Another strong entry in the Whistler series with Dix as yet another dark character, this time an unscrupulous private eye who is hired by a music store owner to try to find Alora Lund (Nina Vale) a young girl who grew up next door. Poor old Richard Dix, after a career of dashing heroes, must have wondered what happened when he found himself appearing in one oddball part after another!! He was very good and gave the parts a lot of gusto!!Don Gale (Dix) is all for fobbing Stillwell off until the elderly man states that if found Alora holds the key to untold wealth. Surprise! Surprise! - that night a girl purporting to be Alora Lund visits Stillwell but she is an imposter, sent by Gale to try to find out about the real girl's inheritance. The night ends with a murder and a kidnapping.Meanwhile the real Alora is recuperating in hospital due to an accident and the police (Charles Lane and the gruffly likable Barton MacLane) contact her, hoping she can fit some of the pieces together. The prize that everyone is after is two recordings of Jenny Lind, worth over $100,000 each and it seems that everyone is on the make. Dale takes Alora to be "looked after" by a feisty old lady, he then goes to have it out with his partner Freda who informs him she is just about to double cross him with Stillwell's killer, then she is murdered. Hovering over the whole show is Freda's creepy building janitor Mr. Summers (Regis Toomey).An involved plot and good performances make this an excellent entry.

The Whistler was both a radio show and a B-movie series from Columbia Pictures. Unlike the usual B-films (which were mostly detective films), this series was more like episodes of the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television series--each a unique story involving human nature and each one being unique and unrelated to the others. Additionally, all but the final film starred Richard Dix--who played very different characters in all the films.In this film, Dix plays a private detective who isn't especially honest. When a kindly old man comes to him for help, Dix appears willing to use a bit of larceny to cash in on the man's trust. Throughout the film, you see that above all else, Dix is a man out for himself. Additionally, other selfish characters abound--and soon practically everyone wants to cash in on the old man's secret.This film is probably the best in the series because the script is much tighter and without the plot holes that sometimes impeded the series. While there are many twists and turns, the script never becomes too complicated and it ends with a wonderful and ironic twist. Additionally, the supporting staff is much better than usual--having many great character actors on hand, such as Mike Muzurki, Barton MacLane and Charles Lane.The score of 8 is relative to other B-movies. For the genre, it's among the best and not to be missed by old film buffs.

**SPOILERS** Having elderly music store owner Edward Stillwell, Paul E. Burns, show up at what you would expect to be, from watching Sam Spade & Philip Marlow like 1940's private eye flicks, his rundown and barley lit office in what looks like swanky Sutton Place, check out the 59th Street Bridge outside the office window, private investigator Don Gale, Richard Dix, is anything but interested in taking up his case. Stillwell is willing to pay Gale all his life saving, $100.00, to track down and find 21 year-old Elora Lund, Pamela Blake, whom he hasn't seen or heard from for almost seven years. It's when Stillwell tells the very uninterested Gale that Miss. Lund is to inherit a large amount of money that her widowed mother, who had just passed away, left with him that Gale suddenly got interested in the case knowing that he'll, if he finds Miss. Lund, get a piece of it.The movie "Mysterious Intruder" is a lot like the "Maltese Falcon" with an unscrupulous private eye, like Sam Spade in the latter, breaking every rule in the book trying to get his hands on, instead of the legendary "Black Bird", a set of 1887 wax recordings cylinders of Swedish Nightingale Jenny Lind worth over $200,000.00. Gale is in fact a lot more unscrupulous then Sam Spade ever was by using people to trick poor old Mr. Stillwell into getting hold of the wax recordings without even giving them to their rightful owner Elora Lund!Gale using one, of many, of his lady friends hot blond Freda Hanson, Helen Mowery, to impersonate Miss. Lund to get a hold of the wax treasures has old man Stillwell murdered by the gorilla-like Harry Pontos (Mike Mazurki), who somehow got wind of what was going on, who ends up taking Freda hostage together with a package in Stillwell's store addressed to Elora Lund. When Gale get's to Stillwell's store finding him murdered and Freda missing has the news get out, via the police, that she's not really Miss. Lund. Pontos hearing this on his car radio, together with him finding nothing of value in the package that he stole from Stillwell's music store, lets Freda go as he heads home to his rooming house for a good nights sleep; it turned out to be the last good nights,or days, sleep that the big lug would ever have.Gale gets it from both sides in the movie, the police and those who work for him, with him getting the royal screwing from non other then Freda herself who's ***SPOILER ALERT*** working behind his back to get the wax cylinders off his hands and keep the $200,00.00 for both herself and her secret crime partner. Freda is later murdered by her unknown and unseen partner in a classic double-cross with the now clueless Gale being the number one suspect in her death.It's only later that Gale finally gets to the bottom of what's behind all this death and destruction but by then it's a bit to late for him to do anything about it. With him wanted by the police in Freda's, and possibly Mr. Stillwell's, murder Gale goes incognito, as a mummy-like looking bandaged crippled man, to the late Mr. Stillwell's music store knowing that the real killer, or killers, of Freda are there rummaging through the place trying to find the valuable wax recordings.The ending by far is the best part of the film "Mysterous Intruder" with everyone getting exactly what's coming to them including the on the lamb and under the covers, or bandages, Don Gale. One of the best of the Richard Dix "The Whistler" series of films and at the same time one of most complicated. Still "Mysterious Intruder" is more then worth watching a second time just to see the clues and subplots that you may have missed the first time around.

A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER kills Richard Dix's kindly client before Dix can find out why he wants to spend his meager earnings to find a girl the client adopted long ago. Will Dix double cross his way into the big money before psycho-baddie Mike Mazurski kills him, or tough cop Barton McLane puts him away? This is full-blown film noir, with an even more morally ambiguous hero (Dix) than most. The full-blown crisis of conscience Dix endures through this movie anchors the fast-moving (and often incoherent) plot in something a little more substantial than is found in the usual private eye caper. The ending to this one is a very good double twist, one of which is a little surprising. Dix's performance is about as far as you can get from Humphery Bogart and Dick Powell -- eccentric and theatrical. It works quite well for establishing his character. The other actors play the usual set of tough cops, psychos, loyal secretaries and money grubbing blonds in the ways you might expect.In other words -- find this one if you like noir.