jacobs-greenwood George Sanders is Gay Laurence aka The Falcon, whose hobbies are women and solving crimes. Unfortunately, his high society fiancée Elinor Benford (Anne Hunter aka Nina Vale) is tired of these antics, so she's given him three months to make it in his new, more respectable, chosen profession as a broker. Allen Jenkins plays the Falcon's wisecracking sidekick, Jonathan G. 'Goldie' Locke. However, a beautiful girl named Helen Reed (Wendy Barrie), who's also a big fan of the Falcon's (she's read about his exploits), comes to Gay with a new case. Helen is a personal secretary for Maxine Wood (Gladys Cooper), who hosts society parties attended by wealthy persons, but some of the ladies have been robbed of their jewelry. Since Gay had been asked by Elinor to attend the next such party, he goes with her, but Helen quickly descends upon them and his fiancée learns that he is still looking at other women and working on mysteries. Elinor decides to dance with Manuel Retana (Turhan Bey). Meanwhile, Helen introduces Gay to Mrs. Vera Gardner (Lucile Gleason), who slips him her diamond ring while they're dancing. He doesn't fully understand why she's done this until later.Goldie couldn't afford the $100 ticket to attend the party, so he decides to crash it by climbing the fire escape. A shot rings out and Goldie witnesses a man, later identified as Noel Weber (Damian O'Flynn), leaving the apartment where a dead Mrs. Gardner is discovered. Two police detectives at the party, Bates (Edward Brophy, who would later play the Falcon's sidekick) and Grimes (Eddie Dunn), arrest Goldie for her murder. Gay goes to the police station to convince Inspector Mike Waldeck (Arthur Shields) to release Goldie, if for no other reason than to force the criminals to try to eliminate him as a witness. The Inspector, who's evidently gotten a lot of free help from Gay in the past, claims the idea as his own and allows Goldie to leave, with a couple of men to follow him, as soon as he gives a description of the man he'd seen to a sketch artist (Hans Conried, uncredited). Goldie then perfectly describes Inspector Waldeck! Of course, Helen (now unofficially part of "the team") is able to quickly lose the police tail by driving fast and turning down an alleyway to hide. But later, while Helen introduces Gay to Maxine, Goldie is "snatched" by Noel, who wants the diamond but is then shot through his apartment's window by an unknown person. Goldie is again arrested by the police for being in the same room as a dead body.The police suspect Gay might be involved, he does still have the diamond, so they go to his flat to arrest him too, but Helen arrives, enabling him to escape. The Falcon suspects Manuel; later, with Helen at Manuel's apartment, Gay discovers a picture of Manuel with Noel and the secret location of a gun, which he then takes. He uses Helen in a convoluted way to find out whether the gun is the murder weapon. It is, so Manuel is the prime suspect. Since he's been spending time with Elinor, she assumes Gay's attempt to warn her about the man are motivated by his jealousy. So Manuel is able to escape a restaurant while she's arrested and held by Waldeck at Gay's request. Helen helps Gay again, this time by saving his life when she interrupts Manuel, who'd gone to the Falcon's apartment to retrieve the diamond. Even though Manuel escapes, Gay has a pretty good idea about what's been going on. The trail leads to Maxine's apartment where Gay brings the Inspector. Ostensibly there to protect her, the two overhear a conversation between her and Manuel, who's come to kill Maxine. However, she manages to kill him with a hypodermic needle full of poison, revealing in the process that she is really Maxine Weber. She and Manuel had been running a party- jewelry stealing scam before her husband Noel got out of prison. When he returned, the couple conspired to cut Manuel out of the deal. Hence, Manuel decided to kill them both, but now the Inspector has only her to arrest for the crime(s).Gay promises again to give up his hobbies and urges Elinor to marry him right away, but he's interrupted by a woman (Virginia Vale, uncredited) who hears his name - the Falcon - and asks if he'd help her solve another case ... and so the series begins!This crime mystery drama was directed by Irving Reis, with a screenplay from Lynn Root and Frank Fenton based on a story by Michael Arlen. Willie Fung plays Gay's Servant Jerry. Jimmy Conlin appears uncredited as an incredulous bartender asked to make spinach juice.

