The Secret of the Whistler

Always enjoy the wonderful performance that Richard Dix would present in this old time Radio favorite and his on the big screen appearance in the 1940's. In this film Dix plays the role of an artist (Ralph Harrison) who is married to a very rich woman Edith Marie Harrison,(Mary Currier) who has been very ill for many years and it puts a strain on their relationship. Ralph meets up with a blonde model, Kay Morrell, (Leslie Brooks) and he paints all kinds of pictures of Leslie. A relationship develops, however, Kay does not love Ralph and knows he is married, but she does wrap him around her little finger and manages to get all kinds of expensive jewelry and clothes. Mrs. Edith Harrison starts feeling well and visits her husband's studio and from that point on the story gets very interesting and creates a great mystery story. Enjoy a good B Classic film from 1946.

A neat entry from the series has RICHARD DIX playing a man who wants to get rid of his wife for a younger woman (LESLIE BROOKS). What he doesn't know is that his wife learns about his affair with the young blonde model and is recording her thoughts in a diary.

When his wife dies, he does marry again--but has to play a cat-and-mouse game with his new wife when she begins to suspect him of murder.

Dix plays his role quite effectively and Leslie Brooks is stunning as the blonde beauty. She never had a better chance than she does here, but unfortunately Columbia was never able to find anything but supporting roles for her in B-films of the period.

Suspenseful, it takes awhile before the tense proceedings start to tighten up, but it's worth ending for the good finale. MICHAEL DUANE has a small supporting role as an artist but gets star billing.

Well directed by George Sherman, these series are better than average programmers.

I was eager to see the "Whistler" movies because of William Castle's involvement in some. He was a fine director ion the forties. (He was OK later, too. But in the forties his films were very elegant and subtle. His later horror outings were anything but subtle.) This one is not directed by Castle but it works really well. It was near the end of Richard Dix's run in the series. He was not a great actor, at least not at this point. But he had a very solid presence. And he is plausible as good guys and not so hot ones as well.

Here he plays a less than admirable character. He is a painter. Amazingly, the painting of his that we first see is pretty decent. So often, even in the toniest of A-pictures, paintings by supposedly great artists looked like the work of quick-sketch artists or Sunday painters.

The film opens with a stylishly noirish woman buying her own tombstone. Everything bout this film has the marvelous dark look of a film noir. Or of an Edward Hopper paintings. The scenes look especially like book jackets from the time.

And the female lead looks right off the cover of some true-crime book. Wow, she looks both right and beautiful! And she -- Leslie Brooks -- is a fine actress too. (Intriguingly, she looks like the same studio's biggest star ten years hence: Kim Novak.)

The whole series is entertaining, even the final film, which does not have Dix in it.

One problem I encountered and others may as well: Clearly the movies were based on a radio program of their time. I have never heard that program, though. I get the idea that the Whistler is an omniscient criminologist who either has no bodily image or, like Lamont Cranston of "The Shadow," can make himself invisible.

Guess I will try to track some tapes of the series down. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and search out these films. They're all good. A couple, like this one, are very good.

I always thought Richard Dix was at his best in this series of films. The sense of mystery, menace, or goodness he could generate by turns makes his Whistler films (this was number 6 out of 7) well worth watching, although he could sometimes give the impression of a chunky silent actor getting to grips with talkies.

In this outing he plays a man married to a woman purely for her money and who falls in love with a younger woman who is after him purely for his (her) money. How the situation is nefariously resolved is the plot, simply and carefully plotted. The way the actors spoke their words beginning with capital letters in this - and other entries in the series - makes me think this must have been adapted and expanded from one of the scripts of the 231 radio plays already aired by then. Whether playing a goodie, baddie or bothie Dix exuded a simple yet intense sincerity, he's basically a baddie with all the usual human failings in here and yet you can still find yourself rooting for the poor mutt. Leslie Brooks as the not-too-bad gold-digger artists model was never more alluring, I was definitely rooting for her! There's a poignant twist at the end, so attention is recommended.

Sadly neglected, about time they were all available on DVD, a nice entry in a nice series for those of us who like the genre.

Secret of the Whistler, The (1946)

*** (out of 4) T

he sixth film in Columbia's series and the last to feature Richard Dix. In the film Dix plays an artist who begins dating a younger woman (Leslie Brooks) while waiting for his wife to die. After the wife dies he marries the younger woman but soon she starts to fear that he might have killed the first wife. This is another good entry in the series that manages to build some nice suspense with its very entertaining story and another fine performance by Dix. Not only is Dix very good in his role but the supporting cast is great as well. Brooks turns in a very good performance as the woman who begins to suspect the worst. Michael Duane and Mary Currier co-star as a newspaper man and Dix's first wife. The story goes by at a very fast pace and there's some nice twists and turns along the way. The film focuses on a psychological horror aspect, which is where the suspense comes from.