Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Steineded How sad is this?

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Michael O'Keefe One of William Castle's early directing jobs is this entry level drama that would lead to a popular series for Columbia Pictures. Richard Dix starred in all but one; and each time as a different character. THE WHISTLER has Dix playing Earl C. Conrad, a successful business man who is consumed with the guilt of his wife's death. Conrad just can't come to grasps with continuing on and cancels his life insurance policy. The despondent man doesn't have the gumption to commit suicide so he hires a hit man(J. Carrol Naish)to kill him within a week. When Conrad is notified by telegram that his wife is actually still alive; he is not so eager to welcome his own death and must find the mystery man he paid to kill him.A suspenseful thriller that sustains your interest from the very beginning. And there is the eerie sound of The Whistler(Otto Forrest).The finale is not especially unexpected. Worth watching again.Rounding out the cast: Gloria Stuart, William Benedict, Alan Dinehart, Kermit Maynard, Pat O'Malley and Charles Coleman.

kidboots Richard Dix seemed to have had starring roles from the start, always the dependable hero but when Paramount decided he would not be ideal for talkies he was dropped. It didn't really matter as he was still in demand, again usually as the solid good guy, but when he was given a role he could really get his teeth into, as the psychotic Captain in Val Lewton's "Ghost Ship", Columbia must have thought he would be ideal for their "Whistler" series. "The Whistler" had been a popular radio series and the stories followed the theme of a criminal act being uncovered, usually by overlooking an important detail or by the criminal's own stupidity. Richard Dix was starred in most of the entries. After a lifetime of playing uncomplicated leading men, it must have been a shock to him to be given roles where he was either a neurotic or psychotic!!!Wealthy industrialist Earl Conrad (Dix) contracts a hired killer to kill a man - himself!! He has been despondent about the death of his wife but can't bring himself to end it all. Unknown to most of his friends, his marriage was disintegrating and he had taken his wife, Claire, on a second honeymoon but when she is reported drowned he begins to think that everyone views him as responsible.Out of the blue he is notified that his wife has been found alive but the go-between who he has made arrangements with is killed after leaving the bar so Conrad, who now does not want to die, has no idea who to contact. The assassin, creepily played by J. Carroll Naish, is a scary bundle of professionalism who is determined to earn his money. He is toying with the idea of scaring Conrad to death!!This was the first in a highly original mystery series, always preceded by an eerie voiced narrator whistling the same weird song. Gloria Stuart who had been off the screen since 1939 returned in the mid forties for a few thankless roles before retiring, content to be a wife and mother. In "The Whistler" she plays Conrad's loyal secretary.

Paularoc 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.

whpratt1 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.