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The Falcon Takes Over More at IMDbPro »

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8 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
The Falcon does Philip Marlowe, 20 March 2005

Author: dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York

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.

7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Maybe this might offend a few Raymond Chandler fans, but this is one of the better Falcon movies, 20 November 2007

Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

As I watched the opening credits, I was surprised to see that this Falcon movie was actually based on the Raymond Chandler book "Farewell, My Lovely"--which I'd seen twice before in the forms of MURDER, MY SWEET (1944) and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1975). What particularly surprised me about this is that was a originally Philip Marlowe story, NOT a Gay Lawrence (a.k.a. "The Falcon") film. Now Raymond Chandler purists might balk at this, but the film actually compares reasonably well to these later films--even with a leading man who is so unlike the hard-boiled detective, Marlowe. While the settings were "classed up" quite a bit compared to the novel, the overall plot is still there with only a few minor changes (such as at the very end and the disposition of "Velma"). Additionally, Allan Jenkins, Lawrence's lady friend and the cops were integrated into the original plot.

Now if you were going to rate this film, you can't really compare this RKO B-film to the two later higher budget films. The later films are more faithful to the book, but they also have the advantage of being made AFTER Chandler became more famous--and when producers would have never considered getting rid of the Marlowe character. And, while some might be very critical of the lower budget THE FALCON TAKES OVER, if you compare it to other B-detective series films of the day (such as Boston Blackie, Charlie Chan or The Lone Wolf), it is clearly superior--mostly due to the basic foundation laid by Chandler. Plus, George Sanders is his usual affable and suave character--a guy that's hard not to like even if he isn't as jaded and tough as Marlowe.

For lovers of the B-movie genre, this is an exceptional and engaging film--significantly better than the later Tom Conway films in the series. In fact, aside from 'the earlier THE GAY FALCON, it might just be the best in the series.

7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
An OK film – a poor version of the Chandler story due to the strange mix of a noir plot with a jokey, light character and series, 9 September 2004
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

While out at a local club, Gay Lawrence finds himself close by when a man called Moose Malloy comes into the club looking for his Velma, killing the manager in the process of asking. The police pick up on the case but Gay starts searching for Velma. He picks up a lead that involves a meeting, before getting a call out of the blue from a man looking for help. When the 'case' turns out to be a trap designed to kill Gay, he finds himself in the middle of something bigger than he expected.

I'm not sure why, after so many films, the Falcon series suddenly reached into Raymond Chandler for its source material. Perhaps it was the fact that Sanders was fed up doing the films and maybe they were trying to provide of a film for him to work with. Certainly this is a rather different entry in the series that manages to change some elements of the series while also keeping aspects that make it a Falcon film – however this is a weakness rather than a plus point because the two aspects detract from one another. Being the first filmed version of Farewell, My Lovely, this film gets off to a good start; in fact I was surprised to see Moose Malloy looking for Velma and I started to think maybe it was spoofing the film, until I realized that this was made a couple of years before the most famous version. The plot is dark and mysterious and is better delivered as noir – something that the Falcon film cannot do whilst trying to remain a Falcon film. So although the plot follows the source material well, it never really gets a tone that it deserves.

The reason for this is that the material is mixed with the usual Falcon brand of humours and characters. Elements such as Goldy's quips and the discussions between O'Hara and his detective are funny but they don't fit well. Of course this hurts the Chandler material more than it hurts the Falcon series because the addition of a good plot helps add to the usual Falcon aspects – so it turns out to be a good Falcon film but a very average version of the Chandler story. The cast don't really help either, some failing on their own terms while others show their shortcomings when compared to different actors playing the same roles in other versions. Sanders was one film away from leaving the series – as with his suicide, when he had had his fill of things he simply stepped out without fuss. In his performance here you can see that his heart is not in it anymore - he makes little effort with the material given him although it is not all his fault; he couldn't be expected to suddenly turn the Falcon into the complex, downbeat hero of Chandler's story. Jenkins does his usual stuff pretty well but I think he knew that he was an add-on to the story and he tried hard to compensate. Gleason is pretty funny in a minor role but the story specific characters are not as well played as they would later be. Bond may well have been a good model for later versions but he is not as good as them. He tries hard and has a good presence but I just found it hard to accept him as the character. The actresses in the roles of Velma and Riordan are all OK, but nothing more than that.

Overall this is an OK Falcon film despite the weaknesses. The plot is better than normal but not as well used as the same source would be in other films later on. The Falcon humour and character take away from the core of the story and stop it being the noir it deserves to be, while the mix of material and series formula is not totally successful – not quite oil/water but certainly strange bedfellows. Fans of the Falcon and Chandler completists will seek it out but for most people it will just be an average crime film or a poor version of a story done better elsewhere.

