Have you heard the strange stories of The Whistler?
I don't often blog about The Whistler. In fact, although it's been a favourite program of mine for as long as I've been a fan of old-time radio, I haven't sought each and every existing episode the way I did Suspense, Escape, Quiet, Please or The Shadow. Recently I've been listening to each of the episodes I hadn't heard before.
Unlike a lot of other radio mystery anthology programs, The Whistler wasn't sold on the basis of its talent. It did have a lot of talent behind it - the best dramatic players CBS Radio had - but it had no big name Hollywood stars like Suspense, nor did it trumpet the names of its authors like Murder by Experts. The selling point of The Whistler was simply, as they said: "Even when you know who's guilty, you always receive a startling surprise at the final curtain." And that was enough to sustain The Whistler for 13 years!
Unlike programs such as Suspense and Escape where certain production choices (or sponsors) help the listener to identify different "eras" of the show, after its first season The Whistler sounds very much the same year after year. The same sponsor (Signal Oil), usually the same Whistler (Bill Foreman) and frequently the same actors (William Conrad, Elliott Lewis, Betty Lou Gerson). Not only is it consistently solid and professional, but you can likewise expect that "startling surprise" near the end of each episode.
The first year of the program is a bit clumsy in how it handled the "startling surprise". Far too often the Whistler would narrate a twist as a post-script to the drama rather than the actors performing the twist. At times it feels similar to those scenes at the end of Alfred Hitchcock Presents where Hitchcock would (jokingly) claim that the killer didn't really get away with his crime. Sometimes the "startling surprise" was extremely complicated and resulted in a lengthy bit of exposition as the Whistler explained how several characters had different motivations than what we assumed. Listening to that first year, the "startling surprise" feels like a cheat - it doesn't fit organically with the drama as presented, instead somewhat extraneous to it.
Fortunately, the show figured itself out very quickly and from then on would dramatize the "startling surprise", frequently building up to a moment where the criminal has seemingly gotten away with his crime, but after a brief interruption from the Whistler the story continues and we see a sudden reversal of fortune for the protagonist, usually owing to some simple mistake which was telegraphed earlier in the drama.
Not every "startling surprise" is great, but it's always a pleasant program to listen to. In fact, the "startling surprise" isn't always that the criminal got caught - sometimes it's that the crime you thought was going to happen didn't, leaving the protagonist unblemished.
For instance, there's a fantastic holiday episode entitled "Letter from Cynthia" (broadcast December 25, 1949) in which a physician is reunited with the man who ruined his career. He realizes his old enemy is now within his power and he could kill him as an act of revenge, a perfect crime for which he could never be caught. The episode builds up to the moment where the physician has taken action; then the Whistler reveals the doctor chose to spare his old foe's life. That seems like a very modest reveal... but the drama isn't over. The story continues as "the startling surprise" occurs and boy, it's a good one! This is possibly my favourite episode of The Whistler!
And, what do you know, it's Christmas in two weeks! What better program could I have signed off with? Merry listening, friends!
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