The Falcon's Adventure

Routine Falcon entry with plenty of eye candy for the guys and a good look at high fashion, post-war style. There's some mystery in who's trying to get the stolen formula for industrial diamonds. But as in most Falcon entries, the emphasis is not on whodunit ( like Charlie Chan, for example). Instead, it's on the right mix of humor, action, and intrigue. Plus, there's Conway who unfortunately makes his last appearance as the incredibly smooth Falcon. Here, Goldie gets some amusing caustic lines; the Falcon has a heckuva scrap with a bigger guy and loses; while various shady characters maneuver to get who knows what. All in all, the 60-minutes amounts to a solid, if unexceptional, entry in the RKO series.

(In passing—too bad leading lady Meredith got mixed up in a bogus criminal conviction the year after this movie that knocked a big hole in her career. Judging from her work here, she had the looks and ability of an A-grade leading lady.)

The 13th and last RKO Falcon film starts with the mutual injunction by Tom Conway as Tom Lawrence alias the Falcon and Ed Brophy as Goldie of "No dames!" whilst they prepare to go on vacation. While you're still wondering what they're going on vacation from as they hadn't had a job since the beginning of the 1st film in 1941 (with Sanders as Gay though and Jenkins as Goldie) they bump into a woman and get dragged into a seedy industrial espionage caper.

They promise to help her when her uncle is murdered, by taking an envelope containing the details of a formula to make substitute industrial diamonds to his business colleague in Miami. Suspect everyone here except the cops here who are after Lawrence – and Goldie for the murder. To console himself Goldie keeps paraphrasing travel brochures: "On the coldest day you can always enjoy the warmth of a nice cosy electric chair" for one. Some nice languid atmospheric nightclub scenes rub shoulders with some especially bad behaviour from the baddies. Favourite bit: the dignified game of hide and seek/hunt the thimble the imperturbable and suave Lawrence has with the baddies on the sleeper train. Least favourite bit: the most embarrassing scene in the entire series in the alligator wrestling hut – definitely thrown in for the kids!

All in all not the best in the series but yet another entertaining outing, with an overall satisfying plot and many episodes even in this that make me wish they could have gone on for just a few more years as Columbia did with Boston Blackie, although RKO were churning these out faster. Absolutely no sex, not much violence (in fact none at all by today's high standards), and positively no message all make this type of film anathema to serious people who can only regard movies as an art form that must depend on these three pillars.

Three Diet Falcon's were made later with John Calvert in the title role, I don't mind them but could never bring myself to count them into the main series, which Tom Conway had made his own by this time. Sad also that it was all downhill after this for Conway, who moved into TV, voice overs and even played Norman Conquest in Park Plaza 605 rather well in 1953. He also developed serious eye and alcohol problems – I don't know if they were linked – wound up poverty stricken and after a spell in hospital in 1967 was found dead in his girlfriend's bed. For us folk that want to at least we still have his 10 entertaining Falcon's plus a number of other worthy, even classic RKO movies from 1942 to 1946 with which to remember him by.

Tom Lawrence and Goldie head off on holiday with a strict agreement that they won't get tied up with "no dames". However when Lawrence spots a woman in trouble and intercedes to find that he has rescued Louisa Braganza –niece of a scientist. He learns that Louisa may have been kidnapped to get a formula for manufacturing industrial diamonds from her father. When her uncle is murdered, the Falcon is the #1 suspect and he makes a break for it to find the people who set him up. With the formula entrusted to him by Louisa, Lawrence has bought himself some time but with the police and the killers on his trail he still must move quickly.

In the final of the thirteen Falcon movies, Tom Lawrence gets mixed up in a murderous plot to get hold of a formula for manufacturing diamonds. Putting the Falcon on the other side of the law and pursued by them adds an element of tension to the film and injects a bit of pace into the mixed plot. With the film series coming to an end I had worried that it would just collapse – hence them making no more films, but in reality this film is of the generally reasonable standard of the rest of the films. The plot is a bit contrived at the start but once you get into it, it is pretty engaging and quite fun with mystery and some nice action (albeit rather old fashioned stiff punches etc). The conclusion is rather unsatisfying though and I didn't think it did the plot justice by seeming to end rather abruptly and without really being a meaty end to the story. Of course it is an even more annoying end to the film series, featuring as it does as rather wet joke from Goldie and a chuckle from the cast – not the way an enjoyable series should have bowed out.

The cast are mixed but Conway is very good and by this stage my memory of his brother had pretty much gone to the point that I now think of Conway when I think of the Falcon character. Brophy's returns in the revolving role of comedy sidekick – despite the fact that he had already been in the series as a detective in The Gay Falcon. He is OK but you do feel that all the actors in that role are just doing an impersonation – none of them, particularly Brophy, ever really made the role their own or did anything new with it. Meredith is OK and is better than the simmering love interest that have been used during parts of the series. The bad guys don't make enough of an impression – partly causing a weak ending to the story. Jason Robards Sr makes an appearance as the police detective and is good with straight support.

Overall this is mostly a good film and the main body of it is quite engaging and fun. However the start feels a bit forced (convenient) and the ending is a rather weak end to both the film and the series. The cast are mixed but Lawrence is strong and the film is worth seeing and will please fans of the series even if you can't help wishing that it had gone out on more of a high than a plateau.

Both the Falcon series and the Boston Blackie series are guilty of re-using a plot more than once - I wouldn't be surprised if that were true of many series.

In this one, the MacGuffin is the formula for industrial diamonds which I am pretty sure was used before. The Falcon (Tom Conway) saves a kidnapped woman and winds up being framed for the murder of her uncle, who owns the formula and is trying to get it to someone in Miami that has arranged for backers.

Some clever moments, one regarding a blonde the Falcon saves from someone harassing her on the train.

Tom Conway does a good job - it was his last foray as the Falcon. He's charming, but this wasn't very exciting.

Of interest, pretty Madge Meredith's career was derailed a bit when she was sentenced to five years in prison on an assault charge - it turned out that in fact she had been framed and was released. She worked into the '60s.

This film is a fun little private eye detective story like they aren't made any more. It's all there: Tom Conway is the suave detective called The Falcon, Goldie Locke (what's in a name) is his wisecracking bumbling sidekick, Louisa Braganza is the damsel in distress, and of course there are the damsels maid, the professor with the secret formula, the bad guy that wants the formula, and the police inspector who's after The Falcon. There is a murder, and The Falcon gets implicated. The scenery is night clubs, expensive hotel rooms, a luxury train, the suburbs, and beautiful cars. Go watch this little gem when you see it pass by on afternoon TV!