After a number of Saints and three Falcons, George Sanders was anxious to leave B movies and graduate to As, so he asked to be killed off. Fortunately for RKO, they had Sanders’ real life brother, Tom Conway, to step in.
Neither Allen Jenkins nor James Gleason return but there are similar characters (i.e. wacky sidekick and frustrated police officers) played by other actors. The Falcon goes to pick up his brother on a boat, the Falcon cracks on to a woman but not letting her past which is a bit off. Then he discovers that someone claiming to be his brother has killed himself – but Falcon figures out he was actually murdered by poisoned cigar, and goes looking for his brother.
Conway is given a star’s entrance, lighting a cigarette in a darkened corridor. And it’s wonderful to see the two brothers together. Because they’re similar type of actors – cultured, smooth – Conway easily takes over (one of the few occasions where an actor can directly step into another actor’s role). Sanders gets run over so Conway goes looking to solve the murder. This means Sanders is out of action for most of the film but gets better at the end, just in time to take a bullet for some politician at the climax. It’s a shame there wasn’t more Conway-Sanders stuff, this could have been a minor classic with that. But they only have a few scenes together – they don’t even give Sanders a death bed scene with Conway, which is a shame.
There’s another female journo (Jane Rudolph) who comes along who gets jealous of Conway’s flirting. She has a good line – “Ladies aren’t permitted without escorts" “Who said I was a lady?” For the first time in a Falcon movie the baddies are Nazis – it was going to happen sooner or later. On that level this is enjoyable; it’s just a bit frustrating because it could have been better.
(NB Incidentally no mention is made of Sanders having a fiancée, despite a great hoo-ha being made of this in the first three films.)
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