**SPOILERS** Last of "The Whistler" Columbia Pictures series and the only one without Richard Dix has to do with a scheme to get a young widow out of the picture in order to collect her husbands inheritance.
Arriving from far off France Alice Dupres Barkley, Lenore Aubent, got very disillusioned with her late husband's, a US transport pilot who was killed on D-Day, family in that their resentful of her marrying him and now a threat, being that Mr. Barkley was the sole recipient, to the Barkley family's vast holdings. Alice meets young engineer and armature doctor, he fixes Alices sprained ankle, Ted Nichols (Michael Duane) and both fall in love with each other and within two weeks she and Ted decided to get married. It's then that strange and unexplained things started to happen to the two lovebirds that seemed to be purposely preventing them to tie the knot.
Driving out in the country, in a driving thunderstorm, to get married Ted & Alice are hampered with the fact that the minster who's to preform the wedding ceremony couldn't make it because all the roads to the chapel were washed out. Deciding to stay at a local hotel until morning, when the minster is expected to show up, Alice mysteriously disappears when Ted spending the night sleeping in his disabled, by someone hired by the Barkley's, car shows up to meet her that morning. Being that the two were not married the hotel clerk(Fred F. Sears), a man of conscience, refused to have them spend the night together.
Confused and not knowing what to do Ted is approached by private eye Gaylord Traynor, Richard Lane, who offers to help. It was an offer that Ted,who needed all the help he could get, couldn't refuse and in the end despite Traynors true intentions, which weren't at all helpful, reunited him and Alice.
Alice is used as a pawn in this game of both money and power on the part of her greedy and scheming in-laws. Trying to get Alice out of the way by just airbrushing her out of the Berkley family's history wasn't as easy as the family (Brother Charlie, James Cardwell, Sister Hulskamp, Sarah Padden, and Moma Bradley, Ann Shoemaker) at first thought it would be.
Ted after being knocked out cold by Traynor, who was secretly working for the Bradley family, who took off with Alice's and her late husbands wedding papers or certificate later realized that he was being used by the Bradley's to get poor Alice out of the way. Charlie Sister Hulskump and Moma plan to put Alice away and out of their lives for good as an incurable mental patent at the Woodlawn Sanitarium.
It takes a lot of patience as well as legwork for Ted to finally track down Alice but he does it by faking it in trying to prove to the sanitarium administrator Bertram H. Grantland M.D, Wilton Graff, that he's just as sick as any of the other patients under his care. Ted get's to save Alice just before she's to be put under, by Bertram H. Grantland M.D, with a super-strong seductive and locked away, with her memory being erased with the use of shock treatment, for the rest of her life.
****SPOILER ALERT**** It turns out that the at first villain in the movie Traynor turns out to be the good guy. Traynor realizing that he's been snookered by Charlie Barkley & Co to stiff Alice, as well as Ted, out of the Barkley inheritance gets in touch with the police who in the end put an end to Brother Charlie and friends, or relatives, grandiose plan to get their hands on the Barkley fortune. As for Ted & Alice they finally kiss and say I do as the long awaited minister, who was stuck in traffic during the storm, finally shows up and marries them.
Arriving from far off France Alice Dupres Barkley, Lenore Aubent, got very disillusioned with her late husband's, a US transport pilot who was killed on D-Day, family in that their resentful of her marrying him and now a threat, being that Mr. Barkley was the sole recipient, to the Barkley family's vast holdings. Alice meets young engineer and armature doctor, he fixes Alices sprained ankle, Ted Nichols (Michael Duane) and both fall in love with each other and within two weeks she and Ted decided to get married. It's then that strange and unexplained things started to happen to the two lovebirds that seemed to be purposely preventing them to tie the knot.
Driving out in the country, in a driving thunderstorm, to get married Ted & Alice are hampered with the fact that the minster who's to preform the wedding ceremony couldn't make it because all the roads to the chapel were washed out. Deciding to stay at a local hotel until morning, when the minster is expected to show up, Alice mysteriously disappears when Ted spending the night sleeping in his disabled, by someone hired by the Barkley's, car shows up to meet her that morning. Being that the two were not married the hotel clerk(Fred F. Sears), a man of conscience, refused to have them spend the night together.
Confused and not knowing what to do Ted is approached by private eye Gaylord Traynor, Richard Lane, who offers to help. It was an offer that Ted,who needed all the help he could get, couldn't refuse and in the end despite Traynors true intentions, which weren't at all helpful, reunited him and Alice.
Alice is used as a pawn in this game of both money and power on the part of her greedy and scheming in-laws. Trying to get Alice out of the way by just airbrushing her out of the Berkley family's history wasn't as easy as the family (Brother Charlie, James Cardwell, Sister Hulskamp, Sarah Padden, and Moma Bradley, Ann Shoemaker) at first thought it would be.
Ted after being knocked out cold by Traynor, who was secretly working for the Bradley family, who took off with Alice's and her late husbands wedding papers or certificate later realized that he was being used by the Bradley's to get poor Alice out of the way. Charlie Sister Hulskump and Moma plan to put Alice away and out of their lives for good as an incurable mental patent at the Woodlawn Sanitarium.
It takes a lot of patience as well as legwork for Ted to finally track down Alice but he does it by faking it in trying to prove to the sanitarium administrator Bertram H. Grantland M.D, Wilton Graff, that he's just as sick as any of the other patients under his care. Ted get's to save Alice just before she's to be put under, by Bertram H. Grantland M.D, with a super-strong seductive and locked away, with her memory being erased with the use of shock treatment, for the rest of her life.
****SPOILER ALERT**** It turns out that the at first villain in the movie Traynor turns out to be the good guy. Traynor realizing that he's been snookered by Charlie Barkley & Co to stiff Alice, as well as Ted, out of the Barkley inheritance gets in touch with the police who in the end put an end to Brother Charlie and friends, or relatives, grandiose plan to get their hands on the Barkley fortune. As for Ted & Alice they finally kiss and say I do as the long awaited minister, who was stuck in traffic during the storm, finally shows up and marries them.