Still Whistling

 

 (imdb)

THE POWER OF THE WHISTLER-1945-In this strange drama, Richard Dix is a man who suffers a blow to the head and can't remember his name or the purpose of an important mission he knows he has to perform. Jean Lang (Janis Carter)) reads his fortune in a Greenwich village cafe and deduces he's in danger. She and her sister (Jeff Donnell) decide to help him from clues he has on him. (a lighter, a Canadian dollar, a bakery slip and a doctor's prescription). It all comes together when it's discovered he's an escaped lunatic out for revenge. John Abbott is a book shop owner and I. Stanford Jolley, Kenneth MacDonald, Nina Mae McKinney, Eddie Parker and Frank Scannell have small roles. 

Screenwriter Aubrey Wisberg later wrote and produced THE MAN FROM PLANET X (1951) and wrote THE NEANDERTHAL MAN in 1953. Prolific low-budget film director Lew Landers made this sometimes eerie film noir mystery. It's the third in the series.

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The Beat

 

MURDER IS MY BEAT-1955-Cop Ray Patrick (Paul Langton; later in IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE) searches for nightclub singer Eden Lane (Barbara Payton), a suspect in the murder of Frank Dean. He tracks her to a snowbound cabin. He arrests her and after she's convicted he accompanies her to the state pen and she convinces Ray she saw Dean alive on a platform. He helps her escape and investigates but all his leads go cold. He also falls in love with her. Later Eden disappears. This part is actually a flashback told by Ray to his boss (Robert Shayne). Ray convinces his boss to help him. 

There's an interesting conclusion in this little film noir masterpiece by the one and only Edgar Ulmer. 

The film also features un-billed roles by Harry Harvey, William Fawcett and Hank Patterson. 

MURDER was written and produced by Aubrey Wisberg who also did the screenplays for THE NEANDERTHAL MAN (with Robert Shayne) and THE MAN FROM PLANET X. This was the last feature role for the notorious Barbara Payton who was once involved in a violent relationship with actor Tom Neal who ten years earlier had starred in Ulmer's classic DETOUR. A public fight between Neal and actor Franchot Tone in which Payton received a black eye helped sink her sagging career. She drank herself to death and died at age 39 in 1967.

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