The Whistler

This first Whistler film, unlike the others, has recognizable supporting players in the cast besides Richard Dix at the center of the story who plays a different character with different problems in every film. This supporting cast includes J. Carrol Naish as the hired killer, Gloria Stuart as Alice Walker, the main character's secretary, and Alan Dinehart as the shady friend of the hired killer.

In this first installment Richard Dix plays industrialist Earl C. Conrad. It is explained that Conrad's marriage was in trouble so the couple went on a cruise. But Conrad's wife was lost at sea, and all of his friends ostracized him when he came back alone, thinking that he might have killed her to get rid of her. Three years of this and Conrad decides to kill himself but doesn't have the nerve to do it himself. So he hires a hitman to do it for him. He has contact with the middleman who arranges the hit, but will have no idea where or when or by whom his death will take place.

But then a telegraph comes telling Conrad that his wife has been found in a Japanese internment camp, and that the International Red Cross will be transporting her home. Now Conrad will not only have his wife back but will be exonerated among his friends. Thus he thinks life will be worth living again. But in the interim, the middleman who arranged the hit has been killed in a shootout with the police, so he has no way to call the thing off.

And most unfortunately , for the hitman this is not just business. He likes to read criminology books and wants to see if he can scare Conrad to death by making himself seen so Conrad knows he's being stalked.

Most of The Whistler movies have lots of twists and irony in them. This is just one long manhunt/chase scene after the first fifteen minutes with nothing special about it. Although Naish as the hitman is effectively creepy. Also different about this first Whistler film - The Whistler's whistling actually enters into the plot.

Solid, low-budget film noirish yarn about a man who takes out a contract on himself and then through a reversal of fortune decides against it. The Whisteler open up the film with that delightfully creepy little tune and a brief narrative and the reigns are handed over to a competent corp of character actors(and Richard Dix and Gloria Stuart). Dix plays the lead well-enough though incredibly lethargically. He literally looks like he hasn't slept in days. Stuart is peppy and pretty in a smallish role, but J. Carrol Naish does an outstanding job as the contracted killer. He gives a layered performance is what was a truly difficult role. The film barely spans an hour and ten minutes or so but never lags. we get suspense, action, and answers rather quickly. The Whistler has a much more subdued role then what you would hear in the radio series. This film would go on to spawn many sequels and was one of the earliest directorial forays of horror icon William Castle. Castle, as always, does a more than workmanlike job.

I watched this last night on TCM and found it not only thoroughly entertaining but a textbook example of how a B-grade picture from a poverty row studio could rise above its budget limitations thanks to the efforts of a clever director (William Castle) and strong players (Richard Dix and J. Carroll Naish in particular). Superior in some respects to entries in parallel series based on radio programs (like Universal's Inner Sanctum with Lon Chaney, Jr.), perhaps the most appealing aspect of "The Whistler" is the economy with which the story is told. There are no needless lines, no needless scenes. Whether it belongs within the "noir" cycle is a matter to be debated, but nevertheless "The Whistler" has its share of the quirky characters and shadowy settings that typify that genre, not to mention the creepy portrayal by Naish of a hit-man who reads a monograph on "necrophobia" in his spare time.

Whistler, The (1944)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

First film in Columbia's series has Richard Dix playing a man wanting to commit suicide due to the death of his wife but he doesn't have the courage to do so. Wanting to die, Dix hires a killer (J. Carrol Naish) to do the job but then he learns that his wife is still alive so he too must try and stay alive. Based on a radio show, this first film is actually pretty entertaining due to some nice direction by Castle and the two leads turning in fine performances. The story itself is pretty interesting and the B-budget gets all out of it that it can. Dix makes for a very good leading man and his performance is very good especially during his depression scenes. Naish is a great character actor and makes for a very good killer. Gloria Stuart plays Dix secretary and does nice work, although she has the weakest character.

This unusual Film Noir (the only one ever to be made into a whole series of films) certainly catches the sinister atmosphere of its genre, both visually with very well done shadow effects and the adequate 'cheap' harbor surroundings of a B movie, and thematically, using a lot of psychology which doesn't fail to have its effects, neither on the protagonists nor on the audience - but just a little bit of an overdose of the belief in 'destiny'...

Whose destiny is it to live or to die? Who has a 'right' to live or to die? Questions like these are maybe somehow out of place in a Film Noir - because they've got too much to do with morality. The Noir world (at least that of the 40s) is usually quite immoral (see "The Maltese Falcon", "The Shanghai Gesture", "Gilda"); and it's not always the good ones who get away - that's the cynical Noir philosophy...

But anyway, "The Whistler" still remains an enormously suspenseful film with a very capable cast and direction; and a 'must' for every fan of classic crime.