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Post by kijii on Nov 6, 2017 17:56:09 GMT
Today, TCM is doing an all-day series on this character that I had never heard of.
Evidently the Falcon is played by George Sanders....could be good.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 6, 2017 19:36:24 GMT
Don't know that I'd call myself a fan, especially, but I can say that of the couple I've seen among the four that George Sanders did, and a couple of those after Sanders's real-life-brother Tom Conway (playing the Falcon's own brother) took over the series, they've all been brisk, light and enjoyable if undemanding crime capers full of colorful characters, double-crosses and cleverly-managed escapes, along with lethally elegant bad girls and saucy, wisecracking good ones.
We're DVR-ing all of them today because we can't recall which we've seen and which we haven't, but I'm sure we'll re-watch those we've seen, too. I've no reason to doubt that those we haven't will be just as diverting a means of passing an hour or so as the rest.
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Post by mikef6 on Nov 6, 2017 20:18:36 GMT
Today, TCM is doing an all-day series on this character that I had never heard of. Evidently the Falcon is played by George Sanders....could be good. It all began in 1938 when Leslie Charteris’ popular (books, magazines, radio) detective, The Saint, first reached the screen personified by Louis Hayward. This resulted in a series totaling 9 films. George Sanders played The Saint, Simon Templar, in numbers 2 through 6. Hugh Sinclair took over for 7 and 8, then Hayward returned eleven years after #8 for the 9th and last. RKO, after dropping The Saint in 1941, created The Falcon, almost a carbon copy, and brought back Sanders. According To Charteris, this was a blatant attempt to have The Saint without paying a royalty to get him. Charteris sued RKO but lost. Sanders only stayed in the new series for 4 pictures. In his last, “The Falcon’s Brother,” Sanders’ real life brother, Tom Conway, was introduced. The torch was passed to Conway for the next nine pictures. The last two Falcon movies were made after Conway’s death with John Calvert in the title role. I have seen seven of the nine Saint films: #1 The Saint In New York, 1938 (Hayward) #2 The Saint Strikes Back, 1939 (Sanders) #3 The Saint In London, 1939 (Sanders) #4 The Saint’s Double Trouble, 1940 (Sanders) #6 The Saint In Palm Springs, 194 (Sanders) #7 The Saint’s Vacation, 1941 (Sinclair) #8 The Saint Meets The Tiger, 1943 (Sinclair) But only four of the 19 Falcon films: #1 The Gay Falcon, 1941 (Sanders) #5 The Falcon Strikes Back, 1943 (Conway) #7 The Falcon In Danger, 1943 (Conway) #12 The Falcon’s Alibi, 1946 (Conway) I just set the last three of the TCM movies to record so I can add to my Falcon list. Thanks for the heads-up. |
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Post by kijii on Nov 6, 2017 21:48:36 GMT
Today, TCM is doing an all-day series on this character that I had never heard of. Evidently the Falcon is played by George Sanders....could be good. It all began in 1938 when Leslie Charteris’ popular (books, magazines, radio) detective, The Saint, first reached the screen personified by Louis Hayward. This resulted in a series totaling 9 films. George Sanders played The Saint, Simon Templar, in numbers 2 through 6. Hugh Sinclair took over for 7 and 8, then Hayward returned eleven years after #8 for the 9th and last. RKO, after dropping The Saint in 1941, created The Falcon, almost a carbon copy, and brought back Sanders. According To Charteris, this was a blatant attempt to have The Saint without paying a royalty to get him. Charteris sued RKO but lost. Sanders only stayed in the new series for 4 pictures. In his last, “The Falcon’s Brother,” Sanders’ real life brother, Tom Conway, was introduced. The torch was passed to Conway for the next nine pictures. The last two Falcon movies were made after Conway’s death with John Calvert in the title role. I have seen seven of the nine Saint films: #1 The Saint In New York, 1938 (Hayward) #2 The Saint Strikes Back, 1939 (Sanders) #3 The Saint In London, 1939 (Sanders) #4 The Saint’s Double Trouble, 1940 (Sanders) #6 The Saint In Palm Springs, 194 (Sanders) #7 The Saint’s Vacation, 1941 (Sinclair) #8 The Saint Meets The Tiger, 1943 (Sinclair) But only four of the 19 Falcon films: #1 The Gay Falcon, 1941 (Sanders) #5 The Falcon Strikes Back, 1943 (Conway) #7 The Falcon In Danger, 1943 (Conway) #12 The Falcon’s Alibi, 1946 (Conway) I just set the last three of the TCM movies to record so I can add to my Falcon list. Thanks for the heads-up. That's' very interesting to me. Esp, the part about Conway being the real-life brother of Sanders. I'll keep that in mind as I try some of these movies. It seems as though series have always been a staple of Hollywood, esp in the 30s 40s and 50s before TV. How many MOVIE series can you name? Nancy Drew Boston Backie Tarzan Dr. Kildare Charlie Chan.... It seems as though those series were based on the fact that people liked those characters and those series just kept producing audiences. |
