Don Gale, agent privé

The fifth of the seven Richard Dix Whistler's is a complicated hard boiled affair, coming in at just under an hour with the usual high quota of dizzying plot twists to keep you on your toes. Although be warned if you've never seen it before the IMDb plot summary just about gives it all away, not the ideal thing to do with these films. Nicely noirish and a good print lend a doom-laden atmosphere which the excellent cast make the most of, and at warp speed.

Seedy private eye Dix is hired by a trusting old shop owner to find his friend a missing girl who has an intriguing if extremely improbable present worth USD 200,000 awaiting her. From there it unravels in the best sleazy Chandleresque fashion, the sequence of events all logical and believable … mostly. Favourite bits: Dix and his lady … friend tracking down and finding manic Mike Mazurki's house at night; the greed in weak-willed but still a goodie Dix's eyes when the real Elora Lund shows up. Ker-ching! I believe the Whistler himself was never as amused as by the ending of this episode judging by his gleeful sneering at the end.

Tremendous fun for the fan, one of my favourites in a series that never failed to deliver.

A nice old gentleman named Stillwell approaches a private investigator about a girl who has been missing for seven years. Stillwell has some valuable property that he strongly feels rightfully belongs to the girl named Elora. Elora's mother had pawned some 'junk' at Stillwell's music shop but who has died since. The intrigue is what is so valuable about this property and whereabouts in Stillwell's shop is it? Stillwell gets stabbed and other murders follow as the search for the mysterious object ensues.

Richard Dix plays the investigator who only just manages to keep on the right side of the law. This film is so full of mercenary characters. The most interesting of these for me is Rose Denning who is a charming old dear who keeps her hard liquor hidden under the wool in her knitting basket. There is a terrific shot of Mike Mazurki as Harry Pontos when he grabs hold of a package in Stillwell's shop. The evil look of sheer avaricious delight is probably the most menacing sequence I've seen in a film lately.

I wasn't prepared for the grim ending as I didn't really know what these Columbia Whistler films were all about. The Whistler is a doom-laden narrator who only appears as a shadow on the wall. This one is full of mystery and has a terrific atmosphere as you would expect under the guiding influence of director William Castle. He has excelled himself here as he weaves together so many moments of shadows and skulduggery and I savored every moment of them.

Up to this point, I found the entries in "The Whistler" series to be enjoyable B movies, but with "Mysterious Intruder", something seems to have gone wrong. Let me make clear that I didn't think that this entry was a terrible movie. But all the same, it doesn't seem to fit with the other entries. For starters, the story is more of a standard B movie detective movie instead of a more suspenseful story. And this particular detective story really requires you to pay close attention - if you are not keeping careful mental notes to what's going on, you'll likely get lost pretty quickly. I will admit that if you're patient enough to sit through the movie, you'll be rewarded with a dark ending that does seem to fit other movies of the series. Those who also like detective dramas of the 1940s probably will get some extra enjoyment as well. But as I said, it isn't really a true "Whistler" movie, and must be considered somewhat of a misfire.

William Castle the director of many low B budget films made this into another great Whistler series starring Richard Dix as Don Gale, a rather shady private detective who had a nice brunette secretary named Joan Hill, (Nina Vale) who assisted him with all his clients and especially a little old man. This little old man wanted to locate a young girl named Lund in order to tell her that she was worth lots of money and he wanted Don Gale to try and local this young girl from his past. Don Gale has other ideas and decides to find a girl to impersonate this young girl in order to find out just how much of a fortune she is worth and what it just might be. Several people get murdered and this dark tale takes you down many blind alley's with all kinds of ugly and evil men and woman. Enjoy, it is a good mystery, and Richard Dix had a certain charm that made his acting so suspenseful.

Mysterious Intruder (1946)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fifth film in Columbia's The Whistler series has Richard Dix playing a private investigator who gets a case from an old man who is looking for his niece. Soon the old man is dead and the PI might have had something to do with it. This is a pretty good entry in the series, although the screenplay falls short when compared to the previous film. I think the biggest problem here is the plot itself, which is quite confusing and even in the end it didn't seem to work itself out very well. The film only ran 61-minutes so perhaps that's why the story didn't have time to work itself out as well as it should have. Dix once again turns in a good performance with Charles Lane, Barton MacLane and Nina Vale offering fine support. Castle's direction is good throughout, although it could have probably been better with a better script.