The Falcon (fictional Character)

The Falcon (fictional Character)

The character of Gay Stanhope Falcon, later known in films and radio simply as The Falcon, was created in 1940 by Michael Arlen in his short story, "Gay Falcon", which was first published in 1940 in Town & Country magazine. Falcon is a freelance adventurer and troubleshooter, definitely on the hardboiled side, a man who makes his living "keeping his mouth shut and engaging in dangerous enterprises."

The Falcon was quickly brought to the screen by RKO in 1941, in the film The Gay Falcon, in which he was redefined as a suave English gentleman-detective with a weakness for beautiful women. The film was intended to establish a character who would replace Leslie Charteris' The Saint, hero of a popular RKO series of B movies starring George Sanders. Though Gay Falcon was the character's name in the short story, in the film he was renamed Gay Lawrence, so that The Falcon became a nickname, comparable to The Saint. In later outings, in various media. the character had a variety of "real names," while still being known as The Falcon. None of these episodes ever included an explanation for the nickname.

Sanders appeared in the first three Falcon films, which followed the Saint pattern so closely that author Charteris sued RKO for plagiarism. (Charteris pokes fun at The Falcon in his 1943 novel The Saint Steps In, with a character making a metafictional reference to the Falcon being "a bargain-basement imitation" of The Saint.) Sanders, tired of B leads, bowed out of the series in The Falcon's Brother (1942). The Falcon's brother, Tom, became the new Falcon, and was portrayed by Sanders' actual brother, Tom Conway. After The Falcon's Brother, Conway starred in nine further Falcon films through 1946, almost always with a wisecracking sidekick, portrayed variously by Edward Brophy, Allen Jenkins (who also played the same role in the first three Sanders films), Don Barclay, Cliff Edwards, and arguably best of all, Vince Barnett.

One well-known gimmick in the Falcon series was tacking an epilogue onto one movie to act as a sort of teaser to the next. This little "preview" often had little to do with the actual upcoming film, but was meant to keep interest alive.

The Falcon character was revived in three more films, all made in 1948, starring John Calvert and changing the character's name to Michael Waring, but these were unsuccessful. The character also appeared in radio and television series, also utilizing this other name.