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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 6, 2017 22:12:01 GMT
Nancy Drew Boston Backie Tarzan Dr. Kildare Charlie Chan.... It seems as though those series were based on the fact that people liked those characters and those series just kept producing audiences. Indeed. They were economical to produce and reliable profit-generators. Some others off the top of my head: Sherlock Holmes Mr. Moto The Thin Man Bulldog Drummund Torchy Blaine Maisie Blondie The Eastside Kids/The Bowery Boys The Lone Wolf Perry Mason Hildegarde Withers Dick Tracy And a number of others not immediately springing to mind. |
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Post by mikef6 on Nov 6, 2017 22:38:49 GMT
Nancy Drew Boston Backie Tarzan Dr. Kildare Charlie Chan.... It seems as though those series were based on the fact that people liked those characters and those series just kept producing audiences. Indeed. They were economical to produce and reliable profit-generators. Some others off the top of my head: Sherlock Holmes Mr. Moto The Thin Man Bulldog Drummund Torchy Blaine Maisie Blondie The Eastside Kids/The Bowery Boys The Lone Wolf Perry Mason Hildegarde Withers Dick Tracy And a number of others not immediately springing to mind. I was also typing out a list but you got in just before me.  I had quite a few of yours. In addition to Mr. Moto, I also had Mr. Wong from Monogram. Like Moto, it featured an Asian-American detective (Boris Karloff) and was designed to capitalize on the success of Charlie Chan. I love Torchy Blaine. Was anyone (except maybe Glenda Farrell's real life best friend Joan Blondel) able to talk as fast as Farrell? I am especially fond of Nancy Drew. Bonita Granville was an early crush. Frankie Thomas as Ned, her boyfriend, and veteran player John Litel as her father were perfect. I wish I had thought of The Lone Wolf, Maisie, and Hildegarde Withers. I have had two Maisies on my DVR, unwatched for a while now. Better get to them. I’ve seen quite a few of the Dr. Kildares and its spin-off, Dr. Gillespie, following Lew Ayers being sacked by MGM for coming out as a Conscientious Objector right after Pearl Harbor. |
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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 6, 2017 23:04:05 GMT
I was also typing out a list but you got in just before me. I had quite a few of yours. In addition to Mr. Moto, I also had Mr. Wong from Monogram. Like Moto, it featured an Asian-American detective (Boris Karloff) and was designed to capitalize on the success of Charlie Chan. I love Torchy Blaine. Was anyone (except maybe Glenda Farrell's real life best friend Joan Blondel) able to talk as fast as Farrell? I am especially fond of Nancy Drew. Bonita Granville was an early crush. Frankie Thomas as Ned, her boyfriend, and veteran player John Litel as her father were perfect. I wish I had thought of The Lone Wolf, Maisie, and Hildegarde Withers. I have had two Maisies on my DVR, unwatched for a while now. Better get to them. I’ve seen quite a few of the Dr. Kildares and its spin-off, Dr. Gillespie, following Lew Ayers being sacked by MGM for coming out as a Conscientious Objector right after Pearl Harbor. I just cheated, and pulled an old book (1971) from the shelf: The Great Movie Series. Here are those they list not yet mentioned: Andy Hardy (how could we forget those?) Bomba, the jungle boy Crime Doctor Dr. Christian Ellery Queen Francis, the talking mule Jungle Jim Ma and Pa Kettle Philo Vance They also list James Bond and Matt Helm, but I simply don't feel they belong in the same batch, any more than the later Iron Man and other superhero franchises (that's what they call themselves now, right?) do. Glenda Farrell was a delight, no matter whom she was playing, and although I've seen only one Nancy Drew, I've always enjoyed Bonita Granville's precocious persona. There was another that probably doesn't qualify because only two were made (1942's Eyes In the Night and 1945's The Hidden Eye), and I wish there had been more: Edward Arnold as blind detective Duncan "Mac" Maclain. Arnold played many dislikeable characters, but he's full of charisma and energy as the endlessly resourceful and perceptive Mac. |
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Post by Nalkarj on Nov 6, 2017 23:36:18 GMT
Chiming in a bit late, but I am (unsurprisingly) a fan of these grand old b-movie series, including the Falcon--though I prefer the Conway interpretation to the Sanders, curiously enough. (Conway was also a fine Sherlock Holmes on the radio, even if he was no Basil Rathbone and his accent sounded [strangely for a man raised in England] more Transatlantic than English.)
One of my favorites of the series is The Falcon in San Francisco (1945), which it took me forever to finish (someone once put it on YouTube, and I watched the first few minutes; then it was removed, and I never saw the whole thing until years later on TCM); luckily, it was worth the wait.
