THE FALCON’S ALIBI
(director: Ray McCarey; screenwriters: Paul Yawitz/story by Dane Lussier & Manny Seff; cinematographer: Frank Redman; editor: Philip Martin Jr.; music: C. Bakaleinikoff; cast: Tom Conway(Tom Lawrence/The Falcon), Elisha Cook Jr. (Nick), Esther Howard (Mrs. Gloria Peabody), Vince Barnett (Goldie Lock), Rita Corday (Joan Meredith), Emory Parnell (Metcalf), Jason Robards (Harvey Beaumont), Jane Greer (Lola Carpenter), Paul Brooks (Alex Olmstead), Morgan Wallace (Bender), Alphonse Martel (Louie, waiter), Al Bridge (Inspector Blake), Edmund Cobb (Detective Williams); Runtime: 63; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: William Berke; RKO; 1946)
“Enjoyment in the routine 12th entry in the Falcon series is enhanced by the appearance of Elisha Cook Jr.“
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A lax remake of 1941’s The Gay Falcon. Enjoyment in the routine 12th entry in the Falcon series is enhanced by the appearance of Elisha Cook Jr., as he goes through a variety of his creepy nervous antic routines. Also by the appearance of a fine actress from noir films, Jane Greer. Director Ray McCarey (“Atlantic City”/”Scram!”/”Pack Up Your Troubles”) keeps it fast paced. Writer Paul Yawitz bases his screenplay on the story by Dane Lussier & Manny Seff.
The debonair amateur sleuth, Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), known as the Falcon, is vacationing in San Francisco at the racetrack with his loveable slang-speaking Brooklyn-raised sidekick Goldie Lock (Vince Barnett), when the attractive Joan Meredith (Rita Corday), a rattled personal secretary to the wealthy Mrs. Peabody (Esther Howard), asks for the Falcon’s help. Joan fears she will be blamed for the missing $100,000 pearls she had taken for her employer to a jeweler, only to find them called fake, and asks the Falcon to find the real pearls.
While the Falcon investigates he must deal with the following characters: the dumb insurance investigator Metcalf (Emory Parnell), who suspects Joan of being involved in a number of jewel thefts in the hotel, especially after his company recently paid Mrs. Peabody a large settlement for some stolen jewels; the nervous radio DJ operating at the top of the hotel, Nick (Elisha Cook Jr.), a sneaky character who would do anything to keep his secret wife from leaving; Nick’s unfaithful, ambitious and pretty hotel club singer wife Lola (Jane Greer) who no one knows is married to him and plans to run away with her manager Alex (Paul Brooks); the deaths of hotel waiter Louie (Alphonse Martel) and of Harvey Beaumont (Jason Robards), a close friend of Peabody’s, who hid the real pearls in a dummy philosophy book stored in his hotel room; and interference from the clueless police inspector Blake (Al Bridge) and his oafish underling Williams (Edmund Cobb).
There’s nothing special about the story, but it’s telling is well-executed and a few of the more talented supporting actors give it a colorful favoring.
REVIEWED ON 7/14/2013 GRADE: B https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/