L'asso di picche

I really like The Whistler movies. Richard Dix plays a different role in each one. Sometimes he's a good guy, sometimes bad. The plot here has Dix as a man suffering from amnesia after being struck by a car. A woman (Janis Carter) playing around with tarot cards predicts death for Dix within 24 hours so she feels the need to warn him. She finds out he has lost his memory so she tries to help him figure out who he is so together they can prevent his death.

There is one part that amused me a great deal. It really has no significance to the plot or how much you will like the movie but I will share it anyway. During the first meeting of Dix and Carter, he feels faint so she opens a car door and they sit down in the back seat to talk. After their conversation, some guy gets in and is surprised to see them. He's the owner of the car! So the girl explains they just needed a place to sit down, to which the car owner replies "Oh okay" like it's perfectly normal. Then he offers to drive them some place! I don't know if this scene just shows how much times have changed or what, but it made me laugh when I watched it. I just can't see that scene playing out the same way in a movie today.

This is a fun B movie with some good performances and an interesting story. There are some bugs in the plot but nothing that detracts greatly from the entertainment level, at least for me. Fans of Dix and The Whistler series should like it a lot.

Columbia's B pictures were generally the worst of the major studios. It's hard to forgive them for those awful Jungle Jim films and producer Sam Katzman generally had no artistic quality in his product. Maybe his absence explains the relative excellence of the Whistler series, in particular this very early entry in the Psycho Killer stakes. More reminiscent of Val Lewton than Katzman, The Power of the Whistler foreshadowed many Hollywood psychological features of the next half century.

Amnesia themes were a favorite of detective stories in the '40s, and THE POWER OF THE WHISTLER is no exception. A man who is befriended by a woman who senses danger in his future (JANIS CARTER) is unable to recall anything about his past. She and her sister both combine forces to delve into the few clues they found in the man's pockets and go about trying to hunt down someone who knows his identity.

If you can get past the implausibility of the set-up--a complete stranger (Carter) willing to become a full time detective upon short acquaintance of a man she knows nothing about--well, then you can sit back and watch the story unfold without too much cynicism.

The man's identity remains a teasing enigma up until the last fifteen minutes or so. JEFF DONNELL is the helpful sister who unravels a few clues of her own.

The script is full of loopholes, coincidences, contrivances, as all of these Whistler series are, but it makes an engrossing story if you're willing to suspend your disbelief.

My father told me about the Whistler Series that ran on the Radio years ago in the 1940's and Richard Dix starred in this series. This film was directed by Lew Landers, a famous director who created many mystery films and especially this film which will keep you trying to figure out just what William Everest (Richard Dix) was after he received a bad blow to his head from a car running into him and he lost his memory and amnesia occurred. William Everest stops in for a drink at a bar and a young pretty blonde named Jean Lang,(Janis Carter) is playing with cards that a fortune teller would use and finds out that this man at the bar has about twenty-four hours to live and will probably die. There are many twists and turns in this dark mysterious film from the 1940's and there is a very dark side to William Everest and he always seems to attract the very pretty women. Enjoy.

Power of the Whistler, The (1945)

** (out of 4)

Third film in the series has Richard Dix being hit by a car and losing his memory. A card reader (Janis Carter) befriends the man as the two search for his real identity but who he turns out to be is the real shock. Based on a radio show episode, this film manages to be somewhat entertaining, although it seems long even at just 66-minutes. It takes a while for the story to get going but the twist in the man's identity comes out of no where and is handled very well. This is when the film really picks up and leads to a very good final act. Dix is very good in his role and Carter comes off good as well. Landers steps in to direct this one after William Castle handled the first two. I was a little letdown that he didn't keep the action moving better because he usually handles these B films a lot better. There's some nice humor scattered throughout and also a rather mean spirited side, which includes killing of a lot of animals.