldie as he and the Falcon pack their bags for yet another vacation they are destined not to take. It’s a nice piece of film syntax shenanigans and it’s kinda repeated in reverse later when The Falcon is handed a business card with a photograph of the alligator farm in Miami that the two intend to visit. The camera moves in on the photo and before we know it, it’s the establishing shot for the next scene... which is again pretty cool and a nice, visually sophisticated way of doing things.

Now I said I’d get to actress Madge Meredith so here it is. Shortly after the release of this and her next movie, Meredith was wrongfully convicted and jailed for four years in her involvement in a kidnapping case involving her agent. It was later overturned and her imprisonment cited as a mockery of the legal system, the rest of her short career playing out as supporting roles in television shows. So, maybe she would have gone far without the false conviction and may be not... we’ll never know.

And finally, this 13th film was indeed The Falcon’s last adventure, despite what you might read about there being 16 films in the series. Or at least, the last adventure for the character of Tom Lawrence. The rights to the name The Falcon were sold to another film company who made three more Falcon movies but, although on their credits they still cite Michael Arlen, the writer of the short story on which this character was based, those three films and also the subsequent 1950s TV show, The Adventures Of The Falcon, are all featuring an entirely different character, Michael Waring, based on the writings of a guy called Drexel Drake. Despite the Arlen erroneous credit, there really is no relationship between those films, the TV show... and the run of 13 Falcon films that RKO produced in the 1940s.

So in conclusion to both this review and my series of reviews of these films, I will say that The Falcon’s Adventure is yet another cracking, light hearted mystery romp which is to be recommended by lovers of the genre and that the film series did indeed, as was intended, give The Saint films (which you can also find reviewed on this blog), a run for their money. All thirteen of these films can be purchased on two muti disc DVD sets from Warner Archives in the US. Definitely worth checking out if you are in the mood for some light and frothy entertainment of an evening.

The Falcon's Alibi

Off The Record

The Falcon's Alibi
USA 1946
Directed by  Ray McCarey
RKO/Warner Archive DVD Region 1

Warning: All the spoilers.

Well there you go. I never knew director Leo McCarey had family in the business but here he is, younger brother Ray, directing the 12th in the series of films based loosely on the character of The Falcon, namely The Falcon’s Alibi.

This one starts at a race track again, just like The Falcon In Hollywood (reviewed here) did but, this one introduces us to a lot of the main cast, aka suspects, during the race track scenes. Then it’s back to a hotel where The Falcon is trying to help a young lady played by Joan Meredith, who has purchased a fake set of jewels so the real, priceless jewels will not disappear if they get stolen, who is in trouble. Because, after a while, both sets are stolen... one of many thefts in a hotel where The Falcon, Tom Lawrence, once again played by Tom Conway, has to solve the mystery, try to work out why people are getting bumped off and come up with an alibi for himself (an alibi who winds up as another corpse and reverting us to the old dynamic of the police suspecting The Falcon of pretty much everything). He also has to foil a bunch of scammers who are claiming insurance for the thefts.

And, there’s not too much mystery in this one, it has to be said. Although this entry in the series has a bona fide superstar in it... co-starring as a DJ who is secretly married to another character, we have the great Elisha Cook Jr playing someone who you suspect right away is behind the killings and the robberies. As soon as I saw the DJ set up I was like... okay, so he puts a recording of his voice on the radio so he can leave the office and steal the various trinkets. And of course he does but, to the credit of the writers, they reveal it straight away and then, when the person defrauding the insurance company in collaboration is revealed to be the husband and wife getting their jewels stolen... well, like I said, it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here, despite a few minor plot twists which don’t exactly throw anyone off the trail.

And it’s a fine romp as these things always are. The police inspector and his sidekick are a new pair again and we have yet another guy, Vince Barnett, having a crack at playing The Falcon’s assistant Goldie Locke. Well, he’s passable but he seems less broadly comic and just a bit too understated to really shine in the role, it has to be said. All the actors are fine, though, especially Conway who really is very good in the role and, of course, the remarkable Elisha Cook Jr, who seems fine at first but then gets that weaselly look in his eyes and get a bit obsessive and disturbed as the film wears on (as you would expect from him in these roles at the time).

Not too much more to say about this one but one of the things I did note is that the score was kinda interesting on this one. The usual Falcon fanfare or signature tune is played at the front end of the movie, as it had been on a fair few of these by now and, as usual the music director is credited as C. Bakaleinikoff. However, this seemed a lot more interesting and there’s some wonderful, very low key timpani towards the end of the movie, when The Falcon is sneaking around various hotel rooms, where the drumbeats replay the opening jingle like bass drum notes. Very effective and it reminded me of some of the things John Barry used to do in his early James Bond scores. So I looked it up and it turns out the score for this film, uncredited and in only his third outing as a composer, was by Ernest Gold, who went on to score such famous films as Exodus, Cross Of Iron and, of course, It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. And, yeah, he does a really good job here, it has to be said.

