The Whistler (1944)

Before changing his career to directing movies with outrageous gimmicks attached to them, William Castle spent his time directing low budget B movie quickies, "The Whistler" being one of them. Considering its low budget and being quickly made, it isn't a bad effort. True, by today's standards it is to a degree predictable, starting with the premise of a suicidal man hiring a hit-man to bump him off, but soon after... oh, you know what happens then? Yes, I'm sure this premise was familiar even back in 1944. This may explain why even though the movie runs just 59 minutes long, it feels kind of padded out. Also disappointing is that the protagonist doesn't get put through the wringer trying to correct things - he takes his predicament much better than you'd expect. And the ending just seems to happen because time is almost up. Still, the movie has a few twists, and Castle's direction is often moody enough to make up for the shortcomings. The movie is never dull, and does get you wondering how things will be wrapped up. It's still a B movie, but it passes the time in an acceptable fashion.

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.

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 film is another very mysterious story dealing with the Whistler Series and Richard Dix plays the role as Earl C. Conrad who is very upset about the death of his wife in a Japanese Concentration Camp during WW II and decides to end his life by hiring someone to kill him. Earl goes through different people in order to get his own hit man and pays five-thousands dollars to have this carried out. Earl has a secretary named Alice Walker, (Gloria Stuart) who really loves Earl but he does not seem to realize this and she helps him to feel better about himself. However, Earl finds out that his wife is not really dead and is coming back to the United States. The hit man or killer is J. Carrol Naish who is determined to accomplish his killing of Earl and there are many events which seem to keep changing until the very end of the film. There is a scene in this picture which shows Earl Conrad going into a flop house and getting a bed for 25 cents and how he almost gets rolled over by the bums. This is a very entertaining film and great to look at a film produced in 1944, with classic actors.