johnnitairvine The "GAY FALCON" is a wonderful mystery movie with George Sanders as the Falcon. As other reviewers have commented, his brother, Tom Conway made a more believable Falcon. Wendy Barrie is very entertaining. The character of Goldie Locke as portrayed by Allen Jenkins is much more tongue and cheek than future character actors portraying the Goldie Locke character. I have viewed most of the Falcon movies, mostly on TCM. Presently, the Falcon series is being ran on Saturday mornings at 10:45(EDT). If you have a DVR make sure you record for future viewing.The earlier Saint movies with George Sanders are all great, also.If you enjoy this genre of movie, you will enjoy Boston Blackie and Charlie Chan,too.

bensonmum2 The Gay Falcon, the first movie in the Falcon series, finds the Falcon (George Sanders) ready to give up both women and detective work at the request of his fiancé. This promise, however, doesn't last long as a pretty woman with a story of stolen jewelry soon walks into his life. In no time at all, the Falcon is up to his elbows in murder and hiding out from the police. The only way to clear his name is to find the real killer.This may have been George Sanders first time out in the role of the Falcon, but he wears the role with the familiarity of a favorite old sweater. I would argue, however, that his Saint series (which ended just prior to the start of the Falcon series) was so similar to the Falcon that it was hardly a stretch for Sanders. Regardless, Sanders makes everything seem so effortless and natural. He is joined by an especially strong cast. Gladys Jenkins, Edward Brophy, and Arthur Shields should be familiar to any fan of classic B-fare. Oddly though, all are upstaged by the strong performance of Nina Vale who surprisingly only appeared in two other films. I can't believe she didn't do more. She's quite good and imminently watchable. As for the movie, none of the Falcon movies are particularly deep affairs and The Gay Falcon is no different. It's light, breezy entertainment. The 1940s style of comedy/mystery films has always appealed to me and The Gay Falcon is a nice example. The comedy elements hit their mark and are, at their worst, amusing. Nothing to make you fall in the floor with laughter, just good, light-hearted fun. The mystery elements in the movie also work and are sufficiently convoluted to make it interesting throughout. And it helps that the final solution to the mystery at least makes sense and is ultimately satisfying. Director Irving Reis keeps things moving at an entertaining pace with no time for a wasted scene in the movie's relative short 67 minute runtime. Overall, it's a solid effort.

Spondonman I actually preferred this series of films after Tom Conway took over from his half brother George Sanders as the Falcon, Conway seemed more at ease in the role. But this was a good start, and the 12 sequels hovered around this mark until The Devil's Cargo in 1948. The Falcon was lucky in that he never had trouble having beautiful young (and older) women fall for him - a couple a film. What a pleasant problem for him when they immediately turned mega jealous of any other woman who showed up, no matter how innocent!It's the usual murky murder mystery, but the Falcon (as private sleuth) isn't fooled for long - fortunately he knew something the viewers didn't, which led him and the police to the culprits. One scene I always enjoy is that of Turhan Bey's strangely atmospheric apartment being searched by Sanders and Barrie in the dark. But there's plenty of enjoyable moments in the 63 minutes - Sanders previously intrigued by an undertaker giggling at a comic paper is a few scenes later briefly studying one for himself - an aspect of ordinary life that he hadn't investigated before perhaps? Or being incognito as a tramp but giving the policeman waving him off a cigar as a present, before pulling out his pipe. You'd have to see it to understand Sander's mixed emotions in that scene! All in all not Kane, but well worth watching again and again as I have done!The copies I have of the series were off UK TV in 1987, most were '50's TV dupes and these would have needed TLC even then to eliminate some frame wobble and jumpy scratches etc. I hope they have been saved from further decomposition since because all the Sanders/Conway outings are a pleasant watch.