Watch The Falcon Takes Over For Free

Powerful

Just perfect...

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

For The Falcon Takes Over the folks at RKO chose an impeccable source in the person of Raymond Chandler for this film. It's based on the famous Chandler novel Farewell My Lovely which both Dick Powell and Robert Mitchum played Philip Marlowe in two different versions.But in this first adaption the private eye is our protagonist the urbane and witty Falcon played by George Sanders. RKO didn't even bother to change the names of the rest of the characters, just grafted the Falcon series regulars in the story.Standing out in the cast is Ward Bond playing the hulking Moose Malloy fresh out of stir and looking for his Velma. Helen Gilbert is the selfsame Velma for whom the Moose did a prison stretch for and who thanks him for that solid favor properly. Lynn Bari plays a would be reporter who gets the scoop of her life when the Falcon breaks the case. And Anne Revere really stands out as the dipsomaniacal Jessie Florian.Having seen the two classic later versions first didn't spoil this one for me. It's a solid entry in the Falcon film series though it doesn't have the style and ambiance of the Powell and Mitchum versions.How could it?

I got up at dawn to catch a 6.10 TV screening of this strictly as a Chandler buff. I had long known of it, of course, but never seen it. I had also heard of the Falcon franchise and it seemed reasonable that the Chandler novel would require amendement in order to accommodate whatever format the Falcon series had established. In the event it proved to be a melange: the first obvious discrepancy was the locale, Chandler's Los Angeles had been shipped intact to New York, presumably the established stanping ground of the Falcon; bizarrely half the characters retained Chandler's names - Moose Malloy, Jesse Florian, Ann Riorden, Jules Amthor, but others had been altered slightly - Laird Brunette became Laird Burnett, Lindsay Marriott became Quincey Marriott - or totally - the femme fatale was no longer Mrs Grayle but someone totally fictitious. Whilst Chandler's Marlowe was not above cracking wise with low-key dialogue here The Falconh's sidekick, Allen Jenkins, goes out for blatant laffs and even James Gleaso's detective employs a serial catch-phrase to his own clearly retarded side-kick. For 65 minutes it's not as bad as it might be. That same year, a second Chandler novel, The High Window, was also given the business as Time To Kill, another I have yet to catch up with.

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.

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.