Whistler's Mother

TCM is showing several of the movies in the Whistler series tomorrow morning, starting off with The Whistler at 6:00 AM ET.

Richard Dix starred in much of the series, although it was based on a radio mystery/anthology series, which means that Dix is actually playing different characters in the movies. In The Whistler, he plays a man who's lost his wife. Despondent over that, he pays somebody to go find a hitman and have that hitman kill him (obviously, he didn't want to know who the hitman was, so that he wouldn't know when he was going to be killed). However, before the hitman can carry out the hit, Dix gets a telegram informing him that his wife has been found, and that the two will be reunited shortly. So, Dix goes to find the middleman he paid -- only to find that the guy has died!

Formulaic? Sure. After all, these movie series were B stuff for the most part. But, the movies are atmospheric, and perfectly entertaining. This was also directed by William Castle, a dozen years before he started getting schlocky.

It shouldn't be a surprise, however, that a B movie series like this hasn't made its way to DVD, so you'll have to catch TCM's showings.