El faro maldito

One of the best of the offbeat series. About 15 or 20 minutes into the screenplay and we still can't be sure what direction the story will take or how it will turn out. We're being set up for something, but without the usual conventions, it's hard to know what. In fact, this is one of the most unusual plot turn-arounds of that period. No doubt, a little programmer like this could get away with a lot more than a higher profile project. That's why there's more movie gold to be found under the 40's radar screen than on it.

Richard Dix is perfectly cast as the burned-out magnate looking for a new lease on life after years of cut-throat competition at the top. In fact he looks like he's at tether's end until he meets the sweet blonde nurse. ( Prophetically, the alcoholic Dix would die a few short years later). However, the chummy stroll with cabbie Rhys Williams along poverty row is rather overdone, while the roomful of cheerful clinic patients smacks of pure Hollywood pretense. On the other hand, the converted lighthouse amounts to an inspired bit of "mise-en-scene", with a moonlit seascape that stretches into a glimpse of eternity and a perfect backdrop for the events that follow.

I don't know if the writers intended the screenplay as a cynical commentary on friendship among the poor and those who serve them, but it certainly looks that way. The irony isn't played up, but it's still there. Also, note how the closing shot amounts to a spooky warning that in such matters, no one gets off scot free. Then too, if there's a moral to the story, I suggest something like never messing with a guy who has battled his way to the top of the business dog pile. Anyhow, it's an intriguing little 60 minutes, more than worthy of that shadowy figure of fate and master of graveyard commentary, the Whistler.

Voice of the Whistler (1945)

*** (out of 4)

Fourth film in Columbia's series is once again directed by William Castle but he also co-wrote the screenplay here. This time out Richard Dix plays a rich man who will dead within a two month period. Not wanting to spend his last months alone, he offers a nurse (Lynn Merrick) a great opportunity. She marries him to bring him happiness and he'll leave her his millions. They go through with the plan but all of the sudden he starts to get healthy again. This is certainly the best film in the series so far and it works mainly due to the great story they are working with. There's a lot of twists and turns throughout the short 60-minute running time but it all leads to a highly believable ending. Dix is very good in his role as is Merrick and the two work perfectly well together. The screenplay offers both of their characters a chance to grow, which certainly isn't normal for this type of B movie. Castle does a very good job with his direction and proves he could direct something without gimmicks.

This film is really like two separate films morphed together near the very end. The first 85% is a nice film about a rich but lonely man who is able to find himself. He seems like a very nice guy and you want him to succeed. I liked this very, very much and Richard Dix played an extremely sympathetic character. Then, as if out of left field, near the end of the film, the plot took a HUGE detour in an entirely different direction and this change made little sense. As I said, it seemed like an entirely different movie. Plus, once the film changed and the plot took a very dark turn, there was no sense of irony or suspense--leaving the viewer with a very flat and downbeat ending. While those who created this anthology series wanted to create a series with many of the characteristics of the later Twilight Zone TV show, the writing in the case of several of the installments just was too spotty. For a suspense-type film, it was gravely lacking in suspense.

A truly great "B" and the best "Whistler" series film I've seen so far. It's true that the plot doesn't make much sense, but there's a marvelously surrealistic quality about the exercise and Richard Dix's performance is one of the most haunting of his career, harking back to his great epics of the 1930's ("Cimarron," "The Conquerors" and "Reno"). William Castle's direction shows his marvelous command of atmosphere — he really was a first-rate suspense director when he wasn't throwing things at the audience or giving them electric shocks — and also is distinctly influenced by Orson Welles even before they worked together on "The Lady from Shanghai," especially in the fake newsreel used to introduce Dix's character and his backstory and the long scenes of the semi-retired tycoon and his blonde trophy wife living a joyless existence in a remote residence. Lynn Merrick is superb as a morally ambiguous character, and though James Cardwell is weak, Rhys Williams is a far better than average comic-relief sidekick even though his sudden appearance makes it seem at first as if that train took Dix not to Chicago but to London via the transatlantic tunnel Dix was constructing in the film of that name. "Voice of the Whistler" is an especially good entry in a series that on the whole maintained a high level of quality and holds up better than the rather dated, tricky "Whistler" radio shows. Please, Sony, follow the example of Universai's release of the "Inner Sanctum" films and put out all eight "Whistler" movies as a DVD boxed set!

Whistler no.4 was imho perhaps the weakest of the 8 in the series, the main trouble being the plot change from seedy tarmac to invigorating lighthouse. This still means it's an atmospheric, interesting and inventive mystery thriller, keeping you on your toes with all the twists to the very end.

Rich, friendless and ill industrialist Richard Dix has a heart attack and gets ordered to go on vacation, forget about work and de-stress. He bumps into an English ex-boxer cocky Ernie Sparrow who befriends him and shows him round his poor but friendly neighbourhood. But sadly it doesn't last long as a new story direction is suddenly taken. You go from feeling sympathetic for everyone to feeling it only for Sparrow, such is the effect of the "business arrangement" that was made. Favourite bits: Some of the homely scenes looking out of the lighthouse windows stick in the mind; Lynn Merrick never looked lovelier this side of Boston Blackie, or out of a saddle either.

If you like the genre like me it's a nice little film, an hour well spent.