Tonight's Movie: The Falcon's Adventure (1946)

Tonight I watched the 13th and final RKO FALCON film, THE FALCON'S ADVENTURE (1946), and I have to say I was quite sorry to see this congenial movie series come to an end. At least I still have the Saint and Boston Blackie!

This time around Tom Lawrence, aka the Falcon (Tom Conway), and righthand man Goldie (Edward Brophy) come to the rescue of Louisa Braganza. Louisa falls prey to kidnappers who want her uncle's formula for creating industrial diamonds.

THE FALCON'S ADVENTURE is one of the less scintillating entries in the series, but it's still a pleasant 61 minutes. The good cast includes a small role as a cop for Jason Robards Sr., who has such a distinctive voice; Ian Wolfe as an elderly man caught up in the intrigue (Wolfe was only about 50 but began playing old men at a young age!); and Myrna Dell and Steve Brodie among the bad guys.

The other night I said I felt like this was "the year of Steve Brodie" because he is turning up so frequently in my viewing. Here he was again tonight! A glance at his nearly 170 screen credits reveals I've seen a majority of his films of the '40s, in particular, and most of his '40s titles which I've not yet seen are in my collection.

Although THE FALCON'S ADVENTURE concluded RKO's long-running series starring George Sanders or his brother Tom Conway, technically there were three additional Falcon films. John Calvert played a new character named Michael Waring in movies released by an independent production company in 1948 and 1949.

There was also a 1954-56 TV series with the Mike Waring character which starred Charles McGraw, which is rather fascinating as the rough-hewn McGraw is so different from the urbane Sanders and Conway.

THE FALCON'S ADVENTURE runs 61 minutes. It was directed by William Berke.

This film is available on DVD in a very nice print in the Warner Archive's The Falcon Mystery Movie Collection, Vol. 2. I highly recommend both volumes as solid, well-crafted entertainment. I find that one of these short mysteries, which typically run about an hour, can be just the ticket for late-evening viewing when there's not time to dig into a longer or weightier film, and they often have very interesting casts. The leading ladies of the Falcon series include Barbara Hale, Jane Greer, Harriet Hilliard (Nelson), Wendy Barrie, and Jane Randolph (CAT PEOPLE).

THE FALCON'S ADVENTURE has also had a release on Region 2 DVD in Europe.

Reviews of the earlier films in the series: THE GAY FALCON (1941), A DATE WITH THE FALCON (1942), THE FALCON TAKES OVER (1942), THE FALCON'S BROTHER (1942), THE FALCON STRIKES BACK (1943), THE FALCON IN DANGER (1943), THE FALCON AND THE CO-EDS (1943), THE FALCON OUT WEST (1944), THE FALCON IN MEXICO (1944), THE FALCON IN HOLLYWOOD (1944), THE FALCON IN SAN FRANCISCO (1945), and THE FALCON'S ALIBI (1946).