The Welcome back to down these mean streets, where today we welcome a new detective to the

podcast, The Falcon, a private eye who was always ready with a hand to oppressed men and an eye toward

repressed women. The radio falcon was a blend of two characters, the first

created by Michael Arland, who introduced the character as a gentleman detective in his 1940 story the Gay Falcon.

The character's name in that story was Gay Stanhorpe Falcon, though he was renamed Gay Lawrence in the 1941 film version of the story.

The film and the subsequent sequels never explained why he had earned the nickname the Falcon, but admittedly it was a good nickname for a detective.

George Sanders, who played the saint in a series of films, starred as The Falcon in the first three movies in the series

including 1942's The Falcon Takes Over an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Philip

Marlow novel Farewell My Lovely. Beginning in the and Tom Lawrence and played the Falcon for nine more films through 1946.

The second Falcon appeared in Detective Stories in the early 1930s, predating Arlan's work and

the film series.

Drexel Drake wrote a series of novels starring a freelance detective known as The Falcon,

and ultimately both of these characters blended together and resulted in the radio detective who first

came to the air in 1943 described as urbane private eye Michael Waring.

Drexel Drake was credited as the creator of the character,

even though the opening announcement referenced the Falcon's film series.

A 1943 series starring Barry Kroger as Waring enjoyed a short run on NBC's Blue Network.

In 1945, the Falcon moved to Mutual, where it ran until 1950 and between 1950 and 1954 the series would bounce back and

forth between mutual and NBC until it ultimately left radio in 1954. During those years, Waring was played by James

Meyan, George Petri, Les Tremaine, and Les Damon. The two Lesses also played Nick Charles on the Adventures of the Thin Man on radio.

Many of the episodes opened with Wearing answering a phone call from one of his many female companions. He'd tell them he'd need a

rain check on their plans for that evening before offering a brief tease of

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