The third in RKO's Falcon series starring George Sanders is one of the best. It's notable for being the first adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel "Farewell, My Lovely," with the Falcon character substituted for Philip Marlowe. The plot has a brute named Moose Malloy (Ward Bond) searching for his former girlfriend Velma. The Falcon tries to find her first. Sanders is great as usual. Ward Bond, who is best remember today for his supporting roles in many John Ford movies, is very good as Moose. He's clearly wearing a padded suit to make him look more imposing but it doesn't detract from his performance. The always enjoyable Allen Jenkins provides comic relief as the Falcon's sidekick Goldie. Pretty Lynn Bari is the reporter who, of course, falls for our charming hero. She and Sanders have nice chemistry, but Sanders generally had nice chemistry with all his female costars I think. The rest of the excellent cast includes Selmar Jackson, Helen Gilbert, Hans Conried, Anne Revere, Edward Gargan, and the wonderful James Gleason, one of my all-time favorite character actors. As an adaptation of Chandler's novel, it's not the best. "Murder, My Sweet" starring Dick Powell holds that distinction. But it's still fun, helped by a great cast, brisk pace, and short runtime.

Ward Bond is Moose Malloy, deranged escaped convict searching for a one time girlfriend named Velma. Drawing considerable noisy attention to himself, the Moose tracks down a shady night club manager who seems to know something—but is quickly murdered. That's just the beginning of a complicated plot that includes seedy characters, dimly lit locales, and more questions than answers.George Sanders is excellent as Gay Lawrence—also known, of course, as the Falcon. Sanders handles the picture's serious mystery elements with gravity and style. He also manages to fit into the other half of the plot, which is essentially comic relief provided by the Falcon's right hand man Goldie Locke (Allen Jenkins) and the usual bickering police duo (James Gleason and Edward Gargan as exasperated inspector and dumb assistant detective).Lynn Bari is fine as the female in the case – unexceptional but solid as the usual plucky girl that the Falcon teams up with. She and Sanders exchange some decent banter: "You believe me, don't you?" she asks at one point. "I like you," he answers, "which is much more important."Easy viewing for fans of series mysteries, with Sanders' strong performance standing out.

Enthusiasts for Raymond Chandler need to see this first filmed version of 'Farewell, My Lovely', which came out two years before the famous version entitled 'Murder, My Sweet' in the USA and 'Farewell, My Lovely' abroad. Ward Bond does an excellent version of playing Moose Molloy, unfortunately eclipsed by the unforgettable Mike Mazurki in that role in the next version. Sanders is as witty as ever, but seems somehow to be losing his enthusiasm, and a lot of the sparkle seems to have gone out of this third film, partly because Chandler and Arlen really did not mix. It must have been a terrible struggle to squeeze the Falcon and his entourage of stock characters into the brilliant Chandler novel. Chandler may have written a lot of wisecracks, but he did not write comedy, and the Falcon should never be separated for too long from gags. The brilliance of the second and the fizz of the first Falcon film do not really carry over here. One reason may be that the plot did not allow a suitable male/female battle for this one; there is a lot of kissing, flirting, and even swooning, but the true dynamics of the gender struggle are absent, and it all seems a bit forced. Hans Conreid swoops in again, this time as the suave Marriott, but he is soon killed without even having a chance to make a wisecrack as he falls. At this stage, the team were getting a bit world-weary and into the series mould. Staleness threatened, and soon Sanders would hand the role over to his brother Tom Conway, escaping while the going was good. Nevertheless, anyone with a serious interest in Chandler needs to see this, and as a Falcon film, it is not negligible, merely a lesser effort, and still manages to be amusing. If we hadn't been spoiled by the first two when the World Was Young and the falcon was fresh, maybe we would have thought this was better.

Put this one in the same category as "Satan Met a Lady". An amusing way to kill some time for hard-core fans (of Chandler or Hammett), but so far from "essential" that you can't even see the road back to "essential".I guess that we have "The Thin Man" to blame for all this. The success of that movie (and franchise) must have inspired every movie studio out there to create their own version of the suave, wise-cracking society detective. It terms of the source material, it's kind of a "mystery" to me (sorry) why they even felt it necessary to borrow part of the plot from "Farewell, My Lovely". The movie is only 65 minutes long, so you barely get past the first visit to Amthor (the psychic) and things are starting to wrap up. That's only about 1/4 or maybe 1/3 of the way through the original novel -- and most of what *is* taken from the novel had to be twisted around to fit the characters in this movie -- so you get none of the classic Chandler material about Santa Monica (excuse me, "Bay City"), the sanitarium, the gambling boat, etc, etc, etc. Also, the whole setup with Lindsay Marriott coming in to ask the detective to accompany him to his payoff is pretty absurd when the main character is a society bon vivant who solves crimes in his spare time rather than a professional private investigator. It seems to me like it wouldn't have been that much harder to just write a new mystery (or adapt some less incongruous one) but I guess that starting with "Farewell My Lovely" allowed them to finish the script for this movie in, say, twenty minutes instead of an hour.So there's nothing "noir" about this movie at all; it's really only for hard-core fans of Chandler's writing or light 30s/40s mystery/comedies, but it's a fun way to pass some time on a rainy Sunday afternoon.