Don't listen to the negative reviews

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Richard Dix has lost his wife and has nothing to live for, life has turned to ashes, etc., so through an agent he hires a hit man (J. Carroll Naish) to kill him. He changes his mind as his wife has been found alive, but the agent is killed in a gun fight, so he can't contact the hit man to cancel the deal. So far you can go along, right?Then, the hit man contacts him, and says he can't cancel the deal, he is duty-bound and logic and reason be damned. Dix takes it 'on the lam', as they say, and from hereon the story becomes increasingly unbelievable until it enters a surreal phase from which it never recovers. The hit man shows up around every corner like a cartoon character, until the film ends abruptly, an ending which is outlandishly contrived.I liked the rest of the series but this initial entry is about the weakest, and I was never a fan of William Castle. The more I think of it the more I think my rating is too high.

So many B films I have seen were poor prints on VHS tapes. How very nice it was to see such an excellent print on TCM. I listened to many episodes of The Whistler and found them engaging. In this, the first of the series, Richard Dix as businessman Earl Conrad has suffered from serious depression over the accidental death of his wife three years earlier. His friends seem to to blame him for not saving her from drowning. Extremely despondent he contracts with a killer's middleman to kill him. After sending the contract money and a message to the killer, the middleman is shot to death by police. Soon thereafter Conrad is notified that his wife did not die but has been in a Japanese internment camp for the past three years. Oops - now he doesn't want to die but doesn't know who the killer is and sets out to find someone who knows the middleman and perhaps then the killer. He returns to the bar where he made the deal with the middleman and a woman (played by the always capable Joan Woodbury). As they are driving to the place the middleman hung out she tells Conrad that she was the middleman's wife and accuses Conrad of setting up her husband for the police to kill. Proving that even the most nasty characters have someone who loves them, she tries to kill Conrad by running the car down a cliff. Didn't work - she dies, he lives. But the real threat is the killer, played by the wonderful J. Carroll Naish who, as a matter of twisted honor, decides to fulfill his contract to kill Conrad although it is now pointless to do so. The killer decides he wants to frighten Conrad to death by following him and making him fearful. Naish plays the psychotic killer to a tee. Specially interesting in this film are the scenes in the flop house and those with a security guard at the docks. There were many familiar faces in this movie including Billy Benedict, Cy Kendall, Woodbury and Kermit Maynard. Gloria Stuart did a good job in the thankless role of faithful secretary. Not as impressive is Richard Dix. He's OK but really kind of bland and weak in the role. This is a superior B film more interesting than many a so called A film.

I've always enjoyed this atmospheric little thriller, a remarkable film even more remarkable for continually being overlooked – it's hardly ever on UK TV. Sure it's very 1940's and has a brooding melancholic black and white quality about it that might be a problem to some, but had it been made by Val Lewton over at RKO instead of William Castle at Columbia it would surely have been feted as art by now. The Whistler had been running successfully on CBS radio since 16th May 1942 and was transferred intact to the big screen.Starts out with company boss played memorably by Richard Dix terminally depressed at the accidental death of his wife in a sleazy bar to get a go-between to get a hit-man to "remove" him. The twists continue when the go-between is removed instead and Dix's wife is discovered alive with the hit-man programmed. What an extra 10 minutes to the film could have brought to the part J. Carrol Naish played as the psychotic hit-man with the penchant for psychology! A lot is packed into the 58 minutes running time including an intriguing car crash and a night in a flop house, where the vulture is killed by the cat playing with the canary. Dependable Dix is a goodie in this first Whistler film, he starred in the first 7 alternating at various points between goodie and baddie, bringing to each one a chunky sincerity and clear diction that, along with the nature of the plots made them a unique movie series. In this one the Whistler himself is responsible for a couple of key plot moments, in future he confined himself to sneering from the shadows – "Man cannot change his destiny" – but apparently the Whistler can!A great film, totally inconsequential but engrossing from the word go and one I can savour repeatedly.

Earl Conrad is convinced his life is worthless without his wife who has been killed overseas. Earl, who obviously can well afford it, gives ten thousand dollars to a shady character to "dispose" of someone. The only information he gives is an address, but he never tells this man he is the intended victim. The intermediary gives the address to the real killer. The shady man, who has kept half of the money, dies on the street in a confrontation with the police. Everything is set in motion as the killer cases the house where his victim lives.At this point of the story, Earl Conrad's secretary, the loyal Alice Walker, comes to give her boss the wonderful news his wife has not died. Earl, who has been despondent, suddenly wants to live. After all, he has a good reason for wanting to annul the contract he has put on his own life. When he finds out about the go-between man death's he starts to look for his would-be-assassin. Will he be able to talk him out of killing him?William Castle, the director of this enjoyable, and seldom seen film, makes the most of it in filling 59 minutes of celluloid with a taut drama that is credible and gives a new dimension to a crime that will be committed, but has to be stopped by all means. James Brown's photography works well in the film, as does the screen play written by Eric Taylor.Richard Dix appears as Eric Conrad the man that puts a contract on his own life and then decides he wants to live. Gloria Stewart makes a wonderful Alice Walker, the secretary secretly in love with her boss. J Carrol Naish, who never utters a word is perfect as the killer.The film is a curiosity not seen too often.