I went with Tom Conway again tonight, in "The Falcon In Hollywood" (1944). This picture was made in the same year as last night's "The Falcon Out West", which took place almost entirely in Chatsworth, so maybe when The Falcon finished his Western caper, he took a taxi to Hollywood and the film crew followed.
The movie opens at Hollywood Park, the Inglewood horse racing track (actually fifteen miles from Hollywood), where The Falcon is approached by a well dressed damsel who asks him for betting advice. He obliges, but she seems to have an ulterior motive, because when his lady friend arrives to sit with him, the damsel does a quick switcheroo with their purses (which just so happen to be identical). She absconds with the girl's purse, and Conway is forced to leave the racetrack to chase the woman down.
In a "Thin Man" movie, or an equivalent big budget mystery, this would be a plot point. Here, it is just a red herring, a device to get Conway into a taxi (just as I predicted above) that will take him on a chase to Hollywood, where he will track the purse thief down to a movie studio.
So, to recap : the scenes at Hollywood Park serve only to get The Falcon to Hollywood. The purse snatching is of no consequence thereafter. Conway's ride in the taxi is of consequence, though, because the gal who is driving doubles as a stunt driver for the movies. Conway sure can pick 'em. This blonde wisecracker not only takes him on a white knuckle ride to the studio where the purse thief has pulled in, but she chooses him for an Instant Boyfriend. Played by an actress named Veda Ann Borg, the Taxi Driver steals every scene she is in. She knows the ropes in Hollywood, and gets Conway past the security guard at "Sunset Studios" where she sometimes works.
Now he is inside a real live Hollywood Movie Studio, with his Taxi Girl sidekick in tow. She is a mile-a-minute type of gal, one with all the answers, and the jokes. Having recovered the stolen purse from the woman at the racetrack (Barbara Hale), who just so happens to also be an actress working at the studio, Conway and Borg discover a dead body as they wander through a nearby sound stage.
This sets the plot in motion (such as it is), and you have to be an attentive listener to keep up. The mystery is only half the fun, however. The other half is the locations (last night in rural Chatsworth and tonight on Hollywood Boulevard in 1944), and the charisma of Tom Conway and his B-Girls, all of whom seem to me to have been capable of working in A-List pictures, especially Barbara Hale.
These short 65 minute movies are all about 1940s persona. The high heeled rapid fire women and the laid back but highly focused Falcon, handsome in his pin-striped suit.
It makes you wish you had lived in the 1940s, which is why I watch so many movies from that era.
Of course, I love all decades........well, maybe not so much the current one......but you know what I mean.
I must make a quick correction to a detail in last night's post. Concerning Tom Conway and his brother George Sanders, I wrote that they were "Russian boys who grew up in England" and then became stars in Hollywood, and I had the first two facts mixed up. They were actually English boys who grew up in Russia, and then became stars in Hollywood. So there is the correction, in the name of accuracy.
I always IMDB the movies I watch, because I love the actors and want to know their history, and I am often saddened to discover that many of them did not live long lives. So many actors and actresses from the 1940s ended up dying relatively young, in their 50s and 60s. Some even in their 40s. I guess this was from rampant smoking and drinking, which is seen and promoted in many films of the era.
You don't see nearly as many people smoking nowdays, and the phenomenon known as "chain smoking" seems almost to be a thing of the past. Does anyone smoke three packs a day anymore? I hope not. I mean, I am not anti-cigarette because my Mom smoked and she enjoyed it, but my point is that, in the 40s and 50s you see people in the movies smoking and smoking. And in those days, "chain smoking" was common. My parents knew Rod Serling of "Twilight Zone" fame, and Mom said he would have five cigarettes going at the same time in five different ashtrays.
I only mention all of this because of IMDBing actors and actresses and discovering that so many of them died young. Read about Humphrey Bogart, who - for all his fame and stardom - had a hard life, healthwise. Tom Conway only lived to be 62 himself.
Sorry to be grim, but the bigger point is the enjoyment these artists provided with their tireless creative work. I love the Movie Stars and I feel that they are like an extended family to me. They make me happy with their films that I like, and so in that way, because I am just one of millions of fans, they succeeded enormously.
Hooray for Hollywood. /////
Rain all day today, supposed to rain through Thursday. Reading books, working on a drawing.
See you in the morning, hope you had a good day.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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