And that’s me done with this one. The Falcon’s Alibi is a fine, short but sweet entry in the series and Tom Conway would have just one more crack at the character, which I’ll get to as soon as I can.

The Falcon In San Francisco

The San
Francisco Kid

The Falcon In
San Francisco
USA 1945
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis
RKO/Warner Archive DVD Region 1

And once again a short review for another short movie in the successful series of films about The Falcon, aka Tom Lawrence. This time around it’s The Falcon In San Francisco, another cracking yarn in the franchise and, it has to be said, these films really didn’t just sit still and let them be held to too much of a formula... as long as they stuck with the character set up, the studio seemed to be happy to not just keep repeating variations of the same film over and over and the series kept getting tweaked.

Case in point, we have the return of The Falcon’s side kick Goldie Locke, brought back into the series for a couple of times but this time he’s played by Edward Brophy, a much loved character actor who’s voice would become beloved by children when he recorded the dialogue for Timothy, the mouse in Dumbo. Here he’s still the ‘not so smart’ ex-con established by previous actors in the role and he’s given some appropriately comical dialogue routines with The Falcon, played once again by Tom Conway, including a running gag about trying to find a wife to help him simplify his insurance forms.

The plot starts right away as The Falcon and Goldie, travelling on a train to Frisco, meet a kid... a young girl played by Sharyn Moffett along with her well trained dog, Diogenese. She strikes up a friendship with the two and, it’s just as well, as they have to put off their vacation in order to help the girl and her much older sister, when the child’s nanny is found murdered on the train. It all leads back to the young girl’s parental lineage, a new identity for an old time hoodlum from prohibition days and some kind of silk smuggling racket on board a ship. Can The Falcon help the two young ladies get out from under a dark inheritance of family trouble and foil the various criminals, in what turns out to be a fairly convoluted plot? Well sure he can, although he’s not above making a few mistakes of his own in this one and he doesn’t see the obvious betrayal coming until it’s too late... not that I’m going to spoil the story for you here.

The film is easy going and breezes along at it’s own pace, helped along by a strong bunch of actors including, as a somewhat hard to pin down character, Robert Armstrong  (who people may best remember for his portrayal of the original Carl Denham in King Kong and its quick follow up Son Of Kong back in the 1930s). It also has a very striking ‘heavy’ played by Carl Kent in this one and I wonder if some cuts were made to tone the nastiness down here (which does seem a little out of character for the series in general).

Why I wonder this is because there’s a scene where The Falcon leaves a restaurant with two men who present themselves as police and the next shot is a transition into him waking up the next morning having been beaten up by them. He’s still the prisoner of one of the villains in this film by this point and when he fails to give an answer to a question which, to be fair to him, he doesn’t know anything about when asked, he is beaten up some more. Which seems unusual and a much more sustained degree of villainy for the series than what were used to, I feel.

Still, it’s a fun enough film and, bearing in mind the running time of the pictures were just over 65 minutes long by this point, they manage to cram an awful lot into the story and give everyone plenty to do. You certainly can’t fault the pacing on this one, for sure.

Another unusual thing about this one is that there’s no steady romantic figure in the movie for the Tom Lawrence character. I mean, sure, he turns on the charm a couple of times and engages in the usual flirtations but there’s nobody chasing him and each time he gets interested in one of the various ladies in the film, he finds he knows them less well than he thought, as there’s usually a character reveal somewhere very soon relating to them.

Other than this... no, I really don’t have much more to say about The Falcon In San Francisco. Musical continuity is kept with some of the previous films on the opening credits and, just like the previous two films in the series (The Falcon in Mexico, reviewed here and The Falcon In Hollywood, reviewed here) the film doesn’t feature a cliffhanger leading to an unfilmed Falcon adventure. All in all, another fine entry in the series and, I think I only have two more left to watch based on this character (the later films after Tom Conway stopped playing him were based on an entirely different character, also called The Falcon but accredited to the wrong writer... but that’s another story, I guess).

The Falcon In Hollywood

Nitrate Death Rate

The Falcon In Hollywood
USA 1944
Directed by Gordon Douglas
RKO/Warner Archive DVD Region 1

Well here we have another interesting diversion in the successful Falcon series for RKO pictures. The Falcon In Hollywood is directed by none other than Gordon Douglas, one of those interesting American directors whose name comes up often associated with some quality films such as the second of the Flint movies, the Tony Rome movies, westerns such as the brilliant Rio Conchos (reviewed by me here) and not forgetting the classic giant ant movie THEM!

