Return of the Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #123

The last movie in the Whistler series (1948's The Return of the Whistler) is the only one not to star Richard Dix, who was too ill to continue working and was only a year away from his untimely death. That's too bad, because he had done an excellent job in the series, portraying good guys, bad guys and in-between guys with equal skill.

Michael Duane,who had played a supporting role in Secret of the Whistler and was a B-Movie regular throughout the 1940s, takes the lead in Return and does a fine job. And, as much as I miss Dix in the series while watching this one, a younger actor does fit the part better. 

Duane is Ted Nichols, who is about to marry a pretty French girl named Alice. Alice is a widow, by the way, who married an American pilot during the war and, when he was killed in action, came to the U.S. to meet his in-laws. 

Or IS she a widow? She disappears from a hotel room the night before the wedding and the clerk says she left on her own accord. Then Ted learns that her husband is apparently alive and that Alice is Cookoo for Coco-Puffs, suffering from selective amnesia and delusions.

At first, Ted accepts this. But soon after, he finds a clue that tells him Alice's supposed husband was lying to him regarding at least one important fact. Ted finds himself tasked with busting Alice out of a Sanitarium to find out what is really going on.

Duane and Lenore Aubert (Alice) are likeable protagonists and the plot is quite good. We see most of the events of the film from Ted's point of view, following along with him as the identities and apparent motivations of various characters keep shifting. Is Alice crazy? Are her in-laws who they claim to be? What's the point behind a complicated plot to seperate Ted from Alice before they get married? 

I especially enjoy the inclusion of a private eye played by Richard Lane, who's own shifting motivations for helping Ted, then working against him, then helping him again make him a key part of the story. And Lane, who played Inspector Farrady in the Boston Blackie movies, is one of the character actors I always enjoy seeing in a movie--a guy who feels like an old friend whenever he pops up in something I'm watching. 

Of course, watching this movie has made me feel like my own honeymoon was lacking. I didn't have to rescue Angela from a Sanitarium ONCE during the entire trip. Oh, well. 

That's if for the Whistler movies. Watching them all has made me wish there had been more of them--or simply that Hollywood still churned out B-Movies and double features today. Nostalgia can be a misleading feeling, because its certain that many things were not better in the past. But I think that it can be argued that in many ways, storytelling in popular culture was stronger in the 1930s, 40s and 50s than it is today. 

The Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #116

The Whistler was a great radio show. Running from 1942 to 1955 (mostly on the West Coast), it told stories of average people driven to murder, with the creepy voice of the narrator acting as "a voice of fate, baiting the guilty with his smiling malevolence." (quote from John Dunning's Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio)

So it's really pretty neat-o that when a series of eight B-movies based on the series were produced beginning in 1944, they were all high quality Film Noirs that do justice to the show. Director Robert Wise once said that the films were "examples of budget filmmaking at its very best."

Most of the Whistler movies starred Richard Dix, who (because of the anthology nature of the series) played a different role each time. In the premiere film (1944's The Whistler), he plays businessman Earl C. Conrad, a man who is feeling suicidal because he lost his wife when the ship they were on sank.

So he comes up with a rather convoluted way of commiting suicide. He makes contact with a shady character named Lefty and, without giving his name, uses Lefty as a subcontractor to kill a guy named Earl C. Conrad. This means that Earl will soon have a hitman on his trail. He doesn't know who the hitman is or when he'll strike, but that doesn't matter. As long as he gets killed, he gets what he wants.

Then he finds out his wife is alive in a Japanese internment camp and is being returned to the U.S. as part of a prisoner exchange.

So, all of a sudden, Earl doesn't want to die anymore. He tries to contact Lefty to call off the hit, but Lefty has been killed by the police when they try to arrest him for a past crime. There is no way for Earl to let the hitman know the job has been cancelled.

Director Walter Castle does a great job with staging and lighting the movie to enchance the tension and Dix gives a superb performance as a man being driven to the edge of sanity as he desperately tries to save his own life.

The hitman is played by the excellent character actor J. Carrol Naish. He's not your average dispassionate killer. He's a psychopath who, when he misses one opportunity to simply shoot Earl, decides to see if he can experiment and scare Earl to death. He even kills a hobo who is about to mug Earl to preserve his victim for the experiment.

As Earl grows more desperate, he goes into hiding and is soon staying in flophouses. By now, he's aware that the killer is pretty much openly stalking him and even confronts him at one point, telling him the job is off and that he can simply keep the money he's been paid. 

But this sets the Killer's mind into panic mode. Earl is now a high-risk job in his mind. Perhaps Earl saw him kill the hobo. Perhaps Earl is now a danger to him! We soon have a panicky target being stalked by a panicky hitman.

It really is a great little film, with the Whistler's occasional narration providing additional punch to the story. In fact, at one point, the Whistler actively intervenes in the story, using the sound of his whistle to cause the Killer to back off from Earl, preserving the murderer for his fore-ordained destiny.

