Really Surprised!

From my favorite movies..

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

We are looking at big-screen movies, either based on a Raymond Chandler novel or screen-played by Chandler.First off is The Falcon Takes Over (1942), which hardly marks a really auspicious beginning for Chandler or Marlowe on the screen. RKO purchased the screen rights to "Farewell, My Lovely" for a song and had no qualms in making it over for Michael Arlen's character, The Falcon, who figured in a series of sixteen "B" movies, starring George Sanders (the first four), John Calvert (the last three), and Sanders' real-life brother, Tom Conway (the ones in between). By the humble standards of the series "B", however, The Falcon Takes Over could be described as reasonably entertaining. Chandler's tense plot is preserved more or less intact. Only the characters have been changed. Sanders makes The Falcon suitably suave, whilst Lynn Bari provides a spirited heroine.

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?

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.

Except that GEORGE SANDERS seems bored by his role as The Falcon (it was his next to last assignment in Falcon films), and that he is no substitute for the tough detective Philip Marlowe, this early version of Chandler's "Farewell, My Lovely" is geared for a mixture of mystery, mirth and murder. LYNN BARI as an ambitious young newspaper reporter adds some zest to the co-starring female lead.Interesting to see character actress ANN REVERE as a tough old broad, HANS CONREID as a double-crossing playboy and TURHAN BEY as a Swami. But the standout supporting roles are filled by WARD BOND as Moose Malloy and ALLEN JENKINS as Goldy, the Falcon's right-hand man afraid of Moose.Bond looks like an impressive hot-tempered hulk and his scenes with Jenkins are both menacing and humorous. Jenkins plays his role for all the humor in the script--and there's plenty of that to go around. JAMES GLEASON as an exasperated detective is at his bombastic best.It's a fun ride with a running time of just an hour, so the Chandler story had to be compressed. In that it's an intricate tale of murder and deception, it never gets the full treatment here. Nevertheless, for fans of GEORGE SANDERS, it's a worthwhile flick with overtones of humor and noirish mystery in the Chandler manner.