Panamint On December 2, 1889 Thomas Edison made some wax cylinders of Johannes Brahms personally playing his compositions on the piano. These went underground somewhere for 48 years until resurfacing, and were given to the Berlin State Library in 1937. They miraculously survived WWII, resurfaced again and still exist in Germany. In recent years modern state of the art digital methods have produced recordings derived from the original cylinders. Edison and others made recordings of extremely famous 19th century individuals, cylinders that either have been discovered or are waiting to be found. So the basic premise of "Mysterious Intruder" is feasible and broadly based on historical fact: the existence of such cylinders.Richard Dix does a good job in "Mysterious Intruder" as a sleazy private eye out to grab some lost cylinders of a famous singer from the 1880's. It is a tight script and well made, released by Columbia Pictures in 1946. It moves briskly and is filmed with stark noir-style lighting.Another thing I find interesting about this movie is its use of some talented and now totally obscure actresses, namely Nina Vale, Helen Mowery and Pamela Blake (no, not Amanda Blake). Who? They are unknown but worth your time to discover here, wherein we luckily find all three featured in the same movie. The very solid actor Barton MacLane (Maltese Falcon '41) also is a great asset portraying a police detective.This movie has a unique story and is one of Dix's better performances (not great acting, but good for Dix) and is directed by William Castle. I find it to be both entertaining and interesting in its own b-movie sort of way.

kidboots 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.

bensonj The screenplay of MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER is by Eric Taylor, based on his own story "Murder to Music," which appeared in the May 1936 BLACK MASK magazine. Taylor was not one of the first tier BLACK MASK writers, and his work for the magazine varies in quality, but this was a good one, one of his best. At around 16,000 words, the story could have been transcribed to a 61 minute feature with little expansion, and Taylor 's screenplay generally follows his story, but there are numerous small changes and some major ones, and they're all for the worse. A story that originally made perfect sense is often trashed for minor effects. In the story one knows from the beginning that the first girl is the detective's stooge. Actually showing the scene where she meets the old man means that, to fool the audience, she has to be afraid of Pontos (the only character name retained from the story), which makes no sense, since in fact he's her accomplice. A strong moment of surprise in the story is when the detective suddenly accuses the fake girl of trying to get him killed. Taylor has carefully set up the relationship between the two so that the revelation has some punch. In the film it seems like just another meaningless plot twist. In the story, he has his secretary call in and say she's the real girl so that the phony will be released. In the movie, he himself tells the newspapermen, so of course the cops know he sent the phony. The latter part of the film diverges significantly from the story. The denouement of the story is a great scene where the detective seems to be in a bad spot, with the bad guys having their guns on him, but he calmly points out that they have limited options unless they want to kill off "half of San Francisco." And a significant point in the story is that they're not really professional tough-guy crooks except for their hired man Pontos, so the detective's sudden action play after he has them unnerved makes sense. The stooge girl isn't killed, and there's no final scene back in shop, and of course the detective is not killed and the rightful owner, the authentic girl, gets the recordings. There doesn't seem to be much point to the film's end. Having the recordings broken seems a little hard on the character of the innocent young girl who deserves a break. There are other plot flaws in the end of the film. It ends with the ironic note of the cops thinking the detective was guilty. But he had made a call to the cops before he died, so presumably when they get back to headquarters they'll know that he was on the level. Also, at the beginning of the film Pontos apparently takes the recordings with him, yet at the end they are found in the store. And the old storekeeper hadn't seemed aware that he or the recordings were in danger, so why would he hide them inside a base drum? Aside from being more logical, the original story has a more authentic atmosphere, and Taylor adds a number of telling, small details not in the film.One doesn't necessarily expect a strong plot from a series film like this, but in this case the author based the screenplay on his own tightly plotted, excellent story. But instead of following the story, he restructured it so there are plot flaws and loose ends. Ah, well.The best thing about the film, and the biggest surprise, is that Richard Dix is perfect as the sleazy, not-so-smart, PI; who would have thought it? It's nice to see Charles Lane on screen for more than 30 seconds, quite a rarity. And Castle doesn't do such a bad job with the script that he's given; the film is reasonably atmospheric and the pace is good. If you like series programmers this film should satisfy.

Neil Doyle The improbable plot for this entry in "The Whistler" series has something to do with valuable cylindrical disc recordings of Swedish nightingale Jenny Lind, a double-crossed antique dealer, a femme fatale blonde who knows the recordings are worth $200,000, and some crooked thieves. RICHARD DIX is the gumshoe detective in the mold of Philip Marlowe, but his dialog isn't quite as sharp.Dix, of course, has to play fast and loose with the police on his trail and there are enough plot twists to keep any mystery fan mystified. Another factor in the plot is the femme fatale posing as someone else while scheming to get the money. As you can see, for a film that only runs one hour there's enough to keep you busy watching for the next development.The supporting cast includes BARTON MacLANE, PAMELA BLAKE, CHARLES LANE, REGIS TOOMEY and MIKE MAZURKI.Crisply written and directed, it's a good series entry.