This one must have been fairly cheap to produce for RKO since, apart from the opening sequence set at the races and a brief interlude set in a deserted sports stadium, the whole of the film is pretty much set on the RKO back lot and, apparently, it still looks pretty much the same now as it did then. In the opening scene of the movie, we are introduced to a new Detective Inspector played by Emory Parnell and his sidekick played by Frank Jenks. I guess neither of these characters were considered strong enough to return to the franchise in a regular fashion as their predecessors had but, Parnell does reappear in another Falcon movie later as another character. They’re on the trail of an ex-con who The Falcon testified against, played by Sheldon Leonard (the ‘giving out wings’ guy from It’s A Wonderful Life) and they look up The Falcon, aka Tom Lawrence (once again played by Tom Conway) to see if he knows where he is.

Following on from a mix up with a couple of women and a bag, The Falcon finds himself travelling to the film studios with an over eager taxi cab driver, reflecting the wartime spirit of ‘jobs for gals’ by being a lady. She also becomes The Falcon’s ‘assistant’ for the movie and is played, quite brilliantly, by the remarkable Veda Ann Borg (I need to find some more of this lady’s movies but, apparently, I’ve already seen her at some point as she starred as Margot Lane in one of the serials about The Shadow). Borg and Conway make quite a team in this and it’s a shame her character didn’t become a regular role in the series after this.

So, anyway, The Falcon discovers a freshly murdered corpse on a set but, when he tries to show it to the studio security, the corpse has disappeared. He finds it again later and shows it to the police but, by then, a valuable ring which was already on the corpse the first time around has gone. So The Falcon becomes embroiled in the case and it’s the usual affair with almost every character in the film having a motive for the murder and then either dying or being put out of the picture before their guilt is proved. It also includes the now clichéd and, sadly, real life set up where someone is shot by an innocent actor because the blanks in her gun have been switched for live ammo.

The film doesn’t suffer from the usual studio conceit of having The Falcon assailed by various ‘real actors and actresses’ cameos to help promote themselves (and I’m sure I would have loved it even more if it had). Instead, it sticks to telling its mystery story with no real references although, in a couple of sequences, a black cat is highlighted (again, making me think of Conway’s role in Cat People and one of its sequels, The Seventh Victim).

And there’s not much more to be said about this one other than, there’s a really nice moment where we are told the characters are off to the ‘miniatures department’. We are then cut to a fairly typical establishing shot of a car parked outside a building but, then, a big hand comes into the frame and picks up the car, clueing us in that this is indeed the department in question. It’s a nice shot and even though I knew they were going to do it, it was literally only a second before it happened that I twigged it, which is nice.

So another short review but these really are fairly short and somewhat formulaic movies so there’s not always a great deal to say about each one. This is only the second of The Falcon movies that doesn’t have a cliffhanger lead in to an untold Falcon adventure and, I’m guessing this is something which would be the new normal for the series (I guess I’ll find out soon). The Falcon In Hollywood is certainly a fun and fast paced mystery adventure and, looking at the ‘more than healthy’ box office receipts, one of the more successful of the franchise. So, lots to recommend it.

The Falcon In Mexico

Mexican Graffiti

The Falcon In Mexico
USA 1944
Directed by William Berke
RKO/Warner Archive
DVD Region 1

Well The Falcon In Mexico is certainly a strange entry in this film series, make no mistake. Despite the last movie, The Falcon Out West (reviewed here), having an ending on the usual pseudo-cliffhanger where Tom Lawrence, alias The Falcon (as played by Tom Conway) is hooked into another adventure and it looking like it could well actually continue, for once, into the next movie... it’s completely ignored, once again and, this one starts off in New York. Not only that but, for literally the opening scene, it seems The Falcon is once more with a girlfriend, or possibly a fiance, to whom he has promised not getting mixed up in anymore detective shenanigans. And... bizarrely... within less than five minutes of the girlfriend’s exit from that brief moment, he suddenly becomes embroiled in a strange affair about a stolen painting and suspected by the police of murder. And so he heads to Mexico, to the hometown of the dead artist who somehow seems to be still painting ‘aged’ pictures and... well... we never hear one thing from Lawrence’s gal again. It’s like they were trying to set her up as a familiar meddlesome presence in the movies, just like the earlier Falcon films but, then decided against it after all. With no other mention of her, it seems more than a little odd that they’d bother setting the character up, no matter how briefly, in the first place.

Sandwiched in the few seconds between the exit of his ‘girlfriend’ and the entrance of a new Mexican lady who is after a specific painting, which starts off The Falcon’s newest adventure, he has a black cat cross his path. One has to wonder if this is a reference to the character Conway played in the Val Lewton produced Cat People of 1942... a character he’d just played again in a sort of sideways sequel called The Seventh Victim in 1943 (actually, I really don’t want to go near this one again yet, because the character dies in Cat People and the fact that his character is up on his feet again unscathed but still able to reference what happened in the original film with no explanation just gives me a headache... supposedly everyone was just supposed to forget his character died?).