What I so greatly appreciate about these series is the amount of hard work put into them; there is never a sense of slumming (I wrote something similar in the James Mason thread). I know the Rathbone-Bruce Sherlock Holmes series fairly well, and there is genuine quality in works as late as The Woman in Green, Terror by Night, and Dressed to Kill. (The first of those three has an unexpected noir atmosphere that is better than the story, in fact.)
Now, we may put that down to Roy William Neill's talent (and the man was talented, as evidenced in the Holmes pictures and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man), but I also see it in the variously-directed Chans, Motos, Wongs, Kildares, and all the rest of 'em.
In other words, people cared at least somewhat about these movies, and it's great to see what directors, writers, and actors can do on the screen even when working under tight budget confines (a point which also applies to just about everything Edgar Ulmer ever did). In a way, methinks, that's the b-movie's greatest justification--and something we're sorely missing nowadays.
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Post by mattgarth on Nov 6, 2017 23:44:07 GMT
Thanks for including a favorite, Doghouse -- Edward Arnold as blind detective Captain Duncan McLain. He also did well a decade earlier as Nero Wolfe.
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Post by Nalkarj on Nov 6, 2017 23:50:38 GMT
Ah, and mentioning Roy William Neill reminded me of a little-known but fairly-decent mystery series that I don't think has been mentioned yet: the Thatcher Colt movies, with Adolphe Menjou as the titular police commissioner (a bit of a Philo Vance knock-off, but good in his own right). And how could I forget the unexpected (to me) pleasures of the "I Love a Mystery" series? A curious one that seems to prefigure The Avengers and the Roger Moore Saint.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 7, 2017 0:03:18 GMT
Thanks for including a favorite, Doghouse -- Edward Arnold as blind detective Captain Duncan McLain. He also did well a decade earlier as Nero Wolfe. And thank you. Glad to know there's at least one other who shares my fondness for those two nifty pictures. I'll make a point to be on the lookout for Arnold's Nero Wolf; sounds like it must have been right up one of the many alleys accessible to an actor I consider among the most reliable, versatile and multi-dimensional of the golden age. Any appearance of his is a treat. |
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Post by kijii on Nov 7, 2017 0:16:15 GMT
I remember seeing The Bowery Boys and Ma and Pa Kettle movies--as early memories.
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Post by politicidal on Nov 7, 2017 0:16:34 GMT
Yeah watched two earlier. The Falcon in Mexico and The Falcon Out West. Those ones though featured his brother Tom Conway who sounds so similar like George Sanders it's startling.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 7, 2017 15:30:01 GMT
The Falcon Takes Over (1942)
Well, knock me over with a feather: I had no idea Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely had been adapted for the screen prior to 1944's Murder, My Sweet. As well, this third George Sanders entry in the series was the first of any Chandler tale to be committed to film.
With a solid story as its basis, it has some meat on its bones but, at 65 minutes, that story has been significantly trimmed (I'll leave it to others to say "butchered" if they choose), not only to accommodate the running time but to make way for antics and byplay that were fixtures of the Falcon formula. It's interesting to note the elements and set pieces that were retained and which were jettisoned. Also of interest is the way in which Chandler's Philip Marlowe is split in two for this film's purposes, initially assigning parallel plots that come to be intertwined - stolen jade and the missing girlfriend of ex-con Moose Malloy - to "Falcon" Lawrence and his sidekick "Goldy" Locke (Allen Jenkins), respectively.
Ward Bond, with heavy padding in his jackets and, I suspect, lifts in his shoes makes a serviceable if colorless Moose Malloy, and other key characters later played by an elegantly malevolent Otto Kruger and a breast-heaving Claire Trevor are here truncated in the forms of exotic Turhan Bey and diminutive, Veronica-Lake-like Helen Gilbert.
Connective tissue linking some characters has been surgically removed, simplifying motivations but also eliminating aspects of harrowing jeopardy, bitter irony and poetic justice present in the fuller 1944 adaptation, but these excisions suit the lighter tone and brisker pace characteristic of the Falcon series.
