kidboots A woman is ordering a tombstone for Edith Marie Harrison, she is not sure of the date of death but when she is asked her name states it is Edith Marie Harrison!!!This is one the more ambiguous entries from "The Whistler" series. It was an anthology series with Richard Dix portraying different characters (always on the dark side) in each movie. In this one he plays Ralph Harrison, an artist, a bit of a ladies man who is tied to his wife's purse strings. He claims to his latest conquest, Kay (Leslie Brooks) a beautiful artist's model that he and his wife have a special understanding and that her health is so bad she is not expected to live. In reality, he relies on his wife's money as his amateur paintings don't sell and the "friends" that attend his parties snigger about him behind his back. He is also desperate for female companionship as Edith is bedridden but Edith has a secret - she has been exercising every day and is now fully cured. She plans to surprise Ralph at his studio but when she hears a conversation between Ralph and Kay, her face shows there is no "special understanding"!!Leslie Brooks had a bewitching beauty and a knowing smile and proved here that she should always be given "bad girl" roles. If Audrey Totter was Queen of the Noirs, Brooks was the Princess but, like Totter, she was at the wrong studio, in this case Columbia and by the time she hit her stride in "Blonde Ice" she soon retired for married life. With a few cynical looks and that arch smile it was hard to believe her Kay was the innocent model who was content to wait until Ralph's wife died in the legal, conventional way. Ralph doesn't want to wait though and when Edith takes to her bed again in despair he tries to help her along with poison!!!When they return from their honeymoon Kay, fuelled with suspicion from the housekeeper (Claire DuBrey, whose biggest role was as Bertha Rochester in 1934's "Jane Eyre"), who knew exactly what her late mistress's marriage was like, starts to suspect that Ralph is a murderer. The irony is Edith wasn't poisoned, she did indeed die of a heart attack and although by the end of the movie Ralph actually does kill somebody, with all the incriminating evidence - missing medicine bottles, ripped out diary pages etc, it is for Edith's death that he is eventually charged.One of the best from the fine Whistler series.

audiemurph In this, the penultimate Whistler movie, Richard Dix, aging and hulking, is simply deliciously evil. Though acting with seeming sweetness and kindness to those around him, Dix's eyes give it all away: hideous, subtly maniacal eyes, eyes in which we can see the selfish egotistical dementia of a man who has apparently spent a lifetime manipulating and using every person unfortunate enough to cross his path. A great job by Dix, and I hope he had fun with this role.Otherwise, as is usual in the Whistler fliks, the supporting actors are adequate, and the dialogue slightly corny and dated, but with a time of barely over an hour, the pace is quick and satisfying.A very interesting directorial decision: three years before this movie was made (that is, 1943) the great western, The Ox-bow Incident, was released. In the famous last scene, Henry Fonda reads aloud the last letter written by the lynched Dana Andrews. Fonda's eyes, and eyes alone, are not visible, hidden behind the brim of Henry Morgan's hat, while we see his mouth move. A very effective idea.Well, here, in The Secret of the Whistler, the director uses the exact same idea: in a late scene, Richard Dix's wife makes a startling confession, her eyes hidden by an intruding lamp shade, but her mouth visible as she speaks, with Dix looking on behind her. Again, interesting.Lastly, look for Dix's wife walking around with about a half-dozen dead minks or stoles or whatever they are, complete with heads, draped across her left shoulder. I don't why this struck me as funny, but, in its gratuitous pointlessness, it did.Definitely a fun way to spend 65 minutes.

David (Handlinghandel) I was eager to see the "Whistler" movies because of William Castle's involvement in some. He was a fine director ion the forties. (He was OK later, too. But in the forties his films were very elegant and subtle. His later horror outings were anything but subtle.) This one is not directed by Castle but it works really well. It was near the end of Richard Dix's run in the series. He was not a great actor, at least not at this point. But he had a very solid presence. And he is plausible as good guys and not so hot ones as well.Here he plays a less than admirable character. He is a painter. Amazingly, the painting of his that we first see is pretty decent. So often, even in the toniest of A-pictures, paintings by supposedly great artists looked like the work of quick-sketch artists or Sunday painters.The film opens with a stylishly noirish woman buying her own tombstone. Everything bout this film has the marvelous dark look of a film noir. Or of an Edward Hopper paintings. The scenes look especially like book jackets from the time.And the female lead looks right off the cover of some true-crime book. Wow, she looks both right and beautiful! And she -- Leslie Brooks -- is a fine actress too. (Intriguingly, she looks like the same studio's biggest star ten years hence: Kim Novak.)The whole series is entertaining, even the final film, which does not have Dix in it.One problem I encountered and others may as well: Clearly the movies were based on a radio program of their time. I have never heard that program, though. I get the idea that the Whistler is an omniscient criminologist who either has no bodily image or, like Lamont Cranston of "The Shadow," can make himself invisible.Guess I will try to track some tapes of the series down. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and search out these films. They're all good. A couple, like this one, are very good.

dougdoepke Lesser entry in the offbeat Whistler series. The story is worthy enough. Richard Dix plays an "artist' and kept man who takes a fancy to a shapely blonde model while his wealthy wife is stricken with a serious heart problem. The intrigue goes on from there. The problem is that the screenplay is filmed in straightforward fashion, with none of the moody atmospherics that distinguish other entries. The result is an entertaining 60 minutes, but minus the usual visual panache. Apparently, journeyman director George Sherman wasn't advised of the proper lighting or feel of the series. Either that or the producers were seeking a stylistic departure.Nonetheless, the story keeps us watching. As usual we can't be sure how events will turn out since Dix's character is as morally compromised as in the other entries. Unlike other Hollywood films of that era, there is no one to root for as the plot unfolds. Thus, it's the story itself that holds our interest, and not the more predictable question of how a hero will triumph. Fortunately, the ending comes up with the usual fine touch of irony that fans expect.There's an expertly shaded performance by Mary Currier as Dix's star-crossed wife. Watch the subtlety of her expressions as she learns about her wayward husband. The series itself did not depend on subtle acting-- and certainly Dix doesn't manage the Lothario role very well. Nonetheless, Currier delivers an A-grade performance. (In passing-- I expected the screenplay to develop the scheming relationship between blonde model Kay and her effete boyfriend Jim more fully than it did. That could have set up an interesting dynamic of those schemers competing against another schemer, Dix.) Anyway, stylish or not, this remains a very watchable hour of frustrated passion and the hand of fate.