Anyway, embroiled in adventure he is and it’s a nice little mystery involving stolen paintings, the possible ghost of a woman’s father and a plot to keep the supposedly dead artist’s work valuable for those who wish to trade and own them. It’s been a while before The Falcon has had an assistant in the movies but he kinda gets one in this when a ‘personal chauffeur’ latches onto him and becomes his companion during the film. I was pleased to see that the part of the chauffeur, Manuel, is played by none other than Nestor Paiva, in probably the closest thing to a major role I’ve seen him in. Horror fans will of course know Nestor as he went on to play the captain of the boat in both Creature From The Black Lagoon (reviewed here) and Revenge Of The Creature (reviewed here).

And it’s business as usual. An enjoyable romp with some nice moments of puzzle solving for Tom Lawrence and even Manuel has a twist to his character... and not the one I was expecting, which is a pleasant surprise. But perhaps the biggest mystery in the picture is how... at the start of the movie, when he has to suddenly break into an art gallery there and then with no knowledge that anything was going to happen to him... is The Falcon able to suddenly produce a big torch as required? Does he just carry these big, bulky objects around in his jacket pocket somehow in case it could come in handy? And wouldn’t we have noticed if he was carrying something that large under his jacket? It seems kinda strange.

However, the film is quite fun and also has some silly moments in it too. For instance, whenever people are walking down the road in Mexico (or even paddling down a lake in one memorable scene), most of the time the actors are just studio bound and walking in front of a projected, moving backdrop as they walk on a treadmill. The background looks fine but there’s something about the way they are ‘walking on the spot but moving’ that is a give away. And when a young flower seller girl catches up, sells a flower to The Falcon and then just kinda floats away on the treadmill by standing still... well, it’s fun but even more of a giveaway. However, it’s always fun to spot this kind of set up and The Falcon In Mexico is another hugely entertaining installment in the adventures of The Falcon (or The Falcon’s brother if you want to get technical about it). Another odd thing about this movie, however, is that it’s the first one in the series, I think, which eschews the lead in to another adventure for the title character. This one just ends on a shot of a plane with The Falcon inside, flying home from whence he came. Which is fine with me, the next movie in this series of films which I can barely remember (since I last saw them in the 1980s) is set in Hollywood. So, yeah, I’m looking forward to that one.

The Falcon Out West

Ranching Out

The Falcon Out West
USA 1943
Directed by William Clemens
RKO/Warner Archive DVD Region 1

The next in the series of The Falcon films, following The Falcon And The Co-Eds (reviewed here), starring Tom Conway as Tom Lawrence, sees the titular character, spreading his metaphorical wings and flying further afield, as the title suggests, in The Falcon Out West. And, once again, it’s very much a change of pace for the detective as he finds himself caught up in a plot which shifts to a standard Western movie, along with horse riding, gun play, cowboys and even a few Indians.

The Falcon attends a night club party, as an observer from another table, for a Texan who is due to be travelling back that night with his new fiance, who he plans to be marrying very soon. Tom Lawrence is there because the gentleman in question’s ex-wife suspects the new fiance is there purely for his money and not his heart. The Falcon declines the case until, before his and all the other guests’ very eyes, the Texan drops dead from a rattlesnake bite. Obviously, though, there are no rattlers to be found on site and things look fairly peculiar. The police, in the form of the series regulars Cliff Clark as Inspector Donovan and his flat foot sidekick Edward Gargan, playing Detective Bates, show up and start questioning people. While this is going on, The Falcon notices the fiance, played by Carole Gallagher, slipping away with one of the railway tickets... so he steals the other train ticket and travels back to the Texan’s ranch with her. When they get there the next day, her lawyer plus Donovan and Bates turn up and... all five of them take a coach to her ranch to stay, while they find out what’s at the bottom of the murder.

The stage goes out of control when a few shots are fired at it but they are saved by another of the female leads, played by Barbara Hale doing her best Roy Rogers impression. There’s another murder, a warning to The Falcon in the form of a death threat scalp held in place on his door with an evil looking blade, horse chases, attempts on various people’s lives and, much as I’d suspected, a special ring with two retractable snake fangs which hold enough venom for three. It’s  the usual shenanigans, which are always usually good enough, spiced up with cowboys and cowgirls and a nice ending where it turns out the very first person suspected by the police is actually the real culprit after all.

Points of interest might include a nice line of dialogue when someone is described as a good driver of the out of control stagecoach, when The Falcon quips that they’re from “the Ben Hur school of driving.” Of course this was in reference to the famous chariot race in Ben Hur but, at the time this film was made, which predates the famous Charlton Heston version by some years, the most recent version was the silent version from 18 years before this film (which I reviewed here)... so it’s interesting that this particular version was still very much in the public consciousness  and that the writers could get away with writing throwaway one liners about it like this.

