The Falcon in San Francisco | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Joseph H. Lewis |
Written by | |
Based on | Characters created by Michael Arlen |
Produced by | |
Starring | |
Cinematography | |
Edited by | Ernie Leadlay |
Music by | Paul Sawtell |
Production company | |
Distributed by | RKO Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 66 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Falcon in San Francisco is a 1945 American crime and mystery film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and stars Tom Conway, Rita Corday and Edward Brophy, who played the recurring role of "Goldie" Locke. [Note 1] The film was the 11th in The Falcon series of detective films, and the eighth featuring Conway as the amateur sleuth. The Falcon in San Francisco was the final film in the series produced by Maurice Geraghty, after which budgets were reduced and location shooting largely abandoned. [2]
![]() | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.(June 2021) |
While travelling by train with his sidekick and assistant, "Goldie" Locke (Edward Brophy), for a vacation in San Francisco, Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), a.k.a. The Falcon, meets Annie Marshall (Sharyn Moffett), a lonely little girl. Annie tells them that she is being held prisoner by her nurse, Miss Carla Keyes (Hermine Sterler), and butler Loomis (Jason Robards Sr.). Annie's story is cut short when Miss Keyes comes for her. Shortly after, the little girl rushes back to Tom to tell him her nurse is dead.
Tom and Goldie take charge of Annie but police are notified that the little girl was kidnapped. When the train arrives in San Francisco, the police are waiting for the Falcon. Released on $10,000 bail, posted by Doreen Temple (Fay Helm), who promises Tom she will disclose the motive behind her generosity. At dinner that evening, Doreen brings along her bodyguard Rickey (Carl Kent), posing as a police officer. When they leave, Rickey knocks Tom out and takes him to Doreen's apartment where she interrogates him about the murder, and to stay away from gangster Peter Vantine (John Mylong) and the cargo ship, the S.S. Citadel.
After Tom returns to his hotel to collect Goldie, they decide to pay a visit to Annie's house, where they meet her older sister Joan (Rita Corday) who denies that she knows Doreen or Vantine. Annie claims she made up the story about being held captive, but when Tom sneaks back to the house to talk to her, she says Loomis is holding her prisoner. She takes them to Carla's room where they find a photograph of a ship's officer (Johnny Strong), signed to his wife, Carla.
Loomis hears someone rummaging around in the nurse's room, but is shot dead by an unknown assailant. Returning to their hotel, Tom is confronted by Vantine, who is brandishing a gun. When Tom disarms him, he learns Doreen was the romantic interest of an ex-bootlegger, Duke Monette (Robert Armstrong), involved with a shipment aboard the S.S. Citadel.
Tom visits the Star Coastal lines where DeForrest, the company's general manager, is meeting with Joan, the owner of the company. A clerk at the office alerts Tom to go to an address, which turns out to be Doreen's apartment, where she is waiting with her gang. Vantine, also lured into her trap, arrives and begins to fight with Doreen's thugs. Tom and Joan manage an escape but on his return to his hotel room, discovers DeForrest hiding in a closet. Goldie finds a newspaper article that shows who the real owner of the steamship S.S. Citadel is: Duke Monette.
That night Tom and Goldie sneak aboard the ship and find raw silk hidden among the bales of hemp cargo. Returning to the Marshall house, the little girl tells Tom that Joan has left to meet her "secret lover" on Telegraph Hill. Tom observes the rendezvous with Joan and DeForrest, who Tom thinks is really Duke Monette, confessing that he used a secret identity to protect his daughters, Joan and Annie.
Fearing Doreen plans to hijack the illicit silk cargo that night, Duke asks for the detective's help. At dockside, Duke and Tom watch Vantine, Doreen and the other gang members board the S.S. Citadel. Duke suddenly knocks the ship's engineer unconscious, and blows up the unattended boiler room, then pulls a gun on Doreen and Tom.
Tom tells Doreen that Duke killed Miss Keyes and Loomis, the employees she hired to watch over the girls. When Tom warns that Duke plans to blow up the ship, Doreen and Rickey lunge forward to disarm Duke, who shoots them both, but Rickey shoots Duke, allowing Tom to flee before the ship explodes.