8 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
First filming of Chandler novel stumbles after promising start, 9 September 2002

Author: bmacv from Western New York

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.

7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Entertaining, unusual, comic early take on the film noir universe., 15 August 2001

Author: Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from dublin, ireland

This little known entry in a minor series might ring a few more bells when it is known that 'the Falcon takes over' is the first adaptation of Raymond Chandler's wonderful novel 'Farewell my Lovely'. And rather good it is too. Unlike its more famous successors - Edward Dmytryk's 1943 'Murder my sweet' and Dick Richards' 1975 remake, both the very definition of earnest film noir and neo-noir - this film has a vein of parody, irony and wit, that brings it closer to Robert Altman's iconoclastic 'The Long Goodbye', or, at the very least, Eddie Constantine's Lemmy Caution series of films in France.

Of course, this has largely to do with the fixed needs of an already established series, to which any source material was fitted - Chandler was clearly just another hack writer towards whom little respect need be paid. There is none of Chandler's profound disillusionment here, no attempt to trace a society or analyse its corruption. this is the noir equivalent of a Broadway musical comedy, with background strictly a setting, like a ship or a drawing room, in which familiar types do their routine.

There is no angst-ridden, isolated, defeated knight Philip Marlowe here; in his place is the Falcon, a heavy, louche, even leery amateur of dubious sexuality (like Lemmy he is clumsily eager for the ladies, and tends to bed them as soon as he meets them (or in such a way as Hollywood code could at the time suggest); but he lives a determinedly bachelor life in a large house with his 'bit of rough' sidekick Goldie, who likes to wear incongruously svelte dressing gowns in the morning (another kind of Hollywood code), his unseen fiancee fortuitously miles away).

It is important to stress that in the very early days of noir, there was an in-built awareness of the need for parody. Noir is a powerful vision, especially in a culture of such blinding, gaudy brightness as the US. But sometimes, in its macho fatalism and frightened misogyny, it can be an exhausting vision - too much straight noir can be bad for your mental health.

But this is not to say that 'Falcon' is just a big joke. Like that other great serial film that transcended its modest origins - 'Sherlock Holmes and the Pearl of Death' - it is closer to the horror film than the detective genre. Moose Molloy's lumbering, unthinking violence is similar to Karloff's Frankenstein. The scene where the Falcon, impersonating a drunk, first meets him, is filmed with mock-horror sensationalism, as is O'Hara's creeping up on Goldie's neck later. There is an attempted murder in a fog-wafting cemetary. The scene at Jules Amthor's exotic haven has the feel of those Egyptian horrors like 'the Mummy' Universal used to churn out in the 1930s, while the soundtrack has the mysterious anxiety of horror rather than the strident fear we expect from noir.

In a genre which centres on the detective, on knowledge, on the possibility of explaining and repairing breaks in the social and moral order, the intrusion of horror will be disturbing. It asserts the opposite - the limits of knowledge, darkness over the light of reason, the vulnerability of bodies, the point of breakdown. the Falcon in this mystery is singularly inept, and is only saved from death by a singularly unconvincing deus ex machina. He is utterly exposed, his reason and detective status irrelevant faced with the cold fact of Death in a lonely forest, a very horror milieu. In this way, the amiably silly 'Falcon' is actually closer to the spirit of Chandler than more 'serious', faithful versions (Despite the scriptwriters' brave efforts, though, the plot is typically intransigent!).

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Poor Man's `Murder My Sweet/Lovely', 24 August 2002

Author: Jim Tritten from Corrales, NM

Anyone who has seen the definitive Edward Dmytryk film noir `Murder My Sweet' (1944) will blanch at this low-budget Falcon version of Raymond Chandler's 1940 `Murder My Lovely.' Life is not fair – more viewers will have seen the subsequent performance of Dick Powell as detective Philip Marlowe than George Sanders efforts as Gay Lawrence. These films are simply not comparable although they are based on the same novel. And it isn't that Dmytryk never made Falcon-class films – he directed `The Falcon Strikes Back' in 1943. It is just that `The Falcon Takes Over' comes nowhere near the superior `Murder My Sweet' and thus anyone who has seen both versions will be disappointed.

Director Irving Reis was teamed with George Sanders on the first three of the Falcon films – this one being the last appearance for both in the series. George Sanders especially disappointed me – he has done better in this type role and I am pre-disposed to like anything that he has done. Ward Bond does a good job at playing the hulk Moose Malloy – but anyone who has seen Mike Mazurki will not be as impressed. Allen Jenkins does well as faithful sidekick Jonathan 'Goldy' Locke but in the Tom Conway Falcon series, Edward Brophy is a good substitute. James Gleason is always good as the policeman in charge.

