I was very happy on Saturday morning to see another Whistler movie listed for TCM. I naturally DVR’d it for Steven’s and my enjoyment on Sunday. By the way, Spoiler Alert! Although I do not intend to give away the ending.
The Secret of the Whistler opens with the usual shadow of a man and sound of whistling followed by voice-over narration.
I have not mentioned that all the Whistler movies have starred Richard Dix. So far we’ve seen him as a businessman who changes his mind about suicide by hit man, a mysterious stranger who enlists the help of a beautiful blond, and a rich guy who turns to murder after supposedly learning how to live. This time out he plays an apparently not very talented artist who nobody particularly likes living off his ailing wife.
The description of the movie in the Guide said an artist’s second wife suspects he killed the first wife. This is a plot that has worked very well in any number of gothic romance novels (these are the paperback books with a full moon, a castle and a beautiful girl running, not the teenagers with lots of black make-up) (I suppose I have just dated myself). It took me a while to realize they were going to spend most of the picture getting him married to Wife No. 2.
The movie starts out creepily enough with a woman ordering her own tombstone. At least, the movie clearly means for us to find it creepy or at least surprising. Haven’t these people every heard of pre-planning one’s funeral? The lady says, “You will be notified,” when asked date of death. Well, duh! I think it would have been a good deal more creepy if she had known the date. On the other hand, that may have meant she planned to commit suicide. Oh, hey, what if she would have put as her epitaph: “Murdered.” Just a thought.
Where was I? Ah yes, soon we have the set-up: unsuccessful artist husband sponging off dying wife while making up to beautiful blond gold-digger model. The other characters include a female artist, apparently successful, and her reporter boyfriend and another male artist who is friend and sometime employer of Blondie.
Richard Dix plays all sad-eyes my-wife-is-dying while Blondie plays all wide-eyed sympathy till we’re not really sure who is playing who. Actually, I wish they had played up Blondie as cold-hearted gold-digger a little more. For one thing, when she starts to suspect her new husband of murder she could have had blackmail on her mind. For all I know she did. I don’t think the actress was quite clear on the character’s motivations.
The movie takes an awfully long time to get going. A few times the Whistler addresses Richard Dix, asking him is he getting paranoid, is he getting desperate? I don’t think he did that in the other pictures. Once things do start moving, they move quickly enough gloss over a couple of “Wait a minute!” points.
For example, the loyal (to the first wife) maid is still around, per provision in the will (really, you would think first wife would have left the poor woman a pension, not just a crappy job). The maid says she’s staying to prove the husband a murderer. All she has to do is find the diary. Hello! They were on a three month honeymoon, during which time all the dead wife’s things were moved to the attic and the house redecorated. Even if the maid was locked out for the three months, are her duties so onerous she couldn’t find ten minutes to look in the attic since? It certainly doesn’t take Blondie very long to find said diary when she goes up there.
Things wrap up pretty quickly, as Whistler movies tend to do. Not a bad movie in spite of the slow start. I wish they had done a little more with the tombstone and given the minor characters more scenes, but what do I want in an hour and fifteen minutes? For a cheesy interlude on a Sunday, I enjoyed it.
Mohawk Valley Girl 