"My Shining Hour" (1943) (uncredited) and "The Sky's the Limit"(music only), music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Johnny Mercer was played by house orchestra in the nightclub scene. Sequences in The Falcon in San Francisco were shot on location at prominent locations in San Francisco. [3]
Film historians Richard Jewell and Vernon Harbin described The Falcon in San Francisco, as part of a programmed series. "One of the quaint conventions of the Falcon series was that whenever Tom Conway embarked on a vacation, a corpse would pop up to interrupt his relaxation". [4]
In a recent review of the Falcon series for the Time Out Film Guide, Tom Milne wrote, "Conway, bringing a lighter touch to the series (which managed its comic relief better than most), starred in nine films after The Falcon's Brother, most of them deft and surprisingly enjoyable." [5] After its release into home video, The Falcon in San Francisco was reviewed in DVD Active.com, "The plot gets thicker than Northern gravy with boiled potatoes when more bodies hit the sawdust, and links to a shipping magnate are uncovered - all linked to a man with no past and a gangster thought to be long dead. Will The Falcon unravel this mystery without taking a bullet? Will the mafia have their plan thwarted? Can Goldie find himself a bride to reduce his level of income tax?" [6]
The Falcon is the nickname for two fictional detectives. Drexel Drake created Michael Waring, alias the Falcon, a freelance investigator and troubleshooter, in his 1936 novel, The Falcon's Prey. It was followed by two more novels – The Falcon Cuts In, 1937, and The Falcon Meets a Lady, 1938 – and a 1938 short story. Michael Arlen created Gay Stanhope Falcon in 1940. This Falcon made his first appearance in Arlen's short story "Gay Falcon", which was originally published in 1940 in Town & Country magazine. The story opens with the words "Now of this man who called himself Gay Falcon many tales are told, and this is one of them." Arlen's Falcon is characterized as a freelance adventurer and troubleshooter – a man who makes his living "keeping his mouth shut and engaging in dangerous enterprises."
Allen Curtis Jenkins was an American character actor, voice actor and singer who worked on stage, film, and television. He may be best known to baby-boomer audiences as the voice of Officer Charlie Dibble in the Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon series Top Cat (1961–62).
Edward Santree Brophy was an American character actor and comedian, as well as an assistant director and second unit director during the 1920s. Small of build, balding, and raucous-voiced, he frequently portrayed dumb cops and gangsters, both serious and comic.
Tom Conway was a British film, television, and radio actor remembered for playing detectives and psychiatrists, among other roles.
Robert William Armstrong was an American film and television actor remembered for his role as Carl Denham in the 1933 version of King Kong by RKO Pictures. He delivered the film's famous final line: "It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."
Mara Corday is an American showgirl, model, actress, Playboy Playmate, and 1950s cult figure.
Klondike Annie is a 1936 American Drama film starring Mae West and Victor McLaglen. The film was co-written by West from her play Frisco Kate, which she wrote in 1921 and a story written by the duo Marion Morgan and George Brendan Dowell. Raoul Walsh directed.
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The Gay Falcon is a 1941 B film, the first in a series of 16 films about a suave detective nicknamed The Falcon. Intended to replace the earlier The Saint detective series, the first film took its title from the lead character, Gay Laurence. George Sanders was cast in the title role; he had played The Saint in the prior RKO series. He was teamed again with Wendy Barrie who had been with him in three previous Saint films. The first four films starred Sanders as Gay Lawrence and the rest featured Tom Conway, Sanders' real-life brother, as Tom Lawrence, brother of Gay.
The Falcon Takes Over, is a 1942 black-and-white mystery film directed by Irving Reis. The B 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.
The Falcon Strikes Back is a 1943 American crime film directed by Edward Dmytryk and stars Tom Conway as the title character, the amateur sleuth, the Falcon. Supporting roles are filled by Harriet Hilliard, Jane Randolph, Edgar Kennedy, with Cliff Edwards filling in for Allen Jenkins as the Falcon's sidekick, "Goldie" Locke. It is the fifth film in the Falcon series and the second for Conway, reprising the role that his brother, George Sanders had initiated.
The Falcon in Hollywood is a 1944 crime film directed by Gordon Douglas and stars Tom Conway in his recurring role as a suave amateur sleuth, supported by Barbara Hale, Jean Brooks, and Rita Corday. The film was the 10th of 16 in Falcon detective series.
A Date with the Falcon is the second in a series of 16 films about the suave detective nicknamed The Falcon. The 1942 sequel features many of the same characters as the first film, The Gay Falcon (1941).
The Falcon's Adventure is a 1946 American mystery film directed by William Berke and starring Tom Conway, Madge Meredith and Edward Brophy. It is the 13th of 16 films about the Falcon and the final film of RKO's Falcon series starring Conway. It was directed by William Berke, who had served as producer for the previous entry in the series, 1946's The Falcon's Alibi.
The Falcon and the Co-eds is a 1943 film under the direction of William Clemens, and produced by Maurice Geraghty, the same team that had worked on The Falcon in Danger (1943) and would stay together for the next film in the Falcon series. The Falcon and the Co-eds was the seventh of 16 in the Falcon series. The story and screenplay was by Ardel Wray, a frequent collaborator with Val Lewton in his RKO horror series, who added supernatural elements to the proceedings.
The Falcon's Alibi is a 1946 American mystery film directed by Ray McCarey and starring Tom Conway, Rita Corday and Vince Barnett. It was the ninth film featuring Conway as The Falcon. After the following film, The Falcon's Adventure, the series was ended due to declining popularity.
The Falcon in Danger is a 1943 American mystery film directed by William Clemens and starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Amelita Ward and Elaine Shepard. The film was the sixth of thirteen The Falcon detective films produced by RKO, all starring Conway.
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Livia Giampalmo is an Italian actress, voice actress, film director and screenwriter.