Rent The Whistler / The Mark of the Whistler (1944)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Adapted from a hit radio series, each episode has the 'Whistler' emerge from the shadows to introduce a nightmarish, twisting tale in his own sardonic manner, with the first seven films starring Richard Dix (It Happened in Hollywood).
The Whistler (1944)
A man, despondent over the death of his wife, wants to commit suicide but can't bring himself to do it. He hires a man to hire a professional killer to do the job. However, he soon finds out that his wife isn't really dead - but the man he paid to hire the hitman is, and he has no idea who the man hired or how to get him to call off the hit.
The Mark of the Whistler (1944)A drifter claims the money in an old bank account by impersonating someone else with the same name. Soon he finds himself the target of a man who turns out to be the son of the old partner of the impersonated man's father, who caused his partner to do time in prison. - Actors:
- Richard Dix, Gloria Stuart, J. Carrol Naish, Alan Dinehart, Trevor Bardette, William 'Billy' Benedict, Willie Bloom, Roy Brent, Charles Coleman, Clancy Cooper, Don Costello, Russell Custer, Ralph Dunn, Otto Forrest, Byron Foulger, John George, Dick Gordon, Robert Homans, Jack Ingram, Robert Emmett Keane
- Directors:
- William Castle
- Producers:
- Rudolph C. Flothow
- Writers:
- George Bricker, Cornell Woolrich, J. Donald Wilson, Eric Taylor
- Aka:
- The Whistler / (The Marked Man / The Mark of the Whistler / Dormant Account)
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama, Thrillers
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 27/05/2024
- Run Time:
- 122 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Audio commentary with film historian Josh Nelson on 'The Whistler' (2024)
- A Whistle-Stop Tour (2024, 25 mins): in-depth overview of the film series by critic and author Kim Newman
- It's Your America (c.1945, 36 mins): dramatised documentary focusing on soldiers returning from World War II, directed by John Ford and featuring J Carrol Naish, the antagonist in 'The Whistler'
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity materials
- Worlld premieres on Blu-ray
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Reviews (2) of The Whistler / The Mark of the Whistler
Humming Along - The Whistler / The Mark of the Whistler review by CH
The first cases on this disc establish the shape of six films to come. Each opens with a shadow and a whistle, all that we see of a narrator who sets out something of what is to follow in the next hour. They both have Richard Dix as lead - but he plays different charcters each time. In the first, he is a man so grief stricken by his wife's death that he enagaes somebody to kill him - at a time he does not know in advance. A terrific premise ably managed.
In the second, a down and out notices a newspaper item which seeks those who have money being held for them by a small-town bank. Richard Dix shares a name with one of these - and sets about obtaining what is wrongfully his. The tale is a lesser-known one by the great Cornell Woolrich and features more of his low-world life, including cheap hotel tooms. Filmed with terrific use of light and shadow, and leaving one keen to see more of Janis Carter, it again moves at a pace to leave scant time to question the turns which lead to a perhaps surprising conclusion.
These two films are enough to make one ready to see the next six, although without bingeing. They should be mixed with others, as befits - b-fits - their original status.
on both films... - The Whistler / The Mark of the Whistler review by Steve
THE WHISTLER
This is the start of an offbeat series by Columbia based on a popular radio suspense programme. There are eight Whistler films, the first seven star William Dix in a variety of roles. Here he is a depressed businessman who arranges a hit on himself, but when his fortunes suddenly improve, has trouble cancelling the contract.
The story actually seems to come from the radio series, though obviously it’s been remade and ripped off endlessly since. And it’s a good plot, with many wild twists. William Castle in his breakthrough as director, makes this into a really eccentric and stylish film noir.
The Whistler is the storyteller, briefly glimpsed in the shadows. He is partly the all-knowing narrator, and also a figure of implacable destiny. So it feels like an eerie parable on fate. This is not realistic, but dense with expressionistic dread.
It takes place in a US where everyone struggles. There’s a really gloomy scene in a flophouse. Dix is a limited actor, but has a touch of impassive moral ambiguity. J. Carrol Naish is sinister as the assassin. It’s a 60 minute programmer of the sort that would made for tv a decade later. And the best radio spin off of the period..
THE MARK OF THE WHISTLER
The Whistler series has an impressive strike rate for unearthing classic, repeatable film noir scenarios. Which also means they are now quite familiar. This is from one of many Cornell Woolrich stories in which a drifter of uncertain virtue assumes another identity, but soon realises they are now in even deeper trouble…
So, Richard Dix plays an imposter who claims a large inheritance. Only there is a mob contract out on the real heir. This is ideal for the series, as The Whistler- the omniscient narrator and voice of destiny- mocks the feeble attempts of the shiftless bum to deny the fate he has assumed.
Dix may play a different character in each entry, but he gives the same performance; hunted, haunted, and concealing a deep secret. Usually he is pulled down among the lower depths of society; the human deadbeats… So this series can be quite sombre.
Here at least Janis Carter- Columbia’s second string Rita Hayworth- generates a glimmer in the moral darkness as a pushy newshound. There is a B-budget, but William Castle brings polish to the noir atmospherics. Though it’s the choice of twisty moral parables that really sets this series apart.