The Falcon Takes Over

The Falcon Takes Over
Promotional poster
Directed by	Irving Reis
Produced by	Howard Benedict (producer) J. R. McDonough (executive producer)
Written by	Raymond Chandler Characters: Michael Arlen
Screenplay by	Lynn Root Frank Fenton
Based on	Novel
Starring	George Sanders Lynn Bari James Gleason
Music by	Constantin Bakaleinikoff (musical director, composer) Roy Webb (original music)
Cinematography	George Robinson
Edited by	Harry Marker
Production company	RKO Radio Pictures
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures (theatrical)
Release dates	May 29, 1942 (1942-05-29)
Running time	65 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Falcon Takes Over, also known as The Falcon Steps Out, is a 1942 black-and-white mystery film directed by Irving Reis. The film was the third, following The Gay Falcon and A Date with the Falcon (1941), to star George Sanders as the character Gay Lawrence, a gentleman detective known by the sobriquet the Falcon.

Though the film featured the Falcon and other characters created by Michael Arlen, its plot was taken from the Raymond Chandler novel Farewell, My Lovely, with the Falcon substituted for Chandler's archetypal private eye Philip Marlowe and the setting of New York replacing Marlowe's Los Angeles beat. The film was the second adaptation of a Marlowe story, after Time to Kill, released earlier in the same year. That film, also, did not use Marlowe as the main character, changing the name to Michael Shayne.

Critic Louis Black, in a 1999 article for The Austin Chronicle, wrote that the film "had none of the atmosphere of Chandler's book" and recommended instead the later adaptation, Murder, My Sweet (1944).

Plot summary

Brutish prison escapee Moose Malloy (Ward Bond) forces Goldie Locke (Allen Jenkins) to drive him to a posh nightclub, where Moose hopes to be reunited with his old girlfriend

Cast

• George Sanders as Gay Lawrence aka The Falcon, an amateur detective
• Lynn Bari as Ann Riordan, a reporter
• James Gleason as Inspector Mike O'Hara, head of the homicide squad
• Allen Jenkins as Jonathan 'Goldy' Locke, Lawrence's assistant
• Helen Gilbert as Diana Kenyon, a lady friend of Marriot
• Ward Bond as Moose Malloy, an escaped convict
• Edward Gargan as Bates
• Anne Revere as Jessie Florian, murder suspect
• George Cleveland as Jerry
• Harry Shannon as Grimes
• Hans Conried as Lindsey Marriot, a dandyish socialite
• Turhan Bey as Jules Amthor
• Charlie Hall as Swan Club Waiter Louie
• Selmar Jackson as Laird Burnett
• Mickey Simpson as Bartender

External links

• The Falcon Takes Over at IMDb
• The Falcon Takes Over at AllMovie
• The Falcon Takes Over at the TCM Movie Database