Since the whole story is set, for the most part (barring the odd chase scene or two and the opening sequence), on two ranches... and since the police have travelled down to be on the scene... Clark and Gargan have much more to do here than they do in their usual Falcon series appearances, although their regular running comical joke, sadly doesn’t make a reappearance here. Alas, this was to be the last appearance of these two characters, who bow out of the series at this point. I can’t remember back to the last time I watched these (in the early 1980s) as to whether they were replaced by regular characters or different equivalents in each film but there were five more of these films after this one so, I’ll let you know.

In the last review, for The Falcon And The Co-Eds, I mentioned that the regular feature of The Falcon being called to another case might actually get a follow through on this movie. I was basing that on what I read on the IMDB and, once again, the IMDB totally let me down. It doesn’t follow the last one at all. This one has another ending which sees The Falcon taking a train to Havana at the urge of another young lady. Well, I’m guessing it won’t tie up with the next film in the series either, which is called The Falcon In Mexico but, well, I’ll just have to wait and see. The Falcon Out West is another fine film in the series but I wouldn’t call this one a jumping on point in any way because, well, it’s not the lead’s usual setting and so has a slightly different flavour than the regular capers. It’s also not nearly as entertaining as the previous film but, still, an enjoyable watch and I’m looking forward to where they go next.

The Falcon And The Co-Eds

Educating Danger

The Falcon
And The Co-Eds
USA 1943
Directed by William Clemens
RKO/Warner Archive DVD Region 1

And so onto the next in the popular series of films based on The Falcon character of the 1940s, The Falcon And The Co-Eds. This one has a kind of different atmosphere to the preceding films but then, the series does seem to keep reinventing itself in both big and small ways as it progresses. For instance, Tom Lawrence has no real assistants in the mystery solving department in this one and not much in the way of romantic interest either (not a single fiancé in sight and I think the young ladies in the film, who are college students at Bluecliff Seminary, are supposed to be slightly underage for anything intimate for the most part but, again for the most part, I would say the actresses playing them are not).

Now, I had no idea what a co-ed is because we don’t have the term in England but, apparently it’s some sort of slang for a woman studying at a mixed boys/girls school or, as in this case, college. I’ve also still no idea why the term is applied in this title because, well... it’s an all female school (apart from one of the teachers... two if you count the first murder victim, who is dead before the story even starts) and so the term seems to be complete nonsense if you ask me. Still, it may mean something more to an American audience perhaps but... I’m not getting any help from the definitions found on the internet, it has to be said.

Okay, so Tom Lawrence, alias The Falcon (played once again by Tom Conway), is called in by the student daughter of a friend when it’s common knowledge, due to the psychic prophecies of one of the girls, Marguerita (played by Rita Corday), that one of the teachers has been murdered rather than, as one of the resident doctors who teaches psychology there has signed on the death certificate, suicide. In fact, Lawrence is pretty much compelled to be there, actually, when the gal steals his car to get him to the seminary to retrieve it. The so called suicide is hushed up because the head mistress doesn’t want to bring any hint of scandal to the college but, it’s not all that far into the proceedings before she herself is run through and killed with a fencing sword by a person unknown.

So The Falcon, posing as an insurance investigator, is roaming the campus trying to solve the mystery and, somehow, the police end up on the grounds pretty soon too. Actually, the two police who are the regular guys, Cliff Clark as Inspector Donovan and Edward Gargan as his sidekick Detective Bates, are pretty important here to help remind audiences that they are watching a Falcon film, in some ways because, as I said, this isn’t the usual milieu inhabited by the central character. I’m happy to say that the running joke dialogue between Donovan and Bates has been reinstated for this movie, after a curious absence from their regular repartee in the previous film.

Of course, there’s no question that The Falcon will eventually find the real culprit behind the murders but he comes to it pretty late and, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised that the solution this time around wasn’t at all easy to work out. I only had my suspicions about the same time Lawrence figures it out near the end. I think part of the reason for this is that it's put together just like one of those typical Italian gialli films in terms of the amount of characters who could have done the deeds. There’s an abundance of suspects and, like a giallo, one of the prime ones is suddenly bumped off half way through the film, eliminating her from the long list of possible suspects.

It’s fast paced enough with some humorous dialogue and even some natty song and dance numbers thrown in. For some reason, because of the fact that some cliffs factor in to the story at some point, the director chooses to not only have the dreary credits sequence filled with a picture of the rolling waves of the nearby sea but also seems to use it at least four times throughout the film as some kind of transition shot... although it establishes really nothing in terms of connecting the scenes in any useful manner, it has to be said. Also, though it’s quite clear that much of the film is shot on location, including many of the cliff scenes, there are also some quite ham fisted examples of visual effects which do tend to get in the way of total immersion into the movie. Such as a few shots of Conway and some other actors walking along the cliff with it clearly being a back projection and the cast walking on a treadmill. Or some worse shots where two of the characters are clearly superimposed quite badly when standing on a cliff’s edge.

