Secret Whistler

 

 (imdb)

THE SECRET OF THE WHISTLER-1946-After the usual intro, a woman (Mary Currier) buys a headstone for herself (from Byron Foulger). Her husband Ralph Harrison (Richard Dix) is called away from a party he's throwing because his wife, Edith has a heart attack. He meets a model Kay (Leslie Brooks) and begins to romance her while waiting for his wife to die. Somehow, his wife gets better and overhears Harrison telling Kay how much he loves her. Edith throws him out but he returns at night and switches her meds with poison. She dies and he marries Kay. Everyone suspects him of murder but Kay finds the old wife's diary that has an entry that seems to clear Ralph. Both wind up dead and the Whistler keeps whistling. John Hamilton and Arthur Space have uncredited roles. 

This is another weird entry into the series (the sixth installment), this time directed by George Sherman (THE LADY AND THE MONSTER (1944)). Star Dix would make one more film in the series, which be his last film appearance as he died in 1949 at age 56. His death may have been hastened by alcoholism.

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The Crime Doctor

THE CRIME DOCTOR'S COURAGE-1945-Warner Baxter starred in a series of 10 features (from 1943-49) playing Dr. Robert Ordway, "the crime doctor", formerly a criminal who suffers amnesia and turns good. It began life on radio and unlike many of these "whodunnit" series at the same time Ordway isn't usually a suspect in the investigation. 

In "Courage" Ordway investigates the murder of a man who's two previous wives died under mysterious circumstances. Hilary Brooke plays almost wife #3. Two Spanish dancers seem to be vampires. The man is played by usual tough guy Anthony Curuso and his wife is played by Lupita Tovar (who was in the 1931 Spanish version of DRACULA; still alive at the time of this writing).


Baxter is engaging as the doc and it's a well done as far as "quickies" are concerned but a final shootout where two characters fire point blank at each other and miss several times is pretty dumb. Jerome Cowan is on hand to help out. Emory Parnell is a police inspector. Director George Sherman started out doing westerns and made THE LADY AND THE MONSTER in 1944 (the first version of "Donovan's Brain"). He made many more low budget films before going into TV.

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