Le Retour du Faucon

Better than average Falcon, thanks to colorful Raymond Chandler characters and noirish touches. The suspense centers on what's happened to mystery woman Velma, instead of the more standard whodunit. An even bigger mystery is why the cast credits are so skimpy. A number of principal actors appear without name credit, including the pivotal Ward Bond and Hans Conreid. So, what's the story with this?

Anyway, Sanders is his usual smooth self as he tracks down the mystery woman; at the same time, Lynn Bari makes a sprightly girl-Friday reporter. The script comes up with some good throw-away lines, so cock an ear. Importantly, director Irving Reis has a feel for noirish touches that create more atmosphere than most Falcon entries.

Of course, the Chandler original has been filmed many times, most effectively as Murder My Sweet (1944). Nonetheless, considering its programmer status, this first version manages some interest. Ward Bond makes a convincing Moose Malloy, and get a load of Helen Gilbert as Diana Kenyon. She looks like a double-scoop vanilla ice cream cone. Also, the usually riveting cult actress Ann Revere has a minor role, unfortunately as a not very convincing Jesse Florian. Too bad the script didn't develop the phony psychic thread more fully since the hocus-pocus provides both atmosphere and color. Nonetheless, it's still an entertaining 60 minutes of Falcon.

This entry in an otherwise it-is-what-it-is series of crime programmers merits attention because it preserves the first filming of a novel by Raymond Chandler: Farewell, My Lovely – two years before Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet, one of that handful of 1944 films that really got the noir cycle rolling.

Often such adaptations bear scant resemblance to their original material, bringing to mind the screenplay Joe Gillis (in Sunset Blvd.) wrote that started out with Okies in the Dustbowl and ended up on a torpedo boat. But The Falcon Takes Over startlingly opens with a character called Moose Malloy (Ward Bond) looking for his Velma (Helen Gilbert can't even begin to pinch-hit for Claire Trevor). Along the way we visit that drunken old streel Jessie Florian (Anne Revere, every bit as good as Esther Howard) and Jules Amthor (Turhan Bey, complete with turban and crystal ball).

Given the quality of much of the cast and the initial fidelity to Chandler's material, the movie promises to be much better than it turns out. And what sinks it is the notion that Chandler could supply fodder for a `programmer.' First of all, 90 or 100 minutes offer too brief a span for his baroque tales to unfurl; an hour plus change mutilates them irreparably. Second, franchises like Charlie Chan, or The Saint, or The Falcon are struck from the same template, to which all material must conform. So the setting is not the languorous corruption of Los Angeles but the hurly-burly of New York; missing as well is any sense of Chandler's awareness of the advantages conferred by wealth and class.

But most conspicuous in his absence, of course, is Philip Marlowe. He disappears into George Sander's last run as The Falcon, before he bequeathed the franchise to his brother Tom Conway. (Sanders walks through this picture as if he had given up on the last one.) He has a sidekick, too (Allen Jenkins), who's chock-full of amusing malapropisms. Sidekicks and malapropisms are about as far from Chandler's dark universe as it's possible to go.

Comparing this film to Chandler's novel or to Murder My Sweet - and I'm a huge fan of both - is pointless. This 'Falcon' is a terrific 40s programmer, and I enjoyed seeing how plot elements and characters from the novel were whipped up into a frothy and fun comedy. I've read all the bios on Chandler and knowing he loathed Hollywood, he probably loathed what RKO did to his magnum opus, but Falcon fans, and me, liked it. This is my first Falcon film, watched only because Lynn Bari played the female lead. My interest in seeing Bari's films comes from reading her superbly wonderful biography, 'Foxy Lady', and Bari is terrific here as the investigative reporter who could have solved this mystery all by herself. I've always liked George Sanders, and he doesn't disappoint. The Velma actress had the right vampish allure, but her hairstyle is jarring and I got distracted wondering why RKO didn't borrow Metro's Guilaroff to fix her wig. I laughed a lot at the comedians - Jenkins, Gleason and his sidekick, the Falcon's valet. All in all, I had a very enjoyable Saturday night at the movies.

Ward Bond is Moose Malloy, deranged escaped convict searching for a one time girlfriend named Velma. Drawing considerable noisy attention to himself, the Moose tracks down a shady night club manager who seems to know something—but is quickly murdered. That's just the beginning of a complicated plot that includes seedy characters, dimly lit locales, and more questions than answers.

George Sanders is excellent as Gay Lawrence—also known, of course, as the Falcon. Sanders handles the picture's serious mystery elements with gravity and style. He also manages to fit into the other half of the plot, which is essentially comic relief provided by the Falcon's right hand man Goldie Locke (Allen Jenkins) and the usual bickering police duo (James Gleason and Edward Gargan as exasperated inspector and dumb assistant detective).

Lynn Bari is fine as the female in the case – unexceptional but solid as the usual plucky girl that the Falcon teams up with. She and Sanders exchange some decent banter: "You believe me, don't you?" she asks at one point. "I like you," he answers, "which is much more important."

Easy viewing for fans of series mysteries, with Sanders' strong performance standing out.

This is an odd mix. The humor of the Falcon grafted into a Cliff notes version of Raymond Chandler that doesn't do either justice.

The plot of Moose Malloy trying to find his Velma and leaving a trail of bodies in his wake has been done several times all very seriously. Here the case is taken from Phillip Marlowe and given to George Saunders as the Falcon and its almost is a classic.

The problem is that the two styles, the Falcon's wisecracking doesn't mix with the seriousness of the source material. The two parts the humor and the crime drama are perfectly done when each takes the center stage but the shifting from one to the other doesn't really work well. Saunders is so good a hard boiled private dick that I really wonder what would have happened had be been allowed to play a real tough guy.

The worst flaw of the film is only apparent to those who know the original story and that is the speed at which its told. We fly through this story at light speed, and while it works here as a programmer, its shortening is glaring and jarring to those who love the other versions.

On its own terms its a very very good movie. As a representation of a Raymond Chandler book its a mere curio. I suggest you just take it for what it is for a good nights entertainment.