THE MARK OF THE WHISTLER
US, 1944, 60 minutes, Black-and-white.
Richard Dix, Janis Carter, Porter Hall, Paul Guilfoyle, John Calvert, Matt Willis.
Directed by William Castle.
The Whistler was originally a radio program on CBS, from 1942 to 1955.
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 second in the Columbia Studios series of The Whistler. As with the first film, and with two more, the film was directed by William Castle. It has the added benefit of a story by celebrated crime writer, Cornell Woolrich.
This time Richard Dix appears as a vagrant who becomes involved in a financial fraud. He sees an advertisement that money is available from a bank to claimants where the money has not been returned to its owners. Interestingly, one of the claimants the bank is searching for has the same name as the vagrant, Lee Nugent.
The early part of the film is taken up with Nugent tracking down the place where the original lived, getting the records of a fire in 1912, getting all the details of the family story straight, presenting them at the bank and, eventually, successfully passing himself off as the original Nugent.
Nugent gets the help of an easily bribed salesman, played by Porter Hall, LinkedIn? money to buy smarter clothes, who puts him up until he gains the money, and is quite avaricious, following Nugent around, getting his mail, always asking when the money was available.
Janis Carter, who was to appear in another Whistler film, is a journalist who senses a story, has photos of Nugent emerging from the bank with the money, letting everybody know this good news story.
The complication comes in some men whom the original Nugent has swindled and they are out to get the man perpetrating the fraud, thinking he is the real Nugent. This means he has to hide, to struggle, rely on the journalist for some help.
The other complication is that Nugent is helped by a limping man, Limpy, who turns up helping him a great deal, especially as he is pursued by the son of the original Nugent’s father’s business partner who had let him go to jail and is now wanting revenge.
As might be guessed, Limpy is the actual Nugent. There is a moralising ending reminding people of confidence in perpetrating fraud without realising there could be dire consequences.
