Voice of the Whistler

1945 "The Strange Case of the HAUNTED Lighthouse!"
6.3| 1h0m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 30 October 1945 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A dying millionaire marries his nurse for companionship, only to experience a miracle cure.

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Columbia Pictures

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Reviews

GamerTab That was an excellent one.
CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
mark.waltz A powerful industrialist has spent more time making millions than making friends, and thinking that he is dying proposes to a hard-working nurse (Lynn Merrick) so he can do something good with his fortune. In spite of being engaged to the idealistic Rhys Williams, she agrees, destroying her chance of happiness in the process. She ends up taking care of him in a remote seaside lighthouse, and the question arises, how long does it really take a dying man to die? What starts off slow suddenly becomes intriguing, adding a Gothic twist to the mystery. Tom Kennedy (brother of the slow-burning Edgar) is the only person who is in contact with them, that is until Williams pays a surprise visit and Dix creates an ominous warning involving a chess game. Is there a murder plot afoot, or is the whistler really in charge of the chess board?The always hysterical Miverva Urecal has a magnificent cameo as an obnoxious woman trying to buy flowers that have already been sold. Once again, the aging Dix is paired with a much younger woman, but unlike Lon Chaney Jr. in the "Inner Sanctum" series, it isn't as morbid. Dix, one of the major matinée idols of the early 1930's, is still dashing, if dangerous, and twists and turns in the story never stop. "B" melodrama at its best with a great final shot concerning Merrick.
kidboots This is a very haunting entry in the unusual Whistler series, exploring loneliness and the need of friendship. Lynn Merrick was an up and coming starlet who had been featured on the Crime Doctor series and also in "Nine Girls" but she just wasn't showy or different enough to stand out from the crowd I suppose - she looked eye catching enough in this movie. These series were particularly good with unusually solid parts for girls, here Merrick plays Joan Martin, a nurse at the East Street Clinic where ruthless industrialist John Sinclair (Richard Dix) has been directed. He has just collapsed outside a train station where he is helped by a cheery cockney (!!!) cabbie who doesn't know who he is. Sinclair has been a hard headed business man all his life and through his hunger for power has missed out on love and companionship and now wants to make amends. He is drawn to nurse Joan (Merrick) but Joan is engaged to doctor Fred, even though, because of his lowly paid work among slum patients, he cannot give her the money and security that she craves. Sinclair sees his chance, reveals his true identity and lies, telling Joan he has only six months to live and that after his death, if they marry, she will inherit everything.The odd thing is that they then move to an isolated lighthouse - after realising that being around people has cured him of his malaise. Never fear, Joan has now given him even more of a reason to live and at the end of six months it is a hale and hearty John and a discontented Joan who welcome Fred as a guest to their lonely home. Fred has changed from a caring doctor to a grasping opportunist who can see a way out for himself and Joan. John's thoughts are going along the same lines and he engages Fred in that old conversation "how would you plan the perfect murder"??? John confides his plan of starting a rumour around the village that Fred is a sleepwalker - so when Fred's body is found, he will have a perfect alibi. Fred starts to act on the "suggestion", just as John hoped he would and when Fred enters his room that night, John is two steps ahead of him and Fred then becomes the corpse.... but there is a problem!!! After listening to John's proposal, Fred had become paranoid and ordered Sparrow (who is now John's buddy) to nail down the windows so it seems John now has to carry Fred's body down to the rocks below where he is seen by someone.... but who!!!After proving that he could play a villain as well as the next man (in "The Ghost Ship") Richard Dix was signed to do "The Whistler" series where he was called on to play a variety of characters - none of them particularly nice!!!
gridoon2018 Although "Voice Of The Whistler" is the shortest of the first four Whistler films, running just under an hour, it is also the slowest in its setting up the plot. It doesn't really pick up until the last 20 minutes or so, when the young doctor arrives at the lighthouse and the film becomes (not a who-done-it but) a who-will-do-it-first! The characters are complex people - neither good nor bad, but somewhere in between (like most of us). Other points of interest include the surprising amount of skin Lynn Merrick shows in her vintage mid-1940s swimsuit, and the pseudo-documentary at the start which actually reminded me of Woody Allen's "Zelig"! **1/2 out of 4.
BaronBl00d Cheaply made entry into the Whistler series of films produced in the 1940s and directed with skill by soon-to-be showman/horror director extraordanaire William Castle. This is one of Castle's earlier films and you can see his burgeoning skills as a director - especially in the third act of this film. The story here concerns a wealthy industrialist taking time from his job and identity to make himself better though time is against him. The doctors tell him he is sick because of a lack of friends. He therefore gets some friends - and then makes a business agreement with a pretty nurse to marry him for six months(what time he has been told he has allotted) and then she upon his death will never want for nothing financially. Well, she had a fiancée and the story then moves to a weird love triangle in a lighthouse that has been turned into living quarters. This film has quite a few obvious flaws. For starters, the acting is very poor. Richard Dix who starred in most of the films in this series is at best bland. His range of emotion wouldn't cast a blip on a radar of any magnitude. He is overall acceptable but nothing grand to be sure. His fellow actors don't fair any better - in fact - much worse with the exception of Rhys Williams who plays the affable Ernie. Williams has screen presence and acting ability and innate charm for the camera. He works. Pity the rest do not. Lynn Merrick is okay as the mean-spirited, nasty, avaricious beauty that makes the deal with Dix only to regret it later. Merrick can be seen in some scenes looking at the camera early on in the film as can many of the smaller role actors. Castle apparently does not have much to work with here and it shows. Nonetheless, the film is short and does move quickly. The end is fairly inventive and this is certainly a watchable film at the very least.