Absolutely the worst movie.

A Major Disappointment

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The first four "Whistler" films may have been low-budget, but they were neither cheap nor dull; "Mysterious Intruder" is both. It plays more like a run-of-the-mill private-eye film, and the revelation of the killer(s) is pretty ho-hum as well. It doesn't really feel like a part of the series, apart from the ironic ending, which at least remains intact. The cast is pretty unmemorable this time as well; only an uncredited Kathleen Howard, as a vaguely threatening middle-aged lady, manages to make something of her role in about five minutes of screen time. The film is not without interest - however all its predecessors in the "Whistler" series are significantly better. ** out of 4.

The screenplay of MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER is by Eric Taylor, based on his own story "Murder to Music," which appeared in the May 1936 BLACK MASK magazine. Taylor was not one of the first tier BLACK MASK writers, and his work for the magazine varies in quality, but this was a good one, one of his best. At around 16,000 words, the story could have been transcribed to a 61 minute feature with little expansion, and Taylor 's screenplay generally follows his story, but there are numerous small changes and some major ones, and they're all for the worse. A story that originally made perfect sense is often trashed for minor effects. In the story one knows from the beginning that the first girl is the detective's stooge. Actually showing the scene where she meets the old man means that, to fool the audience, she has to be afraid of Pontos (the only character name retained from the story), which makes no sense, since in fact he's her accomplice. A strong moment of surprise in the story is when the detective suddenly accuses the fake girl of trying to get him killed. Taylor has carefully set up the relationship between the two so that the revelation has some punch. In the film it seems like just another meaningless plot twist. In the story, he has his secretary call in and say she's the real girl so that the phony will be released. In the movie, he himself tells the newspapermen, so of course the cops know he sent the phony. The latter part of the film diverges significantly from the story. The denouement of the story is a great scene where the detective seems to be in a bad spot, with the bad guys having their guns on him, but he calmly points out that they have limited options unless they want to kill off "half of San Francisco." And a significant point in the story is that they're not really professional tough-guy crooks except for their hired man Pontos, so the detective's sudden action play after he has them unnerved makes sense. The stooge girl isn't killed, and there's no final scene back in shop, and of course the detective is not killed and the rightful owner, the authentic girl, gets the recordings. There doesn't seem to be much point to the film's end. Having the recordings broken seems a little hard on the character of the innocent young girl who deserves a break. There are other plot flaws in the end of the film. It ends with the ironic note of the cops thinking the detective was guilty. But he had made a call to the cops before he died, so presumably when they get back to headquarters they'll know that he was on the level. Also, at the beginning of the film Pontos apparently takes the recordings with him, yet at the end they are found in the store. And the old storekeeper hadn't seemed aware that he or the recordings were in danger, so why would he hide them inside a base drum? Aside from being more logical, the original story has a more authentic atmosphere, and Taylor adds a number of telling, small details not in the film.One doesn't necessarily expect a strong plot from a series film like this, but in this case the author based the screenplay on his own tightly plotted, excellent story. But instead of following the story, he restructured it so there are plot flaws and loose ends. Ah, well.The best thing about the film, and the biggest surprise, is that Richard Dix is perfect as the sleazy, not-so-smart, PI; who would have thought it? It's nice to see Charles Lane on screen for more than 30 seconds, quite a rarity. And Castle doesn't do such a bad job with the script that he's given; the film is reasonably atmospheric and the pace is good. If you like series programmers this film should satisfy.

Mysterious Intruder (1946) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Fifth film in Columbia's The Whistler series has Richard Dix playing a private investigator who gets a case from an old man who is looking for his niece. Soon the old man is dead and the PI might have had something to do with it. This is a pretty good entry in the series, although the screenplay falls short when compared to the previous film. I think the biggest problem here is the plot itself, which is quite confusing and even in the end it didn't seem to work itself out very well. The film only ran 61-minutes so perhaps that's why the story didn't have time to work itself out as well as it should have. Dix once again turns in a good performance with Charles Lane, Barton MacLane and Nina Vale offering fine support. Castle's direction is good throughout, although it could have probably been better with a better script.

A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER kills Richard Dix's kindly client before Dix can find out why he wants to spend his meager earnings to find a girl the client adopted long ago. Will Dix double cross his way into the big money before psycho-baddie Mike Mazurski kills him, or tough cop Barton McLane puts him away? This is full-blown film noir, with an even more morally ambiguous hero (Dix) than most. The full-blown crisis of conscience Dix endures through this movie anchors the fast-moving (and often incoherent) plot in something a little more substantial than is found in the usual private eye caper. The ending to this one is a very good double twist, one of which is a little surprising. Dix's performance is about as far as you can get from Humphery Bogart and Dick Powell -- eccentric and theatrical. It works quite well for establishing his character. The other actors play the usual set of tough cops, psychos, loyal secretaries and money grubbing blonds in the ways you might expect.In other words -- find this one if you like noir.