Year:  1942
Rating: 7.0

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This third in the Falcon series is based on the Raymond Chandler novel, Farewell, My Lovely and in fact was the first Chandler story brought to the screen. The book was covered two more times – the terrific Murder, My Sweet (they changed the title because they worried people would think it was a musical) two years later with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe and then many years later Robert Mitchum took on the role in a decentish version. I had expected that the film would be Farewell, My Lovely light with only a vague resemblance to the novel but in fact they follow the plot of the book reasonably closely though they have to compact it to fit into the B film 63 minute formula. And of course it isn’t Marlowe; it’s Gay Laurence known to all as The Falcon.


The quality of the series is maintained with George Sanders as suave as butter on warm toast. He keeps having guns pointed at him but somehow manages to survive – so far. Most of the time I appreciate the comedy relief provided by the Falcon’s sidekick played by Allen Jenkins but it felt almost sacrilegious throwing in the silly comedy into a Raymond Chandler adaptation. Chandler was not an amusing man unless drunk which he was much of the time. It must have pained him to see this but the paycheck probably felt good and at least the Marlowe name wasn’t used. Of course, to be fair at the time Chandler was far from the icon he is today.


Moose Malone is looking for Velma again. Feels like The Moose has always been looking for his old girl Velma after getting out of the hoosegow. It isn’t Mike Mazurki this time (Murder, My Sweet), but a large and ominous Ward Bond tries to fill the Moose’s large shoes. The Femme Fatale is Helen Gilbert who never quite made it in show business and the girl reporter who helps the Falcon is played by Lynn Bari who I often confuse with Wendy Barrie as they both trolled the world of B films fairly successfully. And James Gleason is back again as the Inspector – too bad they didn’t name him Piper as a reference to his role in all the Hildegarde Withers films. The mystic Amthor is here as well if you know the story and is played by Turhan Bey in his second Falcon film. So this is pretty good taking into account the short running time and its B petticoats with a good cast and thankfully the fiancée was away for the weekend so no more of the jealous routine. Since RKO had the rights to the book they followed up with Murder, My Sweet one of the great noirs in my opinion.