The Mark of the Whistler **½ (1944, Richard Dix, Janis Carter, Porter Hall) – Classic Movie Review 13,242

Richard Dix stars the 1944 film noir The Mark of the Whistler.

Richard Dix stars in Columbia Pictures’ second Whistler series film, the 1944 mystery film noir The Mark of the Whistler, as a drifter who claims the money in a dormant bank account by impersonating a man with the same name.

Richard Dix stars in Columbia Pictures’ second Whistler series film, the 1944 American mystery film noir The Mark of the Whistler as a down-on-his-luck drifter called Lee Selfridge Nugent.

He’s sitting on a park bench, gets up and grabs a newspaper from a dustbin, and reads story about dormant bank accounts. With a bit of help from incompetent Joe Sorsby (Porter Hall), he claims the money in a dormant bank account belonging to a certain Lee Nugent, and successfully swindles the savings bank of $29,000.

The story is covered by a tough eager blonde reporter called Patricia Henley (Janis Carter), who prints his picture in her newspaper. He befriends a street seller called ‘Limpy’ Smith (Paul Guilfoyle), who later helps him. Later still, he becomes the target of sinister, murderous men.

This bizarrely complicated and over-plotted noir episode – all this plot in just 60 minutes – is based on a short story called Dormant Account by Cornell Woolrich. That makes it very entertaining and satisfying. The Whistler format rather gets in the way of the story, and its moralistic crime-and-punishment idea is as annoying as it is unsubtle. The very idea that everyone gets their just deserts is both incredibly naive and of course non-film noir, though it was probably comforting in the dark days of 1944.

Nevertheless, Woolrich’s set-up and story are gripping. along with the quirky characters. Screenwriter George Bricker makes sense of it all and turns in a strong screenplay. William Castle directs efficiently, pacily and with flashes of style. And Columbia contributes a better production than for the first film, The Whistler.

Everyone seems a bit more assured this time. Richard Dix’s performance is more confident and polished than in the first film. He plays a different character in each episode of the series, in unrelated stories. Paul Guilfoyle is good as the ambiguous ‘Limpy’ Smith, Porter Hall is amusing, and Janis Carter brittle and brisk.

There are lots of twists and turns, so we don’t know what everyone is up to until the final revelation, so that keeps up the involvement. It changes tack half way through and becomes a different film, changing from a swindle story to a murder/ revenge story, and pulls that off successfully.

The cast are Richard Dix as Lee Selfridge Nugent, Janis Carter as Patricia Henley, Porter Hall as Joe Sorsby, Paul Guilfoyle as ‘Limpy’ Smith, John Calvert as Eddie Donnelly, Matt Willis as Perry Donnelly, and Bill Raisch as the truck driver.

It is also known as The Marked Man.

The format is based on the 1942-55 radio series The Whistler by J Donald Wilson.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,242

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