The third of eight "Whistler" films produced by Columbia Pictures in the 1940s, The Power of the Whistler (1945) is a tight, satisfying entry. Richard Dix is excellent as an amnesiac who is helped by kindly Janis Carter as he tries to regain his memory. The moment where he finally does regain it -- and remembers that he is actually a homicidal maniac! -- is a great one, for both the film and Dix as an actor.

Dix, whose birth name was Ernest Carlton Brimmer, starred in the first seven Whistler movies before he suffered a heart attack and retired from the screen. (He died soon after, in 1949.) His career, however, stretched back to 1917 and he had already appeared in nearly 100 titles. He was best known for westerns, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Cimarron (1931). But this final period of his career, making B pictures like the Whistlers and the superb Val Lewton production The Ghost Ship (1943), was a fine stretch that used his startling, somewhat hulking presence very effectively.

The Whistler films all had unrelated, stand-alone stories, and Dix played a new character in each. The series was based on a famous radio show that ran from 1942-52, and while the films are of varying quality, in general they are well-made, offbeat, suspenseful programmers, arguably part of the film noir style then at its peak. Of the eight films, Mysterious Intruder (1946) is widely considered the best, but The Power of the Whistler is one of the better ones, and Dix's perfectly creepy performance, in which he is called on to portray several personalities, is possibly his best of the series. His character is so disquieting that small animals tend to show up dead around him. In real life, Dix was beloved by his colleagues, and during production the cast and crew threw him a party to celebrate the anniversary of the start of his Hollywood career.

The Power of the Whistler was well-reviewed, with critics praising the film for its better-than-average suspense and melodrama.

By Jeremy Arnold

SOURCES:
Dan Van Neste, The Whistler: Stepping Into the Shadows
Michael R. Pitts, Famous Movie Detectives II
Ron Backer, Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood