The Falcon Takes Over (1942)

The Falcon Takes Over (1942)

The third film in the Falcon series

Though the Raymond Chandler novel Farewell My Lovely was more famously used to revive – transform singing hoofer Dick Powell’s career when it was adapted by director Edward Dmytryk and screenwriter John Paxton into Murder My Sweet (1944) a couple of years hence and became a vehicle for an aged Robert Mitchum in 1975 the first screen version of it was used to make this third film in the Falcon Series. Lynn Root and Frank Fenton wrote the screenplay featuring Michael Arlen’s characters that Irving Reis directed. It’s a B movie crime mystery comedy that stars George Sanders as Gay Lawrence aka The Falcon; James Gleason and Allen Jenkins reprise their roles as police Inspector O’Hara and Lawrence’s sidekick chauffeur ‘Goldy’ Locke. Playing the female parts are Lynn Bari as reporter wannabe Ann Riordan and Helen Gilbert as femme fatale Diana Kenyon. Appearing uncredited are several recognizable character actors that fill the other key roles including Ward Bond as Moose Malloy Edward Gargan as O’Hara’s sidekick Detective Bates Anne Revere as Jessie Florian Hans Conreid as Lindsey Marriot Turhan Bey as Jules Amthor and Selmer Jackson as Laird Burnett.

After serving five of his twenty year sentence lovelorn lug Moose Malloy escapes from prison in search of his showgirl friend Velma but finds that the club where she worked is now called Club 13 and under new ownership. After killing its manager he forces Goldy (who’d been waiting for his boss the Falcon to emerge) to take him to Jessie Florian’s house in Brooklyn. He returns to find the Falcon conversing with Inspector O’Hara and Detective Bates in the manager’s office. Though he tells the police that he’d taken the Moose to the subway he later admits the truth to the Falcon who naturally wants to go there too. Pretending to be drunk the Falcon avoids a similar fate at the hands of the murderer and then meets Florian who inadvertently reveals an address and a meeting time to the amateur detective. After returning to his residence the Falcon receives a call from Lindsey Marriot who pretends to need some assistance in obtaining a stolen jade necklace. Fortunately for the Falcon he didn’t trust Marriot else he’d have been killed with his own gun. Marriot is then shot by an unseen party and the Falcon catches Ann Riordan at the scene. She’d been following the Falcon hoping to find a story that would net her a reporter job with a newspaper. The Falcon then finds a business card in Marriot’s pocket; the address matches the one he’d written down at Florian’s apartment and the name on the card is Jules Amthor psychic consultant.

After sharing the details of Marriot’s murder with O’Hara the Falcon sends Goldy to meet Amthor at the designated time while he and Ann go to meet Diana Kenyon the owner of the jade necklace with whom the reporter had an appointment. Ladies’ man that he is the Falcon charms Miss Kenyon or does she seduce him? Meanwhile at the psychic’s reading room Goldy is a sitting duck when Moose arrives at the appointed time. Whereas Amthor was to kill Malloy the lug turns the tables on he and his assistant killing them both while leaving Goldy in the dark to be discovered by O’Hara and Bates who’d been trailing the Falcon’s sidekick. Finding him in yet another compromising position the police officers force Goldy to agree to inform them of his boss’s activities and when the Falcon insists on returning to Florian’s he does. While the Falcon is finding a signed photograph of the alluring Velma in the next room O’Hara enters the darkened room with Goldy where just moments before they’d found Florian dead by strangulation (e.g. Moose again). The Falcon escapes to find Miss Kenyon at the club where he then meets Laird Burnett. In Burnett’s office Miss Kenyon tells the Falcon that she’d seen Velma working in an out of the way club and promises to take him there. Then after eluding a detective they are driven by a chauffeur on a remote road.

At this point the mystery of all these seemingly disparate connections is revealed as Sanders all but mumbles the answers; Moose’s conflict is resolved as the case is solved perhaps too abruptly and too conveniently for most viewers.

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