The Power of the Whistler

This 40s b movie boasts mediocre acting, awkward dialog and a fairly ridiculous story, but it all sort of works, generating genuine suspense and moving at a fairly quick pace. The premise is interesting, with an amnesiac helped by a a stranger, but it requires you to accept that a bunch of people think it's a better idea to figure out a stranger's identity by searching his pockets than by seeing a doctor or contacting the police.

One interesting thing about this movie is how trusting everyone is. Some people get into a stranger's car to rest, and when the stranger shows up he offers them a ride. Stuff like that keeps happening throughout the movie. Were people really that trusting back then? If so, the movie suggests it might not be such a good idea.

Columbia's B pictures were generally the worst of the major studios. It's hard to forgive them for those awful Jungle Jim films and producer Sam Katzman generally had no artistic quality in his product. Maybe his absence explains the relative excellence of the Whistler series, in particular this very early entry in the Psycho Killer stakes. More reminiscent of Val Lewton than Katzman, The Power of the Whistler foreshadowed many Hollywood psychological features of the next half century.

Richard Dix plays...well, that's the secret. He gets hit by a car early on in the movie and gets one of those handy Hollywood cases of amnesia. Shortly after being hit, he's asked by a girl in a restaurant to be allowed to tell his fortune for a lark, to show her friends how it's done. The cards come up bad, and then his amnesia comes to light, causing the amateur fortuneteller to more or less adopt him so she can help him find out who he is. You'll notice that folks trust one another in this flick a lot more than they probably ever did in real life. With the results your parents probably warned you about. Dix, as usual, is great as this befuddled but somehow sinister stranger. This is perhaps the best of the Whistler movies. Warning: Implied violence to cuddly animals!

Power of the Whistler, The (1945)

** (out of 4)

Third film in the series has Richard Dix being hit by a car and losing his memory. A card reader (Janis Carter) befriends the man as the two search for his real identity but who he turns out to be is the real shock. Based on a radio show episode, this film manages to be somewhat entertaining, although it seems long even at just 66-minutes. It takes a while for the story to get going but the twist in the man's identity comes out of no where and is handled very well. This is when the film really picks up and leads to a very good final act. Dix is very good in his role and Carter comes off good as well. Landers steps in to direct this one after William Castle handled the first two. I was a little letdown that he didn't keep the action moving better because he usually handles these B films a lot better. There's some nice humor scattered throughout and also a rather mean spirited side, which includes killing of a lot of animals.

My father told me about the Whistler Series that ran on the Radio years ago in the 1940's and Richard Dix starred in this series. This film was directed by Lew Landers, a famous director who created many mystery films and especially this film which will keep you trying to figure out just what William Everest (Richard Dix) was after he received a bad blow to his head from a car running into him and he lost his memory and amnesia occurred. William Everest stops in for a drink at a bar and a young pretty blonde named Jean Lang,(Janis Carter) is playing with cards that a fortune teller would use and finds out that this man at the bar has about twenty-four hours to live and will probably die. There are many twists and turns in this dark mysterious film from the 1940's and there is a very dark side to William Everest and he always seems to attract the very pretty women. Enjoy.