The Adventures of the Falcon January 29, 2007
Posted by jackal in : Films , trackbackBBC2, in the spirit of Christmas giving, decided to broadcast 10 of the 13 RKO Falcon movies last month. I’d seen a couple of these 1940s “B”s before, but in sitting down and viewing the series in order (not that there’s a great deal of continuity) these past weeks, I’ve become a real fan of the playboy sleuth’s adventures.
For those unfamiliar with the series, it began in 1941 when George Sanders starred in RKO’s The Gay Falcon (as Leonard Maltin says in his review, the title refers to the Falcon’s name, not his sexual inclination 
). With its mixture of intrigue, light romance and playful comedy, little was different from Sanders’ previous RKO series The Saint apart from his character’s name change. Sanders returned as Gay Lawrence for A Date with the Falcon and The Falcon Takes Over, but his blossoming film career in “A” pictures led to him demanding to be released from the role. RKO’s novel solution to the problem? Sanders returned one last time, for The Falcon’s Brother, in which The Falcon passes the torch to sibling Tom Lawrence, played by Sanders’ real-life older brother Tom Conway.
Conway took the opportunity and ran with it, playing this new Falcon in a further nine outings before the RKO series came to a close with The Falcon’s Adventure in 1946.
What makes these films so enjoyable, then? After all, they’re merely 60-70 minute potboilers, each entry sticking pretty much to the same formula: the Falcon finds himself roped into helping solve a murder (or two) at the behest of a beautiful young girl whose interest in him isn’t purely professional. The case will often take him out of the city (as the series progressed we had such entries as The Falcon in Hollywood, The Falcon Out West, The Falcon in Mexico, etc.). Along the way he’ll outwit the bumbling cops (who normally suspect the Falcon at some point), have to juggle a couple of girlfriends, and comic relief is never far away in the form of his trusty sidekick, who changes actors more times than you can count.
The template is never too restricting, though: The plots are generally well-constructed and involving, and the trend, in later films, of changing the locale helped prevent any staleness from creeping in. However, there’s no denying that much of the credit for the continued entertainment value of the series is thanks to its stars. Both Sanders and Conway fitted the role (or roles, to be fussy) of The Falcon down to a tee, strolling through one mystery after another without ever dirtying their suit or knocking a hair out of place. The Falcon was one cool cat, but there was a playful glint in the eye of both men that said they knew the whole thing was nonsense; they were just having fun with it. My personal favourite of the two is Sanders; to me he just seemed to be enjoying it that little bit more, but there isn’t much in it. Hopefully Warner Bros will see fit to release the series to DVD in R1 land; I’d love to see them spruced up and looking better than the distinctly average BBC2 prints.
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These are great fun aren’t they? Unfortunately the BBC prints were in the poorest state I can remember, and I’ve seen the broadcast versions several times.
I’d buy a full DVD set in a heartbeat.