The Whistler: "House of Greed" 9/5/42
A rich man deals with greedy wife, a lazy stepson, an ill ex-wife, a daughter he didn't know he had, and a brother who is a perpetual failure. In other words, he's surrounded by people who might have reason to want him dead.
Click HERE to listen or download.
The Whistler: "Murder has a Signature" 1/15/45
Bitterness, deceit and greed forge a chain of consequences that eventually leads to murder.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Whistler: "Bright Future" 8/18/48
A man moves into a new apartment and finds $35,000 hidden behind a picture. His future looks bright--but is it?
Click HERE to download or listen.
The Whistler: "The Blank Wall" 6/26/43
Whistler: "Shrunken Head" 6/13/42
A woman is haunted by a dream that a shrunken head is speaking to her during the night. Or... is it a dream?
Click HERE to listen or download.
The Whistler: "The Black Box" 4/28/47
The choreographer of a ballet company has reason to destroy the career of the star male dancer. But she can't destroy a career if she's dead, can she?
Click HERE to listen or download.
Whistler: "Married to Murder" 9/25/44
A woman lies to alibi a killer, because she thinks it would be thrilling to marry a murderer. But thrills eventually pale, so she soon needs to up her game.
Click HERE to listen or download.
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.
But at least his acting career ended on a strong note. The Thirteenth Hour (1947) is another strong, well-written entry in the Whistler series, with Dix giving yet another fine performance.
In this one, he plays a truck driver named Steve Reynolds. Steve's life is going well. He's engaged to a pretty widowed mom named Eileen (Karen Morley) and he's recently paid off his truck.
But a moment of bad luck changes everything. His truck is run off the road by a reckless driver, but no one else sees the other vehicle. He has alcohol on his breath because he drank a glass of punch at Eileen's birthday party before hitting the road. A hitchhiker he had picked up disappears and can't back up his story. And, perhaps worst of all, the motorcycle cop who shows up after the crash also had a thing of Eileen.
The end result is Steve getting his license suspended for six months, which means he has to hire other drivers to stay in business. But when a driver calls out sick, Steve takes a chance on getting back behind the wheel of the truck to make that night's delivery.
He figures all he has to worry about is getting pulled over by the cops. But what happens is a tad bit worse than that. A hijacker knocks him out, uses the truck to kill the motorcyle cop and leaves Steve to take the blame.
So the movie becomes a "man on the run to find the real killer" story. It's a well-used plot devise, but that's because it makes for a good mystery when well-written. And The Thirteenth Hour is indeed well-written, with a logical plot and several unexpected plot twists.
I actually don't want to give too detailed a summary because I don't want to spoil the nicely done twists for anyone. Suffice to say that Steve and those helping him, which includes a good friend, Eileen and Eileen's son, act in an intelligent and logical manner when pursing leads to find the real killer. They also keep their heads to outsmart the bad guy when the situation turns dangerous during the climax.
The bad guy's identity is a real surprise (though many alert viewers will tumble to it a few minutes before the film reveals it) and he also acts with reasonable intelligence, making him an effective villain.
I like this one a lot and it runs neck-to-neck with Mysterious Intruder as my favorite in the series so far.
Of the eight Whistler films, I have six on DVD (recorded off of TCM a few years ago). The Thirteenth Hour one of the two I don't have on disc, so I watched it on YouTube. I'm posting that YouTube video below. But I don't know what the copyright situation is for the movie and don't know if it might one day get pulled. So, as I stated with the other Whistler movie shared here, if my future biographers visit this post in the future (while researching my influence that made me the cultural savior of civilization) and the post below isn't active--it's NOT MY FAULT!
Read/Watch 'em In Order #121
The sixth movie in the Whistler series--movies based on the radio show of the same name--is another quietly suspenseful story. The Secret of the Whistler (1946) is similar in a way to the previous year's Voice of the Whistler, in that a large chunk of its 65-minute run-time is devoted to setting up the crimes that will eventually be committed.
But that short run-time and another strong performance by Richard Dix keeps the story from dragging. This time, Dix plays an artist named Ralph Harrison, who has very little talent but is able to live off his wealthy wife's fortune.
His wife, by the way, is physically frail and has suffered several heart attacks. So when Ralph falls for a pretty model named Kay Morrell (Leslie Brooks), he figures it won't be long before they are free to get married. In retrospect, though, he should have made sure his wife wasn't nearby listening when he explains this to Kay.
Ralph soon learns he's going to be kicked to the curb and cut out of his wife's will. In response to this, he drops poison into his wife's medicine.
I mentioned Dix's strong performance as Ralph. Dix is playing a guy who is definitely a self-centered jerk, but murder is something that is normally far above his pay grade. Dix portrayal of him as nervous and sometimes near outright panic--both while committing the murder and later worrying about being found out--gives backbone to a good script.
Ralph marries Kay, but news about another husband who was arrested for killing his wife worries him constantly. The fact that he can't find his first wife's diary and doesn't know if there is anything in it that can hurt him is yet another worry. And, after a while, Kay begins to wonder about Ralph as well. Has she indeed married a murderer?
This all leads up to a violent and satisfyingly ironic climax.
Another good, solid entry in a well-written and well-produced series.
Read/Watch 'em In Order #120
The fifth movie based on the Whistler radio show is the only one that doesn't include the world "Whistler" somewhere in the title.
