The good thing about The Whistler movies is that they all tend to be pretty short, this one is 62 minutes, they lack any pretension, and you could easily marathon the movie series in a day. The bad thing about them, or maybe I should just refer to it as a weakness, is The Whistler himself, a presence who doesn't really seem to be necessary to guide us through the storyline. Mind you, I enjoyed his narration here more than I enjoyed it in the first film.
The story is enjoyably simple. Richard Dix plays Lee Selfridge Nugent, a man who sees an opportunity to change his life when he reads a newspaper notice about a large sum of money being left for a different, and unrelated, Mr. Lee Nugent. Taking the time to work on his backstory, Nugent then gets himself along to the bank and presents himself as the recipient of the money. He is nervous as he considers his chances of being successful. But he is unaware that other people may want to catch up with Mr. Lee Nugent.
Based on a story by Cornell Woolrich, it's George Bricker who gets the writing credit for this second movie in The Whistler series. Bricker does a good job of packing a lot of exposition and character development into each scene, leaving director William Castle free to just focus on keeping everything clear and enjoyably fast-paced as the story zips from scene to scene. Castle doesn't have to use all of the extra tricks that he used in the previous instalment, now having the luxury of a more dense screenplay and an "established brand" (with the first film proving to be a successful transition from an audio to a visual medium).
It's fun to see Dix take on a lead role that feels so far removed from his lead role in the last movie, and he seems to enjoy having a lot more to work with this time. Porter Hall is amusing as someone who might be able to help our lead, but only if he can make a decent profit for himself, Paul Guilfoyle is enjoyable in the role of a street vendor named 'Limpy' Smith, and Janis Carter lights up a few scenes as a determined reporter named Patricia Henley. There are also a couple of menacing performances from John Calvert and Matt Willis, both working better when trying to observe Mr. Nugent before their motivation is made clear.
I've yet to be convinced by the need for The Whistler himself, but the rest of the film makes this an easy one to recommend. It's a great blend of fun and danger, as well as being another classic noir premise (someone pretending to be someone that they're not in order to collect a large sum of money) given that ever-so-slight twist by having it presented to us by The Whistler. I don't expect the rest of the series to keep entertaining me as much as this, but I was pleasantly surprised that this was a step up from the first movie. And I'll be pleasantly surprised if another one or two subsequent instalments match it.
7/10
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