It’s also very much of its time too... as shown by a scene where The Falcon picks up one of the college girls (the actress was 20 at the time) and giving her ‘a good spanking’. Which is something that many young audiences watching these days would make a fuss about but, honestly, even in the 1970s when I first saw this film, it wasn’t really anything anybody would bat and eyelid at. So, yes, this film probably wouldn’t win any awards with the fashionably woke brigade but, The Falcon And The Co-Eds is still an enjoyable romp and, just a little bit different from the atmosphere of the preceding stories, as I said earlier. As usual, the film ends with the title character being cliff hangered onto another case and, I believe for once the dangling plot line left here as a punchline might actually get picked up in the next film in the series. So I’ll report back on that one when I revisit it again.

The Falcon In Danger

Falcon Your
Seatbelts

The Falcon In Danger
USA 1943
Directed by William Clemens
RKO/Warner Archive
DVD Region 1

Well now, this rushed out sequel, because The Falcon films were getting very popular, demonstrates just why that was the case. The Falcon In Danger, despite its somewhat blasé title, is definitely one of the best I’ve seen in the series. Once again we have Tom Conway, now established as the current incarnation of The Falcon, Tom Lawrence, after his fictional brother Guy Lawrence, star of the first four films as played by Conway’s real life brother George Sanders, had died at the end of the fourth film in the series (The Falcon’s Brother, reviewed here). Conway had obviously proved he could carry The Falcon pictures on his own with the success of the previous entry in the series The Falcon Strikes Back (reviewed here) and he certainly has a charm about him and way of playing the character which is close enough to Sander’s characterisation so that you don’t really miss Sanders in the role.

He’s joined once again by Police Chief Donovan, played by Cliff Clark and his sidekick Detective Bates, played by Edward Gargan). These two, however, are behaving a little differently than they normally present themselves. For one thing, the running gag about Clark having to remind Gargan of his character’s authority every time he tells him to do something is not present in this movie. Secondly, The Falcon is never a suspect in their investigation and doesn’t get arrested once... which I think is the first time this happens in the franchise, if memory serves.

There’s also an interesting addition and subtraction with the dynamic of the way The Falcon’s main character is aided and abetted in this one. So we have an additional character called Bonnie, played by Amelita Ward, who is Tom Lawrence’s jealous Texan fiance in this. She fulfils exactly the same role as Wendy Barrie did in the first couple of the George Sanders Falcon films and, for the most part, just gets under his feet and tries to steer him clear of an unusually large amount of female characters in this one. However, what we don’t have here is any kind of male sidekick for The Falcon. No Goldy or Goldy substitute here... it’s just Tom Lawrence operating on his own and, frankly, the film is none the worse for it.

It’s also got a strong start to this mystery, with an airport scene as a plane everyone is expecting to land, instead crashes at the airport. When the plane (minus a wing from the crash) is boarded, there’s nobody on board it at all... not even a pilot. It doesnt take long for The Falcon to be embroiled in a plot involving two missing industrialists, a missing $100,000, the daughter and sister in law of one of the missing people and an assortment of interested parties. The mystery of the film is offset by the return of one of the industrialists about a third of the way through but, it also further complicates things although, I have to say, I was pretty sure I knew who the real villain of the piece was by about two thirds of the way through and, yeah, it was a fairly easy one to solve but that didn’t make getting to the conclusion any less enthralling or entertaining.

The dialogue is fairly quick fire and everything makes sense. They really don’t often make movies which sing themselves off the page in such a soluble pill these days (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphors) and it’s a real pleasure to watch. Of course, because it’s shot in 1943, there are a few references to the war in this one, including a neat trick where The Falcon covertly operates the neon sign in the front of an antique shop during a blackout in order to bring the police there and get himself out of trouble. There’s also a scene near the start of the picture where a gambling joint is also raided but quick steps are put into operation to hide the evidence of what’s really going in there from the police and... I couldn’t quite work out what the police would be doing raiding a gambling joint, to be honest. It’s not like it was a ‘speakeasy’ from 20 years before so... maybe gambling wasn’t allowed during the war, I don’t know. If you’re old or knowledgable enough to know the answer to that question then please leave a comment at the bottom of the page and enlighten me.

If I had one criticism of this one, it’s that there were far too many female characters for me to keep track of, especially when a lot of them looked quite similar. I gave up on that angle about half way through the film. Interestingly enough though, at the end of the picture, Lawrence manages to revert to trickery and get his fiancé to ditch him so... I’m not sure what the set up will be for the next film in the series but, obviously, I’ll report accordingly in my next Falcon review. In the meantime though, I’d have to say that The Falcon In Danger is easily one of the more entertaining installments in the series and would definitely recommend this one to lovers of the detective fiction genre. I’m looking forward to revisiting the next one of these soon.

