User Reviews

by the end of the 1940's, the entrance of television into American households cause movie-going audiences to drop weekly box office since they could watch many of the same type of shows at home for free. One of the first movie genres to be affected was the crime series, low budget B pictures that often at the bottom of a bill. After eight films, "The Whistler" series ended its four year run with a new leading man, Michael Duayne, replacing Richard Dix. Obviously younger than Dix, Dwayne was more realistic being cast opposite the younger leading ladies, and in this film, he is quite good, having been in previous installments of the series in supporting roles.

The plot is very film noir like in atmosphere, dealing with Duane on the verge of marrying his French sweetheart, Lenore Aubert, and various circumstances end up getting in the way of their getting hitched. Hwr sudden disappearance brings on more mystery, and along the way Duane is introduced to a series of odd characters who seemingly have sinister motivations that Duane completely understand.

Among the standouts in the supporting cast are Ann Shoemaker as a seemingly sweet but devious matriarch and Olin Howland is a rather obnoxious hotel clerk. Hints of something big going on will keep you glued, making this one of the better entries in the series which deserved a longer run or at least a T.V. series of its own.

**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.

The last film in 'The Whistler' series. 'The Whistler' started out as a radio programme in 1942 before transferring to the big screen in 1944. In all entries except this film the lead actor was Richard Dix but in this film he is replaced by Michael Duane who plays Theodore Anthony 'Ted' Nichols just about to get married to a French woman named Alice but she disappears before their wedding happens. His attempt to find her leads to a cruel conspiracy. This mystery film is a decent one and the cast acquit themselves well, particularly Lenore Aubert as Alice as she gets more entangled in the machinations of her first husband's family. One really sympathises with her. A proficient conclusion to the series.

In the film series 'The Whistler' only appears as a shadow to narrate the story and and frankly could have been dispensed with, not adding much apart from the whistling gimmick.

William Irish aka Cornell Woolrich was one of the best writers in the thriller field,called the twentieth century Edgar Poe , he shared with the latter an obsession with the premature burial .A closeted homosexual,he spent all his miserable life in a hotel room,and his denouements are sometimes distraught ; such is not the case in this tale ,neither the movie nor the short story.

The role of the whistler is totally pointless , Irish's plots do not need voice over ....

That said ,the first part is closer to "I married a dead man " (which spawned a good movie starring Barbara Stanwyck ) than to "all at once,no Alice " but does not suffer for it (one can wonder why Alice ,who ,unlike in the book ,is supposed to be French ,has no accent and barely utters three words in her first language though ); the role of the detective is slightly different but it adds sudden new developments,probably the best thing of the adaptation.

Things begin to deteriorate in the second part : Irish is thoroughly betrayed ; this umpteeenth story of insane asylum was written by screenwriters who seem to be afraid of the horror depicted by the writer: the hero and the detective,gagged and bound in a cellar, hearing noises which scare them to death : in the room above them , there's a funeral ceremony , Alice is still alive as they nail the coffin ;this obsession in Irish 's work emerges again in other short stories such as "graves for the living"."then a sharp hammering on wood penetrated to where we were and nearly drove me crazy ;they were fastening down the lid"(W. I.)

That said ,it's not a bad thriller ,but do read Irish's "at once, no Alice"!

A melodramatic crime movie about deceit, imposture, greed, its asset is the plot, coming from a revered writer, and it takes us through rain, an inn, a mansion, a hospice, its direction is somewhat impersonal but reasonably skilled, mostly serviceable, the director being one of the labourers of that age, here he followed the age's new trend, the new style (I felt grateful for being spared of the allegedly humorous moments that plagued crime movies made a decade earlier …), in his rendering is defined by a light sobriety, and I think his movie would prove of interest to the writer's buffs, with the necessary caveat that it's more of an impersonal crime movie, than of a faithful transposition of a work, it has the plot, but not the writer's very peculiar atmosphere; I sympathized with the detective, I disliked the psychiatrist, and the leading actor reminded me of a C. Grant impersonator.

A shocking moment is the attack of the watchdog.

This movie could of been much more; the opportunity has been wasted. The feverishness of the writer's ideas has been mitigated, stumped, dimmed, blunted. Notwithstanding, the storytelling is suspenseful and dynamic.

The moments of artistic truth or at least authentic craftsmanship were expect-ably few; in the '30s, many directors preferred to crowd the tropes, to throng them, than to make good use of a few, they practically left them unused, and if here the writer's universe seems impoverished, it's because the director had this mindset. On the other hand, the tone here was sober. It already had been a radio program, a few yrs later it would of made a cool TV series.

The last film in the "Whistler" series, and the only one not to star Richard Dix. He probably missed this one due to health problems, but the truth is the main character here was too young for him - maybe he could have played the private detective instead. Anyway, "The Return Of The Whistler" is neither the best ("Mark Of The Whistler" or "Voice Of The Whistler") nor the worst ("Mysterious Intruder") of the series. It is well-produced (it looks more like an A- than a B+ movie), and has an intriguing first half where the viewer doesn't know who to trust or what to believe, but the second half is more straightforward, and just a tad underwhelming. On the whole, "The Whistler" series lived up to its reputation for me as being one of the best mystery series of old Hollywood. **1/2 out of 4.

This was the last entry in the Columbia Pictures' "Whistler" B movie series, for reasons I have not been able to uncover. Maybe audiences missed series star Richard Dix, who had retired because of health problems. But while Dix might have added some of his usual spark as he did in the previous entries, as it is, this is a pretty good B movie and a good way to end the series. It gets going pretty early on, quickly adding mysterious touches that will get you wondering just what is going on. And there are some good twists, though I did guess what the private detective character was eventually going to do towards the Michael Duane character about a third of the way into the movie. Probably you'll guess it too, if you've seen the other movies in the series. Aside from that, the movie works nicely and fits the 63 minute time limit pretty well - there's no unnecessary fat in this story. If you liked the other movies in this series, you should like this final bow.