I've always enjoyed this atmospheric little thriller, a remarkable film even more remarkable for continually being overlooked it's hardly ever on UK TV. Sure it's very 1940's and has a brooding melancholic black and white quality about it that might be a problem to some, but had it been made by Val Lewton over at RKO instead of William Castle at Columbia it would surely have been feted as art by now. The Whistler had been running successfully on CBS radio since 16th May 1942 and was transferred intact to the big screen.
Starts out with company boss played memorably by Richard Dix terminally depressed at the accidental death of his wife in a sleazy bar to get a go-between to get a hit-man to "remove" him. The twists continue when the go-between is removed instead and Dix's wife is discovered alive with the hit-man programmed. What an extra 10 minutes to the film could have brought to the part J. Carrol Naish played as the psychotic hit-man with the penchant for psychology! A lot is packed into the 58 minutes running time including an intriguing car crash and a night in a flop house, where the vulture is killed by the cat playing with the canary. Dependable Dix is a goodie in this first Whistler film, he starred in the first 7 alternating at various points between goodie and baddie, bringing to each one a chunky sincerity and clear diction that, along with the nature of the plots made them a unique movie series. In this one the Whistler himself is responsible for a couple of key plot moments, in future he confined himself to sneering from the shadows "Man cannot change his destiny" but apparently the Whistler can!
A great film, totally inconsequential but engrossing from the word go and one I can savour repeatedly.
Starts out with company boss played memorably by Richard Dix terminally depressed at the accidental death of his wife in a sleazy bar to get a go-between to get a hit-man to "remove" him. The twists continue when the go-between is removed instead and Dix's wife is discovered alive with the hit-man programmed. What an extra 10 minutes to the film could have brought to the part J. Carrol Naish played as the psychotic hit-man with the penchant for psychology! A lot is packed into the 58 minutes running time including an intriguing car crash and a night in a flop house, where the vulture is killed by the cat playing with the canary. Dependable Dix is a goodie in this first Whistler film, he starred in the first 7 alternating at various points between goodie and baddie, bringing to each one a chunky sincerity and clear diction that, along with the nature of the plots made them a unique movie series. In this one the Whistler himself is responsible for a couple of key plot moments, in future he confined himself to sneering from the shadows "Man cannot change his destiny" but apparently the Whistler can!
A great film, totally inconsequential but engrossing from the word go and one I can savour repeatedly.