The Falcon Strikes Back

She Done Him Bond

The Falcon Strikes Back
USA 1943
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
RKO/Warner Archive
DVD Region 1

Warning: Some big spoilers.

It was all change over at RKO for The Falcon series with The Falcon Strikes Back, which was managing to not only keep going but flourish after George Sanders had left the franchise. If you’ll remember, Sanders had relinquished the role in the previous film, The Falcon’s Brother (reviewed here) when his real life brother, Tom Conway, came to help out as The Falcon’s brother, Tom Lawrence. The Falcon was shot dead in an act of heroic self sacrifice in the final minutes of that last movie and his brother became the new Falcon.

Interestingly, two of the actors who were in the last film, including The Falcon’s regular sidekick from the previous movies, were not retained for the next adventure. However, in a bizarre choice, the studio decided that the characters themselves would keep going with different actors. Personally, since The Falcon is not the same character as his dead brother, they could have changed the characters too but... well, anyway, long standing sidekick character Goldie is now played by Cliff Edwards and the oriental houseboy, played by the famous Keye Luke in The Falcon’s Brother, is now played by Richard Loo.

To give the series some kind of continuity from the last one, in Conway’s first solo Falcon movie, we have Jane Randolph reprising her role as Marcia Brooks, the reporter from the previous film. We also have Inspector Donovan played once again played by Cliff Clark in his second Falcon movie (contrary to what the IMDB might tell you... they really need some fact checkers there) and Edward Gargan playing the Inspector’s sidekick, the fifth time so far in the series that he has played the ‘dumb detective’ role.

Although the Nazi lead in from the ending of the previous film is totally ignored... it seems to be a thing now where a new adventure is teased at the end and then completely ignored in the next movie (including the ending of this one)... it still has a plot lightly dealing with the subject of the Second World War, which was now playing out in the US as an ever present worry. This time around The Falcon is knocked unconscious and framed for the theft of a huge sum of War Bonds (just what he would do with them is not made clear). He escapes police custody and, with the aid of Goldie, his houseboy and the reporter, gets caught up in two completely different mysteries which converge at a hotel resort, a mystery involving both a ‘war bonds’ swindler named The Duchess and a murderer who is, actually, killing off the criminals with a gun rigged with a silencer (or suppressor if you like... I understand that these weren’t that good or useable at the time, or for many decades for that matter, if they ever were but, as usual, they work perfectly well in the movies).

It’s a pleasant romp of a mystery ticking all the right boxes and, like his brother, The Falcon only has to kiss an objecting woman for her to do an about face, swoon and then help him as much as she possibly can (ahh... those were the days). Now, I have to say that, back in the 1940s, it probably wasn’t a huge surprise as to who the murderer was in this film but I didn’t see it coming until about ten minutes before the reveal on this one. The reason is very simple... I’m not used to seeing the comedian Edgar Kennedy in diverse roles...

Edgar Kennedy was a comic whose theatrical comedy shorts I used to watch on TV in repeats during the 1970s as a kid. I was also used to him from numerous appearances in Laurel And Hardy shorts and, later on, when I saw him opposite The Marx Brothers in Duck Soup. However, I think in the 1940s, audiences would have been more used to him indulging in straighter, more sinister roles than I’ve ever seen him in and so, they would have had the advantage over me I think. So it came as a surprise, somewhat, when I figured out he was pretty much the only other person the killer could be by the end of the movie. He even falls to his death from a rooftop, being chased by The Falcon at the end.

There are a couple of other things in this movie which I think are worthy of note. One is that, at the start of the film, the sound of accompanying imagery such as speeding trains, ships, a pneumatic drill and a large hammer on a building site, are used as a visual metaphor to explain the state of The Falcon’s hangover as he is trying to sleep it off, in his introductory scene at the start of the picture. Which is a nice touch.

The other thing is when Edgar Kennedy, who is a puppeteer (using the credited ‘Velma Dawson Puppets’), brings in a puppet of Goofy and does an impersonation of him. The first thing I thought of when I saw this was... copyright and legal suit coming the way of RKO studios, surely? However, further research shows that Walt Disney was indeed still releasing films through RKO at the time, so I can only assume that this was above board (or RKO would have been in a lot of trouble, I guess).

And that’s that. The series was continuing to be popular and Conway would go on to portray The Falcon (or rather his brother) for another eight movies after The Falcon Strikes Back... all of which I hope to review for this blog soonest.

The Falcon's Brother

Birds Of A Feather

The Falcon's Brother
USA 1942
Directed by Stanley Logan
RKO/Warner Archive
DVD Region 1

Warning: Big spoilers!

