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
More like The Whistler / The Mark of the Whistler
Reviews (1) 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.