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.