Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Just perfect...

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

On December 2, 1889 Thomas Edison made some wax cylinders of Johannes Brahms personally playing his compositions on the piano. These went underground somewhere for 48 years until resurfacing, and were given to the Berlin State Library in 1937. They miraculously survived WWII, resurfaced again and still exist in Germany. In recent years modern state of the art digital methods have produced recordings derived from the original cylinders. Edison and others made recordings of extremely famous 19th century individuals, cylinders that either have been discovered or are waiting to be found. So the basic premise of "Mysterious Intruder" is feasible and broadly based on historical fact: the existence of such cylinders.Richard Dix does a good job in "Mysterious Intruder" as a sleazy private eye out to grab some lost cylinders of a famous singer from the 1880's. It is a tight script and well made, released by Columbia Pictures in 1946. It moves briskly and is filmed with stark noir-style lighting.Another thing I find interesting about this movie is its use of some talented and now totally obscure actresses, namely Nina Vale, Helen Mowery and Pamela Blake (no, not Amanda Blake). Who? They are unknown but worth your time to discover here, wherein we luckily find all three featured in the same movie. The very solid actor Barton MacLane (Maltese Falcon '41) also is a great asset portraying a police detective.This movie has a unique story and is one of Dix's better performances (not great acting, but good for Dix) and is directed by William Castle. I find it to be both entertaining and interesting in its own b-movie sort of way.

The Whistler was both a radio show and a B-movie series from Columbia Pictures. Unlike the usual B-films (which were mostly detective films), this series was more like episodes of the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television series--each a unique story involving human nature and each one being unique and unrelated to the others. Additionally, all but the final film starred Richard Dix--who played very different characters in all the films.In this film, Dix plays a private detective who isn't especially honest. When a kindly old man comes to him for help, Dix appears willing to use a bit of larceny to cash in on the man's trust. Throughout the film, you see that above all else, Dix is a man out for himself. Additionally, other selfish characters abound--and soon practically everyone wants to cash in on the old man's secret.This film is probably the best in the series because the script is much tighter and without the plot holes that sometimes impeded the series. While there are many twists and turns, the script never becomes too complicated and it ends with a wonderful and ironic twist. Additionally, the supporting staff is much better than usual--having many great character actors on hand, such as Mike Muzurki, Barton MacLane and Charles Lane.The score of 8 is relative to other B-movies. For the genre, it's among the best and not to be missed by old film buffs.

The 1940's were full of private eyes from Sam Spade to Phillip Marlowe. None, however, equals the sheer sleaze of key-hole peeper Don Gale. He's a distinctive creation of writer Eric Taylor's clever little screenplay, with more twists and turns than one of those old Toni home permanents. The brief opening between Gale and his secretary tells all we need to know about his brand of professional ethics and is a great bit of subtle innuendo. Richard Dix is perfect as Gale with all the phony charm and shifty eyes of an oily medicine man. If Gale has any redeeming qualities like Spade or Marlowe, I can't find them, making him one of the most unusual lead characters of the day.The movie starts off posing a neat little mystery-- why would anyone want to kill for some worthless old keepsakes. The solution is a novel one, although the story sometimes unfolds in a complex fashion that's hard to follow.There're some nifty little touches, such as the trigger-happy neighbor who apparently shoots at anything that moves or the safe-house matron who looks like she could go a few rounds with Mike Tyson. However, not everything is roses. Little old man Stillwell should carry a sugar-overload warning, while plug-ugly Mike Mazurki mugs it up shamelessly as the towering menace. The bare-bones street scenes might blemish most movies, but here they come across as just plain cheap like Gale himself.How surprising that the schlockmeister of 1950's gimmick movies, William Castle, stands as the moving force behind many of these little Whistler gems. He had a real feel for them. Too bad he's identified now with such exploitation flicks as The Tingler (1959) and 13 Ghosts (1960), (Tingler wired certain certain theatre seats for a mild jolt and then insured the patrons! ). Anyway, the ending here is particularly ironical, even for a series that prided itself on irony. As they say, they just don't make 'em like this any more. Too bad.

A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER kills Richard Dix's kindly client before Dix can find out why he wants to spend his meager earnings to find a girl the client adopted long ago. Will Dix double cross his way into the big money before psycho-baddie Mike Mazurski kills him, or tough cop Barton McLane puts him away? This is full-blown film noir, with an even more morally ambiguous hero (Dix) than most. The full-blown crisis of conscience Dix endures through this movie anchors the fast-moving (and often incoherent) plot in something a little more substantial than is found in the usual private eye caper. The ending to this one is a very good double twist, one of which is a little surprising. Dix's performance is about as far as you can get from Humphery Bogart and Dick Powell -- eccentric and theatrical. It works quite well for establishing his character. The other actors play the usual set of tough cops, psychos, loyal secretaries and money grubbing blonds in the ways you might expect.In other words -- find this one if you like noir.