That was an excellent one.

Really Surprised!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Before changing his career to directing movies with outrageous gimmicks attached to them, William Castle spent his time directing low budget B movie quickies, "The Whistler" being one of them. Considering its low budget and being quickly made, it isn't a bad effort. True, by today's standards it is to a degree predictable, starting with the premise of a suicidal man hiring a hit-man to bump him off, but soon after... oh, you know what happens then? Yes, I'm sure this premise was familiar even back in 1944. This may explain why even though the movie runs just 59 minutes long, it feels kind of padded out. Also disappointing is that the protagonist doesn't get put through the wringer trying to correct things - he takes his predicament much better than you'd expect. And the ending just seems to happen because time is almost up. Still, the movie has a few twists, and Castle's direction is often moody enough to make up for the shortcomings. The movie is never dull, and does get you wondering how things will be wrapped up. It's still a B movie, but it passes the time in an acceptable fashion.

Richard Dix is a depressed businessman who, through a third party, hires an unknown hit man to kill him. When the reason for his depression disappears, Dix prowls around looking for the unknown murderer, trying to stop him. Other movies have used a similar formula, most recently "Bulworth." Dix is a little soggy but otherwise bland, with the voice of an experienced actor. Gloria Stuart is the secretary who loves him and hers is an appealing presence. Pretty, too. J. Carrol Naish is the would-be murderer who first shows up as an annoying and somewhat comic life insurance salesman but, thereafter, is unidimensional as the determined killer who never smiles, is usually interrupted in his attempts to plug Dix, and who is given to reading books with titles like, "The Pleasures of Necrophilia" -- I mean "necrophobia." He conceives the idea of scaring Dix to death. It sounds silly but under the right conditions it can work. Read my ground-breaking article, "Doomed Status", in "Psychiatric Quarterly," where all will be explained.It's a minor B feature based on the popular radio series. "B Feature", as in this case, usually translates into "no time, no money, little talent." The sets are spare. There is, though, one fascinating and repellant scene in a flop house. Twenty-five cents buys a sort of cot for the night. You must watch out for cooties and thieving neighbors. Director Castle makes the most of the scene.I don't know exactly how it's possible for some people to compare this unpretentious, careless minor feature to Val Lewton's psychological horror stories over at RKO. This is a sometimes diverting B movie. Lewton's work was sometimes gripping and always meticulously executed.

So many B films I have seen were poor prints on VHS tapes. How very nice it was to see such an excellent print on TCM. I listened to many episodes of The Whistler and found them engaging. In this, the first of the series, Richard Dix as businessman Earl Conrad has suffered from serious depression over the accidental death of his wife three years earlier. His friends seem to to blame him for not saving her from drowning. Extremely despondent he contracts with a killer's middleman to kill him. After sending the contract money and a message to the killer, the middleman is shot to death by police. Soon thereafter Conrad is notified that his wife did not die but has been in a Japanese internment camp for the past three years. Oops - now he doesn't want to die but doesn't know who the killer is and sets out to find someone who knows the middleman and perhaps then the killer. He returns to the bar where he made the deal with the middleman and a woman (played by the always capable Joan Woodbury). As they are driving to the place the middleman hung out she tells Conrad that she was the middleman's wife and accuses Conrad of setting up her husband for the police to kill. Proving that even the most nasty characters have someone who loves them, she tries to kill Conrad by running the car down a cliff. Didn't work - she dies, he lives. But the real threat is the killer, played by the wonderful J. Carroll Naish who, as a matter of twisted honor, decides to fulfill his contract to kill Conrad although it is now pointless to do so. The killer decides he wants to frighten Conrad to death by following him and making him fearful. Naish plays the psychotic killer to a tee. Specially interesting in this film are the scenes in the flop house and those with a security guard at the docks. There were many familiar faces in this movie including Billy Benedict, Cy Kendall, Woodbury and Kermit Maynard. Gloria Stuart did a good job in the thankless role of faithful secretary. Not as impressive is Richard Dix. He's OK but really kind of bland and weak in the role. This is a superior B film more interesting than many a so called A film.

This film is another very mysterious story dealing with the Whistler Series and Richard Dix plays the role as Earl C. Conrad who is very upset about the death of his wife in a Japanese Concentration Camp during WW II and decides to end his life by hiring someone to kill him. Earl goes through different people in order to get his own hit man and pays five-thousands dollars to have this carried out. Earl has a secretary named Alice Walker, (Gloria Stuart) who really loves Earl but he does not seem to realize this and she helps him to feel better about himself. However, Earl finds out that his wife is not really dead and is coming back to the United States. The hit man or killer is J. Carrol Naish who is determined to accomplish his killing of Earl and there are many events which seem to keep changing until the very end of the film. There is a scene in this picture which shows Earl Conrad going into a flop house and getting a bed for 25 cents and how he almost gets rolled over by the bums. This is a very entertaining film and great to look at a film produced in 1944, with classic actors.