Richard Dix has lost his wife and has nothing to live for, life has turned to ashes, etc., so through an agent he hires a hit man (J. Carroll Naish) to kill him. He changes his mind as his wife has been found alive, but the agent is killed in a gun fight, so he can't contact the hit man to cancel the deal. So far you can go along, right?Then, the hit man contacts him, and says he can't cancel the deal, he is duty-bound and logic and reason be damned. Dix takes it 'on the lam', as they say, and from hereon the story becomes increasingly unbelievable until it enters a surreal phase from which it never recovers. The hit man shows up around every corner like a cartoon character, until the film ends abruptly, an ending which is outlandishly contrived.I liked the rest of the series but this initial entry is about the weakest, and I was never a fan of William Castle. The more I think of it the more I think my rating is too high.

This film is another very mysterious story dealing with the Whistler Series and Richard Dix plays the role as Earl C. Conrad who is very upset about the death of his wife in a Japanese Concentration Camp during WW II and decides to end his life by hiring someone to kill him. Earl goes through different people in order to get his own hit man and pays five-thousands dollars to have this carried out. Earl has a secretary named Alice Walker, (Gloria Stuart) who really loves Earl but he does not seem to realize this and she helps him to feel better about himself. However, Earl finds out that his wife is not really dead and is coming back to the United States. The hit man or killer is J. Carrol Naish who is determined to accomplish his killing of Earl and there are many events which seem to keep changing until the very end of the film. There is a scene in this picture which shows Earl Conrad going into a flop house and getting a bed for 25 cents and how he almost gets rolled over by the bums. This is a very entertaining film and great to look at a film produced in 1944, with classic actors.

Earl Conrad is convinced his life is worthless without his wife who has been killed overseas. Earl, who obviously can well afford it, gives ten thousand dollars to a shady character to "dispose" of someone. The only information he gives is an address, but he never tells this man he is the intended victim. The intermediary gives the address to the real killer. The shady man, who has kept half of the money, dies on the street in a confrontation with the police. Everything is set in motion as the killer cases the house where his victim lives.At this point of the story, Earl Conrad's secretary, the loyal Alice Walker, comes to give her boss the wonderful news his wife has not died. Earl, who has been despondent, suddenly wants to live. After all, he has a good reason for wanting to annul the contract he has put on his own life. When he finds out about the go-between man death's he starts to look for his would-be-assassin. Will he be able to talk him out of killing him?William Castle, the director of this enjoyable, and seldom seen film, makes the most of it in filling 59 minutes of celluloid with a taut drama that is credible and gives a new dimension to a crime that will be committed, but has to be stopped by all means. James Brown's photography works well in the film, as does the screen play written by Eric Taylor.Richard Dix appears as Eric Conrad the man that puts a contract on his own life and then decides he wants to live. Gloria Stewart makes a wonderful Alice Walker, the secretary secretly in love with her boss. J Carrol Naish, who never utters a word is perfect as the killer.The film is a curiosity not seen too often.

I watched this last night on TCM and found it not only thoroughly entertaining but a textbook example of how a B-grade picture from a poverty row studio could rise above its budget limitations thanks to the efforts of a clever director (William Castle) and strong players (Richard Dix and J. Carroll Naish in particular). Superior in some respects to entries in parallel series based on radio programs (like Universal's Inner Sanctum with Lon Chaney, Jr.), perhaps the most appealing aspect of "The Whistler" is the economy with which the story is told. There are no needless lines, no needless scenes. Whether it belongs within the "noir" cycle is a matter to be debated, but nevertheless "The Whistler" has its share of the quirky characters and shadowy settings that typify that genre, not to mention the creepy portrayal by Naish of a hit-man who reads a monograph on "necrophobia" in his spare time.