Radio Drama · Old Time Radio Researchers · Mystery & crime · Drama · Adventure
The Whistler
- Networks
- CBS (as its archives name them)
- Heard
- 1942–1955
- Episodes
- 659
- Language
- English
THE WHISTLER
More about it
You're walking alone on the street at night, but then you hear another set of footsteps and a haunting tune being whistled by an unseen stranger. Fritz Lang used an similar premise in his 1930s German movie with Peter Lorre playing M, a psychopathic murderer of children. But the American radio series was even creepier. The unseen Whistler didn't kill anyone (that we know of), but he certainly loved watching murders take place, narrating them for us, and chuckling at the suffering of others instead of doing anything to stop it. Unlike M, he was never caught. He kept walking the streets every week for thirteen long years, whistling his ominous thirteen notes and telling us another tale of bizarre fate. Perhaps Fate is who the Whistler really was? He never provided any sir name, and the killer was usually punished by some twist of fate that only The Whistler seemed to expect. It is very likely The Whistler was inspired by The Shadow, which began nearly a decade earlier. Like the Shadow, the Whistler seemed to enter and exit the criminal underworld without ever being seen. He would watch the evil doers carry out their schemes, yet they never saw him, even though he would tell us what they were thinking in their presence. His voice sounded equally sinister to The Shadow, too. It was was a slithering tenor, hissing the "s's" and often laughing "heh-heh-heh-hehheh!" at the foolishness of the guilty. Both series had similar opening lines: The Shadow "knew what evil…
Episodes, in broadcast order page 1 of 7
Where it comes from 30
The archive items its episodes are played from, best first, with each one’s rights as its archive states them. An episode two sets both hold is played from the first.
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The Whistler - Single Episodes
CC BY-NC-ND 3.0: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0, as its uploader states it at the Internet Archive.
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The Whistler - 1942 Sustained Episodes
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1946-1947 WBBM Chicago Series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1953 Signal Series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1946 October to December Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1943-December to 1944 Signal Series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1943 Sustained Episodes
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1955 National Series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1947 to 1948 Household Finance series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler 1952-July to December Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1945-April to June Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1948-July to September Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1954-July to 1955-February
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1949-April to June Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1947 October to December Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1948-April to June Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1945 January to March Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1946 April to June Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler -1950-April to June Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1946-January to March Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1946 Summer Replacement Series for the Jack Carson Show
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1954-January to 1954-June Signal Series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1949-October to December Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1947 April to June Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1951-January to March Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1946-July to September Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1949-July to September Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1951-April to June Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1950-October to December Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Whistler - 1951-July to September Signal series
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
24 more sets hold only episodes played here from a set above.
A set by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group (otrr.org), at the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio collection.
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Radio drama, old-time radio and historic broadcasts from the Internet Archive (its Old Time Radio collection with the Old Time Radio Researchers' sets, WWII Era Audio Recordings, the Pacifica Radio Archives, the Radio Haiti Archive, German radio plays and listeners' uploads), Wikimedia Commons (with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision's broadcasts) and the Library of Congress. Every episode plays from its archive, which this site does not copy; rights are as each archive states them. Nothing here is called public domain on this site's say-so. In the United States, sound recordings first fixed before 15 February 1972 have federal protection under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, for most until 2067 at the latest, so most American radio of the 1930s to the 1950s is not in the public domain there. Each set shows the licence, mark or statement its archive gives, and says whose it is. Horror, crime, war and westerns are for teenage and adult profiles, racist caricature for adults only, and children’s profiles hear what was made for children. More about these archives.