Whistling in the Dark (1941)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

One of my all time favorites.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Blistering performances.

Red Skelton, achingly young but as engaging and comically flexible as ever, is ideally-cast as Wally Benton, a radio personality and fictional sleuth nicknamed "The Fox", who is kidnapped for real by a nefarious cult leader eager to get his hands on an inheritance--which means implicating Benton in a murder. Adaptation of the play by Laurence Gross and Edward Childs Carpenter is pure fun, with an exceptionally strong supporting cast running high on adrenaline. Conrad Veidt, that great eternal-villain, is the amusingly icy con-man who robs the rich and keeps for himself, while Ann Rutherford is charming as Skelton's girlfriend. She and Red were quickly re-teamed for two more "Whistling" comedies. Well-produced and often ridiculously funny. *** from ****

Like the Road To Singapore which was the debut and yet the weakest of the Road films for Crosby and Hope, Whistling In The Dark which was Red Skelton's starring debut was overall rather weak, but definitely shows Red Skelton's zany comedy style. He did two more films as radio detective Wally Benton aka the Fox, Whistling In Dixie and Whistling In Brooklyn that were better than this one.The fact that smooth and clever villain Conrad Veidt who runs a spiritualist racket would need help from Red Skelton to construct a perfect murder is dopey on the face of it. Still Skelton is kidnapped by Veidt and along with him are two women that he's been seeing, Ann Rutherford and Virginia Grey, and he's got to come up with a foolproof method of homicide. Nobody notices that in addition to being a performer and writer, Skelton is also something of a fool.But that's what makes the weak premised film provide a lot of laughs with Grey, Rutherford, and even Veidt joining in on the general hilarity. And I do love the way Red apparently has a knowledge of electronics and makes the villain's radio receiver set a broadcast method. Can't be a complete fool to devise that.Though the succeeding Fox films were better, Whistling In The Dark will provide a great introduction to the comedy stylings of Red Skelton.

Here is an early example of what I call narrative folding. "Citizen Kane" had just been released when this started filming. While they are from competing studios, there are a few references to "Kane" here, including a couple notes about the famous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.The setup is pretty delicious. Red Skelton is a radio star, who plays a detective called the Fox. This by itself is a joke because the man's humor is all in his face. He is dependent on film — and later TeeVee to be successful. He is famous (in this movie) for writing complex mysteries, not for performing them.Superficially, the story has him kidnapped by the bad guys and forced to come up with a foolproof murder idea. He does, but is able to foil the plot. Bad guys are captured. All is well. But look at how this is done.The bad guys operate a fake spiritualist cult that sells a "radio" service to the departed. In order to keep their enterprise going, they will get a million dollars if they kill some innocent guy and get away with it. So the deal is fake radio versus real, and cleverly solved mystery versus cleverly concealed mystery.As a sort of mirror, Red's character has two women in love with him, and they are kidnapped with him. Many of the jokes have to do with the confusion and conflict between these. The payoff is in how Red's character foils his own plot. He literally — I am not making this up — figures out a way to talk backwards into a radio receiver. Now I believe that this sort of construction is no accident. But I also hold that it is not an intellectual exercise either. Narrative folding comes as naturally as a sort of analogy-based equivalent of the puns on which this is based. (Red's radio show is sponsored by a soft drink. When capturing him, the cult wants him to sell a drink in an identical bottle that contains Vitamin O. )Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This film was the second done by Vincent Minelli in his movie directing career. Like the first one I DOOD IT he was directing Red Skelton. The two films were assigned to Minelli as a test of his abilities, and he did so well that he was never assigned to B-Features again. Skelton was shown to good advantage (in most of his comedies Skelton usually gave good performances) as a radio personality, "THE FOX" who knows all you need to know about crime to solve cases. He is kidnapped with his girl friend by Conrad Veidt's gang. Veidt is a cult leader, who learns he is a prospective heir to one of his rich followers, provided her direct heir (Lloyd Corrigan)predeceases her. Veidt needs a perfect crime, and "The Fox" is just the man to give it to him.It is a wonderful comedy. Besides Skelton's comic abilities, Veidt too shows a funny side rarely apparent in his dramatic (and villainous) roles - imagine Major Strasser telling Capt. Reynaud an off-colored joke in CASABLANCA. At the start of the film, having just given his stooge followers his typical guru speech on control and peace and love, Veidt learns about the existance of Corrigan as a threat to his plans for wealth. He starts acting like another notable German of the 1940s, screaming and ranting, and yelling at his followers how can he teach the world of love and peace when this impediment is in his way! Later, when part of the live audience listening to Skelton's "Fox" radio program, he learns that the villain in the program was an imposter that Skelton recognized, because he was wearing a turban the wrong way (it was tied on the left instead of the right, or something like that). A surprised Veidt (who could very well wear a turban among his followers) tells his side-kick, "I didn't know that!" as though anyone is interested. The lines go fast and furious in this film, up to a surprise at the end of the film from Corrigan, that actually makes much of the frantic antics of the forced "perfect crime" plot seem hopeless from the start. Definitely worthwhile if you want some good laughs.