This time around, Richard Dix plays a private detective who is a bit ethically-challenged. An elderly shop owner hires him to find a girl who moved out of the neighborhood seven years earlier. He won't say exactly why he needs to find her, only stating that he has something that belongs to the girl that is worth a fortune.
I mentioned that Don Gale--Dix's character--isn't the most ethical person in the world. The girl would now be grown-up, so Gale hires a woman to impersonate her and find out what the valuable item actually is.
But while she is in the midst of pulling off this con, a thug arrives to murder the shop owner and kidnap her. The movie gets huge points right out of the gate by casting Mike Mazurki--my all-time favorite movie thug--as the killer.
This kick-starts one of the best movies in the series. Don Gale doesn't know what's going on, but he knows there's a very valuable prize out there somewhere. Soon, the cops know that as well. And the woman who Gale hired to impersonate the missing girl (who was soon released by the thug) knows it as well. Everyone has their own agenda and no one can completely trust anyone else.
One of the strengths of the film is that both Gale and the cops investigate the case in an intelligent manner, following up logical clues to their logical end. As a detective movie, it is very well-written.
In addition to a Mike Mazurki appearance, the rest of the movie is well-cast as well. Dix gives a typically strong performance as a smart-mouthed P.I., making us like him even as we recognize that he tends to slide down on the wrong side of the law from time to time.
The head cop is played by Barton Maclane, another of my favorite always-fun-to-watch character actors. His partner is played by Charles Lane, who usually portraits officious or greedy businessmen. Seeing him play a competent detective in a straightfoward manner was another treat the film offers.
As the plot unfolds, there are a couple more murders and Gale ends up in the role of chief suspect. Now he needs to not only find the MacGuffin, but also find the real killer. Both the unusual nature (and eventual fate) of the MacGuffin and the real killer's identity are effective twists.
There are, in fact, a number of plot twists, but the overall story remains solid and well-constructed, smoothly incorporating the twists into the film. It's the sort of movie that I don't want to write about in too much detail. If you haven't seen it, it's too much fun to watch it unfold to give you too many spoilers.
Mysterious Intruder is definitely in the running as my favorite Whistler film.
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.
Read/Watch 'em In Order #118
Richard Dix played a more or less good guy in the first two Whistler films--men who definitely made moral mistakes, but were essentially decent human beings.
Well, in 1945's The Power of the Whistler, this changes. Here, Dix plays a man with amnesia who seems to be decent and friendly, but who long ago moved to one of the more violent neighborhoods of Crazy Town.
I suppose that's a spoiler, but anyone who doesn't realize this very early in the film simply isn't paying attention.
All the same, the story--most notably the finale--generates a fair amount of suspense and Dix's performance as the maniac, in which he only gradually reveals his dark side, is wonderful. I don't know why Richard Dix isn't better remembered today. He was an excellent actor.
So The Power of the Whistler, though a weaker entry in the series, is still worthwhile and worth watching.
Read/Watch 'em In Order #117
The Mark of the Whistler was released in 1944, the same year as the first film of the series, and gave us another good, solid Film Noir.
This time, the script was an adaptation of a short story titled "Dormant Account," by Cornell Woolrich, which had been published a few years earlier in the May 1942 issue of Black Mask. In that tale, a homeless man named George Palmer poses as someone else to claim a long dormant bank account and scores big when he gets away with it. But it turns out that some not very nice people have it in for the guy Palmer is pretending to be.
The movie is a pretty faithful adaptation of this story, with Richard Dix giving an excellent performance as the story's sort-of protagonist. In the film, he's named Lee Nugent, which is coincidentally the same name as the person who can claim the dormant bank account. That's what gives the normally honest man the idea of running the scam.
He researches the other Lee Nugent, discovering that the other Lee lost his family in a fire when he was twelve, then disappeared when he ran away from the family he was placed with a few years later. Memorizing these facts and rigging up a few other ways to "prove" who he is, our Lee is soon ready to try to fool the bank.
The movie adds a few things to the original story, probably to fill out the plot to squeak the 61-minute film into full-length territory. But in each case, this adds to quality of the story. We get indications that our Lee is essentially a decent person, able to make friends, despite his having given into to temptation regarding the bank account. Both the script and Dix's performance combine to give us this impression, most especially in Lee's interaction with a young boy while researching the other Lee, which makes a difference later on when a particular friend takes risks for him. When that happens, it's believable.
There's also a new character added--a perpetually distrustful clothing store owner (wonderfully brought to life by Porter Hall) who helps Lee run the scam on the bank. Once again, he may have been added to flesh out the film's runtime, but he's a great character that fits perfectly into a Film Noir universe.
As in the original story, the newly enriched Lee soon discovers that the man he is impersonating has enemies. When he realizes someone is after him, he decides that moving to a new city would be a wise option. But it might be too late to get away...
I think both the original story and the film suffer from a very, very unlikely plot twist at the end. But The Mark of the Whistler is, on the whole, a good movie and another strong entry in a strong series.
I own six of the eight Whistler movies on DVD, taped off of TCM a few years ago. The Mark of the Whistler is one of the two I don't own, but I was able to watch it on YouTube. I'm embedding that video below, but please note that I don't know the copyright status of the films, so don't know if it will still be accessible in the future. If it is still under copyright, it might eventually get pulled. So if my future biographers, researching a comprehensive multi-volume biography on how I saved Western culture through my blog, discover that the movie isn't here any more, please note that it's not my fault.
The original short story can be found HERE, reprinted in a 1953 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
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