As Good As It Gets

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A middle aged artist married to a not much older woman is tempted into an affair by a blonde bombshell and takes drastic action to ensure that he retains his wife's capital while retaining the grasping blonde social climber. But as five previous characters played by Richard Dix have found out, the whistler allows you to get away with your nefarious deeds for only so long, and the conclusions aren't always a happy tune. The svelte platinum blonde bombshell Leslie Brooks took on some nefarious femme fatal roles during her career, but here, she is merely guilty by association. Cheating Dix is clever-to a point-but once the deed is done, the unknown takes over, and in haste, Dix gives away the fact that he will loose it by answering the phone when the doorbell rings. The suspicious housekeeper plants the idea of Dix's schemes in Brooks' mind, leading to the inevitable truth.An improvement over the previous "Whistler" film, this takes a typical plot done dozens of times and adds some interesting elements to make it intriguing. This gives the femme fatal a conscience, and there's no doubt that the villain will fall into a trap. In films like this, the conclusion may be obvious, but how it is wrapped up neatly that retains audience interest.

A woman is ordering a tombstone for Edith Marie Harrison, she is not sure of the date of death but when she is asked her name states it is Edith Marie Harrison!!!This is one the more ambiguous entries from "The Whistler" series. It was an anthology series with Richard Dix portraying different characters (always on the dark side) in each movie. In this one he plays Ralph Harrison, an artist, a bit of a ladies man who is tied to his wife's purse strings. He claims to his latest conquest, Kay (Leslie Brooks) a beautiful artist's model that he and his wife have a special understanding and that her health is so bad she is not expected to live. In reality, he relies on his wife's money as his amateur paintings don't sell and the "friends" that attend his parties snigger about him behind his back. He is also desperate for female companionship as Edith is bedridden but Edith has a secret - she has been exercising every day and is now fully cured. She plans to surprise Ralph at his studio but when she hears a conversation between Ralph and Kay, her face shows there is no "special understanding"!!Leslie Brooks had a bewitching beauty and a knowing smile and proved here that she should always be given "bad girl" roles. If Audrey Totter was Queen of the Noirs, Brooks was the Princess but, like Totter, she was at the wrong studio, in this case Columbia and by the time she hit her stride in "Blonde Ice" she soon retired for married life. With a few cynical looks and that arch smile it was hard to believe her Kay was the innocent model who was content to wait until Ralph's wife died in the legal, conventional way. Ralph doesn't want to wait though and when Edith takes to her bed again in despair he tries to help her along with poison!!!When they return from their honeymoon Kay, fuelled with suspicion from the housekeeper (Claire DuBrey, whose biggest role was as Bertha Rochester in 1934's "Jane Eyre"), who knew exactly what her late mistress's marriage was like, starts to suspect that Ralph is a murderer. The irony is Edith wasn't poisoned, she did indeed die of a heart attack and although by the end of the movie Ralph actually does kill somebody, with all the incriminating evidence - missing medicine bottles, ripped out diary pages etc, it is for Edith's death that he is eventually charged.One of the best from the fine Whistler series.

"Secret Of The Whistler" is, IMHO, a definite improvement on the previous entry in the "Whistler" series, "Mysterious Intruder". The script, the general production values, even the Whistler's own periodic commentary are more up to the usual standards of the series. Richard Dix once again (like in "Power Of The Whistler") makes a convincing villain, and Leslie Brooks has a knockout body. But I have a problem with the abrupt ending: when a character suffers a fate worse than he or she deserves, it crosses the line from irony to mere cruelty. And the film's final line does not really make that much sense, if you think about it. So I'd say the film is a return to form for the series, up until the last minute or so. **1/2 out of 4.

Can someone explain to me how this movie ends ?? I watched it twice, enjoyed and didn't understand the ending. I thought Richard Dix was terrific The sets and storyline were first rate It was obvious that having a "radio script" helped. You can't top the movies of this era. These would be great movies to remake. Who would be a good lead for this ?? Maybe Kevin Spacey or Alec Baldwin. You could even have a good female lead for this. How about Meryl Streep or Kate Blanchett ? I'd love to hear any other suggestions. The fact that these "Whistler" movies provided the fodder for a great series of movies is a great foundation for a future run. Charlie Chan, Thin Man, etc. were excellent, but wouldn't work. But this format has the chance to provide for a multitude of surprises and plot twists.Thanks