The Whistler was a mystery anthology series.
A recurring theme of the series was that of criminals being undone by missing details, or by their own mistakes.
It was followed by a series of seven films between 1944 and 1948 and a short-running TV series
with an identical premise.
"I am the Whistler, and I know many tropes, for I walk by night:"
- Cool, Clear Water: Averted in the episode "Death Has a Thirst." The characters get stranded on a desert island, and when some of them go exploring for water sources, they carry a test kit to detect unsafe levels of arsenic and zinc. Every source they test turns out to be contaminated. One character, who has already exhibited paranoid behavior, is reluctant to believe that the water is poisonous (since after all, it looks fine); he thinks the others are trying to make him die of thirst.
- Conviction by Contradiction: One episode featured a man who killed his wife and made it look like a suicide. The police investigation and interrogation, conducted in the wife's apartment, has some close calls, but it looks like he's gotten away with it. The detective rises and heads for the door, ready to close the book on the case...and the wife's alarm clock goes off. Why would someone who's planning to commit suicide set their alarm clock to wake them up? The detective comes back, and says it's time to restart the interrogation from the top, as the husband breaks down.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Criminals often find their acts come undone due to their own mistakes.
- Horror Host: The Whistler originated as an expy of The Shadow — the sinister-voiced narrator of an Anthology series. The Shadow was retooled into being a participant character in his own series; the Whistler remained a detached narrator for his entire run.
- Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: The first episode features a prisoner who escapes with the intention of recovering his hidden loot. One of his fellow prisoners orchestrates a grab for that same loot, by getting two of his agents on the outside to pull off a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax.
- Never Suicide: In one episode, a man makes his wife's death look like a suicide, only to be caught on account of her alarm clock being set despite her allegedly killing herself.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The Whistler is only known by his monicker which comes from his ominous whistling.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: One of the series' stock plots is for someone to complain of ghosts in their bedroom and/or Prophetic Dreams. This can go one of two ways, both of which fit this trope. Another character might be Gaslighting the dreamer as a means to an end, as in "Shrunken Head" (the goal is to have the heroine declared legally insane so she can't marry and claim her inheritance). In other cases, the supposed dreamer is actually lying, as in "Death Comes at Midnight" (the goal was to disguise a planned suicide as a foretold murder).
- Second-Person Narration: The Whistler's narration is frequently addressed to the main character, though they can't actually hear him. At times this makes him come across as an ignored voice of conscience.
- Sinister Whistling: The narrator whistles an eerie melody as a prelude to his tales of crime, madness, and death.
- Spotting the Thread: In one episode, the detective decides to further scrutinize the circumstances of a woman's alleged suicide when her alarm clock goes off, something which wouldn't happen if she had been intending to kill herself.
- Suicide is Shameful: One episode involves a suicide for life insurance. It is explicitly stated that the policy would pay out even in the event of suicide, but the person in question still goes to the trouble of staging a Suicide, Not Murder scheme (even hiring an accomplice despite being in serious money trouble), solely to spare his family the pain of knowing he killed himself. It ends as a Happily Failed Suicide.
- Villain Protagonist: Many episodes feature the main character trying to get away with committing a crime.
