Joel H
I kind of stumbled upon Whistling in the Dark. I only chose to watch this movie because I was looking for a short film and this one had a similar title as one of my favorite songs by They Might Be Giants. However, I enjoyed watching it. I've never been a big fan of Red Skelton and his style of comedy, but he kept his mugging to a minimum and the rest of the cast balanced him out. I just wish the writers didn't feel the need to throw in a one-liner at every turn. The plot is silly & dated, but it's still enjoyable. Whistling in the Dark helped me unwind at the end of the day, and I appreciated that.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
11/03/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The best comedy movie ever made!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/13/24
Full Review
Audience Member
I remember Red Skelton faintly from his old TV show. His show was cancelled in the Great Demography Purge of the early '70s, when the networks noticed that the people who watched their highly rated shows were not the most desirable targets for their advertisers. New shows were skewing younger and more urban, and Skelton's show, still in the Top Ten, was canceled anyway.
He was one of the most gifted physical comics ever. A few years after his show was cancelled, I remember him as a guest on the Tonight Show, when Carson was still doing a 90 minute show. Skelton was absolutely killing, and Carson bumped the remaining guests so he and Skelton could play.
I was surprised to learn on IMDB that before his TV show, he starred in over 30 movies. I always thought his movie career to be a bit tepid. I can't name classic Skelton movies the way I can Marx Brothers or Preston Sturges movies, but he must have moved tickets because they kept him around for an awful long time.
Whistling in the Dark was the first of the Wally "The Fox" Benton movies he made. It makes far too little use of his unique physical gifts, most of the humor leaning on wisecracks. Honestly, you could have slipped Bob Hope into the role without a bit of difference. This may be why his movies didn't make nearly the impact of the series, where this supremely physical comic could take full advantage of that supremely visual medium.
One thing that struck me about Whistling in the Dark is the nature of the cult, whose leader, played by Conrad Veidt, kidnaps Wally, who is a master plotter of mysteries, to force him to plan a foolproof murder. The cult is going through a ritual funeral at the beginning of the movie. It takes place on the grounds a huge mansion in Upstate New York. The weirdly-robed leader of the cult directs all the members, who are all middle-aged women and similarly robed, through the mumbo-jumbo of the rite. Once the plot is set in motion, the robes are gone, and the cult leaders are just regularly clothed villains.
The whole cult angle is really only seen at the beginning and is incidental to the plot. The villains could just as easily have been the usual gangsters you saw in the movies back then. Such an odd choice.
But it was also interesting to note that cults were commonly-enough known to audiences back then to be used as an identifiable concept in a light comedy. And their understanding of cults are not a whole lot different than ours are now - a messianic, charismatic leader leads a group of weak-minded gulls and extracts both their devotion and their money, with weird rites and costuming.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
11/09/15
Full Review
Audience Member
I remember Red Skelton faintly from his old TV show. His show was cancelled in the Great Demography Purge of the early '70s, when the networks noticed that the people who watched their highly rated shows were not the most desirable targets for their advertisers. New shows were skewing younger and more urban, and Skelton's show, still in the Top Ten, was canceled anyway.
He was one of the most gifted physical comics ever. A few years after his show was cancelled, I remember him as a guest on the Tonight Show, when Carson was still doing a 90 minute show. Skelton was absolutely killing, and Carson bumped the remaining guests so he and Skelton could play.
I was surprised to learn on IMDB that before his TV show, he starred in over 30 movies. I always thought his movie career to be a bit tepid. I can't name classic Skelton movies the way I can Marx Brothers or Preston Sturges movies, but he must have moved tickets because they kept him around for an awful long time.
Whistling in the Dark was the first of the Wally "The Fox" Benton movies he made. It makes far too little use of his unique physical gifts, most of the humor leaning on wisecracks. Honestly, you could have slipped Bob Hope into the role without a bit of difference. This may be why his movies didn't make nearly the impact of the series, where this supremely physical comic could take full advantage of that supremely visual medium.
One thing that struck me about Whistling in the Dark is the nature of the cult, whose leader, played by Conrad Veidt, kidnaps Wally, who is a master plotter of mysteries, to force him to plan a foolproof murder. The cult is going through a ritual funeral at the beginning of the movie. It takes place on the grounds a huge mansion in Upstate New York. The weirdly-robed leader of the cult directs all the members, who are all middle-aged women and similarly robed, through the mumbo-jumbo of the rite. Once the plot is set in motion, the robes are gone, and the cult leaders are just regularly clothed villains.
The whole cult angle is really only seen at the beginning and is incidental to the plot. The villains could just as easily have been the usual gangsters you saw in the movies back then. Such an odd choice.
But it was also interesting to note that cults were commonly-enough known to audiences back then to be used as an identifiable concept in a light comedy. And their understanding of cults are not a whole lot different than ours are now - a messianic, charismatic leader leads a group of weak-minded gulls and extracts both their devotion and their money, with weird rites and costuming.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Snappy comic thriller with Skelton funny as radio performer The Fox ably assisted by Ann Rutherford and Virginia Grey both full of sass.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
remake of a 1933 version of this
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
Full Review
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