The First Four Whistler
Films
The Whistler (1944) – 6/10
“I am the Whistler. I know many things for I walk by night. I know many strange
tales. Many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped
in the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors that they dare not speak.”
So begins the first film in the Whistler film series that ran for eight films
from 1944 to 1948 that always begins with a similar monologue from the off-screen
presence that we only know as the Whistler – that and the whistle that sends
chills down the spines of all guilty men. It feels like I have come upon
this plot or a close relative somewhere in the past but I can’t recall if
it was from before or after this film. In any case, it is a nifty plot with
a few twists that are squeezed into its 60 minute running time like a can
of rotting sardines.
In a small bar in an out of the way place where the guy next to you is as
likely to be a crook as a drunk, a well-dressed man seems out of place as
he makes a $10,000 payment to the man on the other side of the table. He
is paying for a killing. Of himself. He doesn’t want to know when it is coming,
but he wants to be sure it is coming. His wife died two years previously
when their ship sunk and he wasn’t able to save her. Now he wants to join
her. He tells his man-servant upon being asked if he could join him on his
travels “Where I am going the quarters will be a little cramped”. Room only
for one. But then fate slaps him in the face – he learns that his wife is
alive in a Japanese internment camp and that the Red Cross has been able
to get her release. Now he wants very much to be alive.
Too bad. The man he dealt with was only an intermediary and he is dead and
he has no way to reach the killer and call the deal off. And anyways a deal
is a deal and a professional follows through. Everyone looks like a killer
to him now as he tries to hide in flop houses (25 cents a bed with the bed
bugs thrown in for free) or dark streets – but the killer has him in his
sights all the time. But this is an off-beat killer – his bed time reading
is Necrophobia (fear of death) and he decides to write a new chapter in the
art of murder – scare his victim to death.
Richard Dix plays the protagonist as he was to do in seven of the eight Whistler
films. Dix had been a solid star in the 1930’s but heavy drinking and worsening
health had sent him to B movie land. But Dix has this deep solemn soothing
voice that works well whether he is the good guy or the villain. The killer
is J. Carrol Naish who was in loads of horror films during these years always
looking different – he is excellent here. And though I have made no mention
of the secretary, she is Gloria Stuart – The Invisible Man, Old Dark House
and Gold Diggers of 1935 – not to neglect her role in Titanic when she was
87. Directing is a future legend – William Castle.
The Mark of the Whistler (1944) - 5/10
This is the second film of eight in The Whistler film series produced by
Columbia Pictures from 1944 to 1948. They are your basic B films that all
run about 60 minutes. The radio antecedents of this series is clear - as
each film begins and ends with an off-screen narrator (The Whistler) in a
slightly sinister voice doing a Rod Sterling intro about the film. Each film
has different characters but the films do share some things - they are all
mysteries but with a fatalistic bent to them; Richard Dix plays the main
lead in the first seven of them and five of them were directed by William
Castle. This one was. There is also of course the eerie whistle that pops
up from time to time usually in the fog to signify a twist of fate. The only
thing I have an issue with at least for the first two is that they manage
to have a happy ending when everything was pointing to an unhappy one. A
tragic ending would have reverberated so much better.
This one is based on a story by Cornel Woolrich, one of the great crime writers
who had a few films made based on his writings - Rear Window, The Bride Wore
Black, Black Angel, Phantom Lady, Night Has a Thousand Eyes. A down and out
tramp (Dix) sees that someone with his name - but not him - has money waiting
for him to claim in a bank. So he impersonates the man and gets the money
($29,000) only to realize that the real man hasn't come forward for good
reasons. Someone is trying to kill him. It is a bit too slow paced though
and you have to wonder why after getting the $29,000 he just doesn't take
a powder out of town.
The Power of the
Whistler (1945) – 6/10
This is the third film in the omnibus series of Whistler films and it is
a pretty good B film as director Lew Landers keeps it taut, suspenseful and
fast moving. Landers over his career made a lot of B films and pretty much
nothing but B films but he brought them in on time and on budget. His best
known film may be The Raven and a couple Boston Blackie films. Here he takes
over from William Castle who directed the first two in the eight film series
and who was to come back to film another three.
The Whistler began as a radio show that ran from 1942 to 1955. In the film
series each one begins with the same eerie whistle in the dark and the sinister
voice of The Whistler intoning the dread that lies ahead when fate meets
its dark destiny. The Whistler is never seen other than his shadow showing
up from time to time to urge the story along to the end. Who or what the
Whistler is is a mystery - maybe simply a jesting universe or perhaps a guilty
conscience. The characters are different in each show but the protagonist
is played by Richard Dix in seven of them. By the last film which he didn't
appear in his health was beginning to fade and he died a year after in 1949.
Here Dix is on a mission but after he is brushed and knocked over by a car
he not only forgets that but everything else including who he is. He goes
into a bar for a drink and off at another table two sisters and one of their
boyfriends, see him and wonder about him. Jean (Janis Carter) pulls out a
deck of cards to read his fortune and after doing it twice the same future
comes back. He will die within 24 hours. So she goes to him and tells him
and he tells her he doesn't know who he is - so with various clues from his
pockets they go in search of his identity and quickly fall in love. Hey,
they only have 24 hours! Oddly, animals keep seeming to die around them -
a cat, a bird, a squirrel - you begin to suspect that the answer they are
looking for may not be the one they want to find. To the credit of this little
film, it doesn't go quite where you might expect it to.
Voice of the Whistler
(1945) – 6.5/10
This is the fourth film in Columbia Studios Whistler series and is again
back to being directed by William Castle. It is a strange little B film that
has more mood changes than a baby's diapers. But at its core it is a fatalistic
noir in which everyone once good is corrupted by either love or money by
the end. In its way, it is as rancid as a Jim Thompson plot.
John Sinclair (Richard Dix) is an enormously wealthy industrialist but has
a bad ticker and a wounded soul that is as empty as his vaults are full.
He isn't a bad fellow - just a businessman with no time for anything or anyone
else - no family, no friends. So after he has a heart episode his doctor
tells him to get away on a cruise. He gets to Chicago but has another attack
and is taken in by his cab driver (Rhys Williams) and cared for. No one has
any idea who he is so Sinclair passes himself off as John Carter a nobody.
He begins to enjoy the simple life - the flower man (a favorite from the
Torchy Blane series, Tom Kennedy), the neighborhood and a very sweet nurse
at a local clinic.
She is engaged to a poor doctor and won't marry him till he has made a success
of himself. Suddenly we realize that this sweet pretty nurse (Lynn Merrick,
married to Conrad Nagel for a while) has the seeds of bitterness growing
within. So when Dix thinks he is going to die within six months he puts forth
a business proposal - marry me and when I die you get everything. When he
doesn't die as expected a noir is born filled with greed, jealousy and murder.
With a bigger budget and bigger stars this could have been a classic noir.
Many of these Whistler films are up on YouTube or you can purchase the entire
collection as a package on DVD.
