The Warner Archives have brought movie buffs of all kinds together to bear witness to the immortal Red Skelton and his “Whistling” trilogy, the 1941 comedy series that brought Skelton together with co-stars like Eve Arden and Virginia Grey. Restored and featured in three separate discs, the “Whistling” collection is ultimately a mixed bag of Skelton comedies that are all fairly flawed with some dated zingers that fall flat on numerous occasions, but when they shine, they manage to draw some genuine laughs thanks to Skelton who is sometimes too goofy to enjoy, and other times seem too funny for the material he’s handed.
Taking the page from Abbot and Costello, we see Red Skelton and co. in peril with WHISTLING IN THE DARK (1941), a horror themed short adventure where Skelton plays victim to a peace loving cult who want to inherit a million dollars their follower left behind for her nephew. Now to get the money, they decide to kill the nephew and make it look natural. So they enlist the talents of “The Fox” radio show creator Wally Benton. Skelton plays Benton the inept but brilliant murder mystery writer who is tricked in to going along with the group who then kidnap him when he catches on. Refusing to engage in the plot, the group captures Wally’s fiance and his boss’s daughter, and the rest of the film involves Wally and his friends trying to outwit the group.
With a hilarious gag involving a female servant who looks like a man, and a classic characters sneaking through a dark room cue sight gags and spooky misdirection, “Whistling in the Dark is uneven in the sense that Skelton is constantly shifting back and forth from straight man to goofball throughout the narrative. Sometimes he’s this cowardly simpleton who’d put his girlfriends’ life in danger before his own, then the next he’s begging for his life. In spite of that “Whistling in the Dark” is a short but sweet time killer with some pretty sharp mishaps and subtle physical humor that Skelton delivers quite well particularly the opening where Arden and Skelton are arguing back and forth through a three door walk-in closet. Even at almost eighty minutes the film feels slightly too long, but closes on a funny note when Wally is able to rig a radio to become a receiver and gets the help of his loyal listeners pretending to do a radio play.
“Whistling in the Dark” is entertaining comedic fodder that finishes with typical madcap, just don’t expect raucous laughs. WHISTLING IN DIXIE (1942) features the return of the brilliant clown Wally Benton as he and fiancé Carol are called upon by an old friend from Dixie after a wealthy benefactor is killed in cold blood by a mysterious figure whose MO is whistling Dixie to signal their presence. As is typical of poor Benton, he’s called in to engage in this mystery with his long suffering fiancé and mayhem ensues. Now that he foiled the conspiracy of the cult in the former film, Benton is considered an unofficial criminal sleuth, and he has to deal with that title whether he likes it or not. Skelton bring aboard a new gag where if someone mutters the word “Murder” he goes in to comedic spasms thanks to his trauma with the cult in the previous story. Carol is summoned by her ex-sorority sister begging her and Wally to figure out who killed the benefactor and their motives.
Diana Lewis joins the fray as Carol’s long lost friend Ellamae who engages in the love triangle between the couple that keeps Wally running back and forth between the two while dodging imminent death. Like most of the vehicles for comedy teams and the like, the narrative is just a guideline for a series of gags and skits that ensue and boy howdy do the gags ensue from the get go. Aside from Skelton’s spasms, there’s also a surprisingly funny but goofy gag where the murderous chauffeur from “Dark” appears again but this time as his twin brother Chester which results in a fight and “Rags” Ragsland explaining that he and Sylvester are brothers and he gets the punishment for Sylvester being a crook, ending in spinning heads and belly laughs. There’s also yet another scene of Wally and his two women sneaking in to a dark corridor cue gag involving the darkness, “Cat and the Canary” plot devices involving a shadowy hand shooting at the group. But there are some pretty good moments including a tense sequence where Wally nearly chops his own head off thanks to a misplaced cigarette, and a series of mix-ups that ensue when Chester’s brother Sylvester comes in to town.
This isn’t very much of a sequel with its murder mystery remaining ultimately underwhelming and lacking in any actual interest. All of the mystery boils down to Wally having to think his way out of a tight situation being held hostage with compatriots yet again leading to another madcap finale. WHISTLING IN BROOKLYN (1943) bears the question: will Wally and Carol ever get hitched? The third and final film in the “Whistling” trilogy featuring amateur detective Wally Benton and his long suffering fiancé Carol drops down on to Brooklyn where a serial killer is knocking off authorities across the city and leaving their bodies for the police to find taunting them with mysterious letters. Now that Benton is still known for being a master detective who happened in to his trade, he’s being blamed for committing these murders because who else can give police the run around but “The Fox”? Anne Rutherford is as radiant as ever as the straight man and only shred of sanity left in her relationship with Skelton’s character Wally, and the gags come full circle with an entry that ends on laugh out loud moments.
While the first film was feeling the waters, and the second one treading water, the third film really dives in to the comedy (had enough water analogies yet?) with some raucous set pieces including Wally and trusty chauffeur Chester trying to close a suitcase, and the hysteria that follows when the newspaper reports Wally as a suspect in the serial killings. Wally, once the put upon genius, is now on the lam and must clear his name and hopefully marry Carol before the picture ends. The lovely Jean Rogers joins in on the gags as aspiring reporter Jean Pringle anxious to get a story out of Wally and his accused misdeeds and will do anything including stuffing herself in his trunk and popping up in odd places. The fun of the “Whistling” movies is Skelton’s interaction with his straight women, all of whom are either victims to his goofiness, or play off of him grounding him as a human character.
Rutherford is the heart of this trilogy lending a tension, chemistry, and tenderness that’s found in films like the “Thin Man” series. When Wally missteps, she helps put him on the right track to save their lives. For this final entry the writers put Wally in Carol in more harrowing situations than the former films including a rather intense shoot out, and a long sequence involving an elevator that is bound to crush them if they don’t act quick. Rags Ragland is as funny as ever as Chester, the assistant to Wally who means well, but doesn’t have a lick of common sense or brains. Like the previous farces, the story follows the formula of wacky mix-ups and high pace madcap that brings Skelton in to the spotlight. As the rest of the final film, “Brooklyn” becomes ever more deadly as Benton and Carol discover the identity of the killer and struggle to reach the inspector to notify him, which ends in a stand off involving kitchen ware, and a hilarious water pun sealing the deal for these characters. It’s a superior finisher in an otherwise passable little trilogy.