A grieving widower decides that life isn't worth living and arranges for his own murder but ultimately changes his mind to his own detriment. Richard Dix starts off "The Whistler" series literally with a bang, continuing for several more years playing always different characters finding their darkness at dawn. As the war years began to wind down, America found itself in a new crisis: a domestic one not involving enemy agents from other countries or tensions between various parts of the country. This involved individual moralities, pretty much disintegrating as embittered survivors of a depression era world decided to just enjoy life, and to hell with the consequences of their own amoralistic actions. 1944 exploded with such movies, two of them ("Double Indemnity" and "Laura") considered "classics", and others featuring a cynicism that American movies had not previously been allowed to show. Radio got away with it more since the visual aspect of their stories were missing, but with many popular radio shows becoming as American as apple pie, it was only a matter of time before many of them began showing up on the movie screen.
In the case of "The Whistler", the mysterious narrator pops in and out of the drama, adding a darkness on-screen that was only psychological on radio. Seeing the dark streets, cynical heroes and world-weary derelicts doing anything just to stay afloat brought the truths of the world out into the open. Dix's character doesn't reveal to the man he pays $1000 to that it is himself he wants bumped off, and later when that man is killed by the police, his widow arranges for a meeting with Dix in order to seek out her own revenge. The hit-man, given the instructions by a deaf mute, follows Dix around with the intention of simply scaring him to death, and when Dix ends up in a homeless shelter, he is almost made a victim of robbery by another homeless man. Every time this film turns another street, more darkness appears, and it is very appropriate that ultimately, it ends up down at the docks of the unnamed city it takes place in.
Fans of the 1997 "Titanic" will be intrigued to see a young Gloria Stuart as Dix's devoted secretary, worried about him being missing, while "B" movie favorite Joan Woodbury makes an interesting femme fatal as the widow of the man Dix hired to bump himself off. Billy Benedict, of the "Bowery Boys" movies, is very haunting as the deaf mute (too busy reading the comics to even morally considering what he's passing on), and J. Carroll Naish is quietly sinister as the actual hit-man. Then, there's Charles Wagenheim as the man who tried to pick Dix's pocket in the flophouse who ends up manipulating him into leaving with him only so he can rob him later. This is filled with spooky, unforgettable characters of every dimension of low life, and even the ending is rather a downer, reminding the audience that not every story, whether crime related or not, has to end up happy. It seems that more people end up dead because of this man's grief than what he intended, giving an ironic twist to the darkness of a story that could only be told by "The Whistler".
In the case of "The Whistler", the mysterious narrator pops in and out of the drama, adding a darkness on-screen that was only psychological on radio. Seeing the dark streets, cynical heroes and world-weary derelicts doing anything just to stay afloat brought the truths of the world out into the open. Dix's character doesn't reveal to the man he pays $1000 to that it is himself he wants bumped off, and later when that man is killed by the police, his widow arranges for a meeting with Dix in order to seek out her own revenge. The hit-man, given the instructions by a deaf mute, follows Dix around with the intention of simply scaring him to death, and when Dix ends up in a homeless shelter, he is almost made a victim of robbery by another homeless man. Every time this film turns another street, more darkness appears, and it is very appropriate that ultimately, it ends up down at the docks of the unnamed city it takes place in.
Fans of the 1997 "Titanic" will be intrigued to see a young Gloria Stuart as Dix's devoted secretary, worried about him being missing, while "B" movie favorite Joan Woodbury makes an interesting femme fatal as the widow of the man Dix hired to bump himself off. Billy Benedict, of the "Bowery Boys" movies, is very haunting as the deaf mute (too busy reading the comics to even morally considering what he's passing on), and J. Carroll Naish is quietly sinister as the actual hit-man. Then, there's Charles Wagenheim as the man who tried to pick Dix's pocket in the flophouse who ends up manipulating him into leaving with him only so he can rob him later. This is filled with spooky, unforgettable characters of every dimension of low life, and even the ending is rather a downer, reminding the audience that not every story, whether crime related or not, has to end up happy. It seems that more people end up dead because of this man's grief than what he intended, giving an ironic twist to the darkness of a story that could only be told by "The Whistler".