THE POWER OF THE WHISTLER
US, 1945, 66 minutes, Black-and-white.
Richard Dix, Janis Carter, Jeff Donnell, Loren Tindall, Tala Birrell, John Abbott.
Directed by Lew Landers.
A series of eight films began in 1944, small supporting features at Columbia. Four of the films were directed by William Castle who, during the 1950s, directed small budget action adventures like Slaves of Babylon, Saracen Blade. From 1958 to 1968 he made a number of exploitative horror films with all kinds of gimmicks to scare audiences, House on Haunted Hill, I Saw What you Did. He also produced Rosemary’s Baby.
• The Whistler - 1944, directed by William Castle
• The Mark of the Whistler - 1944, directed by William Castle
• The Power of the Whistler – 1945, directed by Lew Landers
• Voice of the Whistler – 1945, directed by William Castle
• Mysterious Intruder – 1946, directed by William Castle
• The Secret of the Whistler – 1946, directed by George Sherman
• The Thirteenth Hour – 1947, directed by William Clemens
• The Return of the Whistler – 1948, directed by D. Ross Lederman
As with the radio program, the films are introduced by a shadowy figure walking across the screen, with his signature whistling, which sometimes recurs throughout the film is. He begins to speak, is a narrator of stories about crime, sometimes intervening with narration during the action of the films.
The star of seven of the eight of the films was Richard Dix who had begun his silent film career in 1917, was a popular star for the next 30 years, appearing in the 1931 Academy Award winning Cimarron.
The interesting point about Richard Dix’s presence is that he portrayed a different character in each film. Most of the characters are not entirely sympathetic, ambiguous in their moral attitudes, sometimes swinging between the law and working outside the law.
This is the third in the series. It is one of the best of the series, directed by veteran of many genres in small budget films, Lew Landers.
Once again, Richard Dix plays a different character from his performances in the other films. The Whistler tells us that he is on a strange mission – but, he suffers an accident in the street, hit by a car, and suffers some amnesia. At the same time, Jean, Janis Carter (who was to appear in another Whistler film), is with her sister and her fiance and looks at fortune-telling from the cards, the ace of spades and the two of clubs coming up twice concerning the mysterious stranger. She decides to help him.
They examine things in his pockets which lead them to in interview with a Broadway star who denies knowing him though roses were sent to her by him. He stays the night at her apartment with her sister, Jeff Donnell, who has been very wary. However, he is perfectly charming and Jean refers to him as George. They plan to spend the day tracking down clues, dividing them between Jean and her sister.
This leads to a buildup of all kinds of clues, a mysterious prescription though the address is actually a bookshop where the mysterious man had visited the week before, examining a book about poison by an author, who had written a prescription allegedly, but who had been dead for 50 years. While Jean is in the shop, George minds a cat for a little girl but it dies – as does the bird in the apartment and later a squirrel in the park.
The sister has more success, following through an order for birthday cake and finding where it is to be sent.
The twist in the plot is that George has escaped from a mental institution, pretending to be on the rebound, but intending to murder the judge who consigned him to the institution. The cake is for the warden of the institution – and there are some tense moments where his wife and son are about to eat some of the cake.
The sister goes to the police, giving all the evidence, eventually persuading the police to follow through, contacting local police to protect the warden and the judge. In the meantime, George tells Jean that he has recovered some of his memory, is going to travel to Woodville. He also declares that he has fallen in love with her.
The final moments include Jean realising her danger, escaping through the woods, George pursuing her, trying to woo her and her killing him.
Dix, once again, portrays a very different character from the other Whistler films.