Even though I remembered almost nothing about The Falcon's Brother (it turns out), this one made a bit of an impression of me when I first saw it on television on BBC 2 in my early teens, back in the early 1980s. Apparently it made a big impression on the box office figures too, ensuring the series of Falcon movies, based on the character by Michael Arlen, would continue to run for a while. I’ve been trying to find a trailer online for this movie to see if the audiences had any inkling of what was going to hit them in this one but I couldn’t find anything. However, I’m pretty sure that they probably didn’t see this one coming when it came out the gate running.

So the film starts off with George Sanders in his, by now, established role as Gay Lawrence, aka The Falcon. But that’s almost the only thing which has stuck from the previous three films. Everything is different. For starters, he has a new sidekick in this one. Filling in for the previous guy, we have Don Barclay as Lefty, a very short guy but basically he’s the same character in tone and dialogue as Goldy from the previous films. He also has the legendary Keye Luke as his housekeeper, who does a nice bit where, if anyone calls who he thinks The Falcon doesn’t want to talk to, he switches into ‘velly solly’ pigeon English before, once the phone is hung up, switching back to fluent English American. There’s even a nice, oblique reference in the script to his ‘number one son’ status in the Charlie Chan films.

Second big change is, The Falcon has no fiance in this one. Wendy Barrie is nowhere in sight and is not mentioned. There’s absolutely no girlfriend in this at all although, somehow, the fashion reporter in this, played by Jane Randolph, is still serving as the person who is jealous of the main character’s flirtations with the opposite sex. Except, well, after 20 mins or so, The Falcon is not the main protagonist of the movie.

Thirdly, although Edward Gargan is still in place as the Chief Inspector’s sidekick, the inspector is a different character and actor... Cliff Clark as Inspector Donovan. That being said, he serves exactly the same purpose as the previous Inspector from the first three movies and the two characters even have the same pattern of dialogue exchanges, where Clark will give an order, Gargan will question it and then Clark will remind him he’s the Inspector.

Fourthly, the film is no longer under the musical helm of Paul Sawtell like the previous three but, instead, it’s Roy Webb on scoring duties (who had provided music for some of The Saint movies and also, of course, Cat People... in which Tom Conway has a role... more from Conway in a minute).

And this film covers a lot of bases for what is the 1942 equivalent of a ‘pass the torch’ movie at just a few minutes over an hour long. The film starts off with George Sanders meeting his brother on a ship which has just arrived in town. Except, when he arrives the police are already investigating the apparent suicide of his brother. Spoiler warning... it’s a) not a suicide and b) not actually The Falcon’s brother Tom Lawrence, although Gay Lawrence does nothing to contradict the notion of the police that the corpse is his relation.

Then, a little later while investigating the incident himself, he becomes embroiled in more murder and, just when he meets his brother, played by George Sander’s real life brother Tom Conway, he gets run over by a car and effectively rendered unconscious for most of the rest of the film. Sanders is excellent in this and spends the first 20 minutes or so chasing after women while attempting to solve the crime in the most comical manner possible. However, once unconscious it’s up to his brother Tom (the name of his real brother and, of course, the name of his character’s brother) to pick up where he left off and solve the plot.

This is 1942 and there are a few reminders of the recent US intervention into the Second World War. There’s a comical ‘fake black out’ scene during the start, as Lefty tries to help Gay escape from being discovered by the police and then, when Tom Lawrence continues the investigation with Lefty himself, the whole thing becomes about a fashion photographer who is using the covers of a fashion magazine to send coded messages to nazi agents in the US, with the prime example being the discovery of a cover which ties into the attack on Pearl Harbour.

Okay, so this is where The Falcon's Brother picks up some bizarre synergy (as if the lead character’s brother being played by the actor’s real brother wasn’t enough). Gay Lawrence finally regains consciousness and joins in with the mystery about ten minutes before the end of the movie. While Tom is tied up by the nazi’s, he manages to ring the bell in the church tower from which a sniper is waiting to kill a very important political figure. Gay, alerted by the bell, figures out the warning and rushes to throw the VIP out of the path of the bullet... only to be killed by the sniper’s shot in his stead. So, yeah, the main hero of The Falcon movies was shot dead just before the end of the film because, frankly, George Sanders had already got tired of the role so he got his brother involved instead. Conway is good in this but, understandably, isn’t as polished as a lead in this one, sharing screen time with his brother.

Now, you might think that this would be the end of The Falcon series but, due to a scene at the end where the nazis warn Tom Lawrence to get out of town or the same thing which happened to his brother will happen to him... Lawrence decides to stay and become the new version of... you guessed it, The Falcon. And quite successfully too, as it turns out, because he would play that role for the final nine films in the series. Which I’ll hopefully get to very soon. If you keep reading, I’ll keep watching.