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Post by teleadm on Nov 7, 2017 18:18:04 GMT
Today, TCM is doing an all-day series on this character that I had never heard of. Evidently the Falcon is played by George Sanders....could be good. The last two Falcon movies were made after Conway’s death with John Calvert in the title role. Just a few little things, Tom Conway didn't pass away until 1967. His contract with RKO run out and RKO ended thier involvment in the series. John Calvert actually made three Falcon movies. Those three movie were distributed by poverty row Film Classics Company instead. |
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Post by mikef6 on Nov 7, 2017 18:43:25 GMT
The last two Falcon movies were made after Conway’s death with John Calvert in the title role. Just a few little things, Tom Conway didn't pass away until 1967. His contract with RKO run out and RKO ended thier involvment in the series. John Calvert actually made three Falcon movies. Those three movie were distributed by poverty row Film Classics Company instead. Thanks for those much needed corrections. |
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Post by mattgarth on Nov 7, 2017 20:21:58 GMT
The Falcon Takes Over (1942) Well, knock me over with a feather: I had no idea Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely had been adapted for the screen prior to 1944's Murder, My Sweet. As well, this third George Sanders entry in the series was the first of any Chandler tale to be committed to film. With a solid story as its basis, it has some meat on its bones but, at 65 minutes, that story has been significantly trimmed (I'll leave it to others to say "butchered" if they choose), not only to accommodate the running time but to make way for antics and byplay that were fixtures of the Falcon formula. It's interesting to note the elements and set pieces that were retained and which were jettisoned. Also of interest is the way in which Chandler's Philip Marlowe is split in two for this film's purposes, initially assigning parallel plots that come to be intertwined - stolen jade and the missing girlfriend of ex-con Moose Malloy - to "Falcon" Lawrence and his sidekick "Goldy" Locke (Allen Jenkins), respectively. Ward Bond, with heavy padding in his jackets and, I suspect, lifts in his shoes makes a serviceable if colorless Moose Malloy, and other key characters later played by an elegantly malevolent Otto Kruger and a breast-heaving Claire Trevor are here truncated in the forms of exotic Turhan Bey and diminutive, Veronica-Lake-like Helen Gilbert. Connective tissue linking some characters has been surgically removed, simplifying motivations but also eliminating aspects of harrowing jeopardy, bitter irony and poetic justice present in the fuller 1944 adaptation, but these excisions suit the lighter tone and brisker pace characteristic of the Falcon series. --------------------------------------------------------- And another shot at a Chandler story before 'Philip Marlowe' was allowed to take center stage took place over at Fox Studios that same year, Doghouse. The 'Michael Shayne' series with Lloyd Nolan latched onto Chandler's story 'The High Window', renaming it TIME TO KILL. Five years later with the Marlowe craze profiting RKO and Metro and Warners thanks to Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, and Bogie -- Fox jumped on the bandwagon, dusted off the property, and this time called it THE BRASHER DOUBLOON. The other Montgomery (George) played Marlowe -- the only actor ever to portray the LA knight errant sporting a William Powell moustache! |
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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 7, 2017 21:01:55 GMT
The Falcon Takes Over (1942) Well, knock me over with a feather: I had no idea Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely had been adapted for the screen prior to 1944's Murder, My Sweet. As well, this third George Sanders entry in the series was the first of any Chandler tale to be committed to film. --------------------------------------------------------- And another shot at a Chandler story before 'Philip Marlowe' was allowed to take center stage took place over at Fox Studios that same year, Doghouse. The 'Michael Shayne' series with Lloyd Nolan latched onto Chandler's story 'The High Window', renaming it TIME TO KILL. Five years later with the Marlowe craze profiting RKO and Metro and Warners thanks to Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, and Bogie -- Fox jumped on the bandwagon, dusted off the property, and this time called it THE BRASHER DOUBLOON. The other Montgomery (George) played Marlowe -- the only actor ever to portray the LA knight errant sporting a William Powell moustache! Thanks, matt. And those six Michael Shane outings of Lloyd Nolan's furnish yet another entry in our running list of nifty little "B" picture series, so thanks for that, too. I've seen only two of them, I think, and both were breezy fun, propelled by Nolan's snappy, fast-talking geniality. Hope to catch up to the rest some of these days. I'm not sure what reminds me at this moment, since it has nothing to do with Chandler, but if three pictures can be enough to constitute a series, there were also Red Skelton's at MGM as Wally "The Fox" Benton, radio personality and crime-solver. I learned only yesterday that the first of these, Whistling In the Dark (1941), had been previously filmed by MGM in 1933 with Ernest Truex as "Wallace Porter" and our esteemed Edward Arnold in the role played in '41 by Conrad Veidt. |
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Post by telegonus on Nov 8, 2017 8:20:32 GMT
I've always had a soft spot for the Saint and the Falcon series, which both, as already mentioned, resembled one another and in the early Forties produced by the same studio. George Sanders was probably an overall better actor than bro Tom Conway, but Tom was no slouch, and he was a much better actor than many people, even old movie buffs, realize.
For a few years there, after replacing brother George as the Falcon he was a star; a second string one, mostly in low budget films, but a star all the same. His drinking ruined him for a long and successful career, and in the end it killed him. He was good, though, even in one of his last roles, in the Perry Mason episode The Case Of The Simple Simon; and Conway has, amazingly, a strong "underground" fanbase even today.
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I had quite a few of yours. In addition to Mr. Moto, I also had Mr. Wong from Monogram. Like Moto, it featured an Asian-American detective (Boris Karloff) and was designed to capitalize on the success of Charlie Chan. 