See this to compare or to round out your viewing of the Sanders Falcon series.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
The Falcon Does Chandler, 29 November 2009

Author: dougdoepke from Claremont, USA

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.

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Early Chandler, late Sanders, 4 July 2007

Author: robert-temple-1 from United Kingdom

Enthusiasts for Raymond Chandler need to see this first filmed version of 'Farewell, My Lovely', which came out two years before the famous version entitled 'Murder, My Sweet' in the USA and 'Farewell, My Lovely' abroad. Ward Bond does an excellent version of playing Moose Molloy, unfortunately eclipsed by the unforgettable Mike Mazurki in that role in the next version. Sanders is as witty as ever, but seems somehow to be losing his enthusiasm, and a lot of the sparkle seems to have gone out of this third film, partly because Chandler and Arlen really did not mix. It must have been a terrible struggle to squeeze the Falcon and his entourage of stock characters into the brilliant Chandler novel. Chandler may have written a lot of wisecracks, but he did not write comedy, and the Falcon should never be separated for too long from gags. The brilliance of the second and the fizz of the first Falcon film do not really carry over here. One reason may be that the plot did not allow a suitable male/female battle for this one; there is a lot of kissing, flirting, and even swooning, but the true dynamics of the gender struggle are absent, and it all seems a bit forced. Hans Conreid swoops in again, this time as the suave Marriott, but he is soon killed without even having a chance to make a wisecrack as he falls. At this stage, the team were getting a bit world-weary and into the series mould. Staleness threatened, and soon Sanders would hand the role over to his brother Tom Conway, escaping while the going was good. Nevertheless, anyone with a serious interest in Chandler needs to see this, and as a Falcon film, it is not negligible, merely a lesser effort, and still manages to be amusing. If we hadn't been spoiled by the first two when the World Was Young and the falcon was fresh, maybe we would have thought this was better.

Farewell, My Lovely, 30 April 2012

Author: blanche-2 from United States

George Sanders is again The Falcon in "The Falcon Takes Over," a 1942 entry into the series. This one is the plot of "Farewell, My Lovely," and Ward Bond as the nearly catatonic strongman Moose Malloy walking around in a fog looking for Velma.

They've sort of stuffed The Falcon and Goldy into this plot, a complicated story that was tough to cram into 65 minutes. Consequently this isn't the breezy Falcon we're used to, and most of the comedy goes to Goldy, who is terrified of Malloy and sees him around every corner. James Gleason, as the Inspector O'Hara, investigating the murder of a night club manager, also had a funny bit he did several times with his underling.

Hans Conreid has a serious role here as Marriot, and Turhan Bey has a small role as swami Jules Amthor.

All in all, entertaining, maybe not the usual Falcon except for his flirting with every woman, but decent.

1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
An amusing trifle, 6 June 2003
Author: McGonigle from bean world, massachusetts

Put this one in the same category as "Satan Met a Lady". An amusing way to kill some time for hard-core fans (of Chandler or Hammett), but so far from "essential" that you can't even see the road back to "essential".

I guess that we have "The Thin Man" to blame for all this. The success of that movie (and franchise) must have inspired every movie studio out there to create their own version of the suave, wise-cracking society detective.

It terms of the source material, it's kind of a "mystery" to me (sorry) why they even felt it necessary to borrow part of the plot from "Farewell, My Lovely". The movie is only 65 minutes long, so you barely get past the first visit to Amthor (the psychic) and things are starting to wrap up. That's only about 1/4 or maybe 1/3 of the way through the original novel -- and most of what *is* taken from the novel had to be twisted around to fit the characters in this movie -- so you get none of the classic Chandler material about Santa Monica (excuse me, "Bay City"), the sanitarium, the gambling boat, etc, etc, etc. Also, the whole setup with Lindsay Marriott coming in to ask the detective to accompany him to his payoff is pretty absurd when the main character is a society bon vivant who solves crimes in his spare time rather than a professional private investigator. It seems to me like it wouldn't have been that much harder to just write a new mystery (or adapt some less incongruous one) but I guess that starting with "Farewell My Lovely" allowed them to finish the script for this movie in, say, twenty minutes instead of an hour.

So there's nothing "noir" about this movie at all; it's really only for hard-core fans of Chandler's writing or light 30s/40s mystery/comedies, but it's a fun way to pass some time on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

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