Keep an eye out for the Whistler films on TCM or other classic movie sources. They are definitely worth your time.

Voice of the Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #119

At first, I was a little annoyed with the way director William Castle opens Voice of the Whistler (1945), the fourth of the eight Whistler movies. He shows us the character of Joan Merrick (Lynn Merrick) living alone and embittered in a lonely light house. So right away we know that everyone she's involved with throughout the movie is going to end up dead or in prison. Why start the movie out with such a spoiler? After all, not all the Whistler movies have had tragic endings. 

But, as I watched it, I realized that the scene provides us context. Voice of the Whistler is only barely movie-length, even for a B-movie. It clocks in at an even 60 minutes. And a little over half of that is setting up the characters and getting them into a situation where at least one of them wants to murder at least one of the others. 

Up until that point, it seems like a pleasant drama about a lonely man gradually finding a reason to live. If we didn't know that some sort of shenanigans were coming up soon, we might not know we were watching a Film Noirish crime story.

It all works out, though. The short run and another great performance by Richard Dix keeps our interest and the build up to murder turns out to be quite effective.

Dix plays John Sinclair, a wealthy industrialist whose entire life has been dedicated to make money. He doesn't have any friends and he's also lost his health. His doctors have told him to get away on a restful trip. It's best if he takes someone with him, but... well, who would a man with no friends take with him?

A train trip from New York to Chicago ends when he has another attack of weakness and dizziness. This, though, leads him to make a friend when a compassionate cab driver (Rhys Williams) helps him out. A trip to a local clinic also brings the nurse, Joan Merrick, into his life.

Joan is engaged to a local doctor (James Cardwell), but won't marry him until he's making enough money to provide her with a nice home. That, we gradually realize, is Joan's thing. In many ways, she's a nice person. But her eyes are too rigidly fixed on a financial prize.

Sinclair offers to marry her. He figures he only has a few months to live, so he makes her a deal. He wants her companionship for those months. In return, she inherits her fortune.

She agrees, dumps the doctor and marries him. Along with the cab driver (now Sinclair's best friend), they move into a remote light house in Maine. But Sinclair spoils things by not dying. In fact, he gets better.

Then the doctor comes for a visit. He wants Joan back. She wants to leave Sinclair, but still wants money.  Sinclair knows Joan wants to leave him, but wants to keep her. Soon, Sinclair and the doc are thinking about ways to get and keep the woman they both love. Both begin to think she might be worth killing for.

Of course, things go awry as soon as a murder is committed. But the twists at the end are good ones and, though the tragic ending has been spoiled for us, that ending turns out to be a very satisfying one.

Voice of the Whistler is another strong entry in this entertaining series.

The End of the Rull/Human War

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #115

The last of the stories that A.E. Van Vogt later rewrote into the fix-up novel The War Against the Rull was one of three that was originally set in the Rull Universe and the second one that originally featured Professor Jamieson, who was made the protagonist of all the stories when they were changed for the novel.

"The Rull" was published in the May 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and begins with Jamieson surveying a planet that would make a strategically useful base for either the humans or the Rull. 

It turns out that Jamieson isn't the only one interested in the planet. A Rull ship shows up. Violent shenanigans ensue and both ships end up damaged. For several days, the Rull is stuck in his ship with a jammed hatch while he cuts an alternate exit. Jamieson is stuck in his ship for that time as well, recovering from an injured leg.

The opponents are both highly intelligent, though the Rull has a physical advantage in his ability to absorb damage, strength and keenness of his senses. So Jamieson realizes he's either going to outsmart the Rull or he (Jamieson) is going to die.

During the long Human-Rull War, both sides have learned a little about the other, though both individuals on both sides are conditioned to kill themselves if captured. All the same, the Rull have ways of playing on the human subconscious in deadly ways. Jamieson is aware of this, but it is still a difficult tactic for him to counter.

But the Rull aren't the only ones good at psychological warfare. Jamieson comes up with a plan involving Pavlovian conditioning that might not only allow him to survive, but also net a valuable prisoner. As it turns out, Jamieson realizes that he might concievably found a way to end the war.

Read in their original pulp versions, the Van Vogt stories I've been reading probably don't really qualify as Read 'em In Order entries, since only three of them were originally set in that universe. So it's possible I may soon be arrested and sent to "Bad Blogger" prison. But Van Vogt's stories are always worth reading. His prose is clear and straightforward, while his ideas are always clever and often (for the time they were written) innovative. A Van Vogt story will always leave you satisfied.

You can read "The Rull" online HERE. 

You know, I haven't done a movie series as part of the Read/Watch 'em In Order series for awhile. I have several DVDs of the Whistler movies, recorded off of Turner Classic Movies a few years ago. These are B-films from the 1940s based on the radio series. Though, like the radio show, the movies were an anthology series featuring different characters, I think it might be argued that they qualify as Read/Watch 'em In Order material. If not, then I'm just giving the Feds more evidence to get me on "Bad Blogger" charges. But sometimes, life must be lived dangerously.