The 1948 film "The Return of the Whistler" features a dollar-sized Los Angeles Rubber Stamp Company President Monroe prop coin. The film is the last of "The Whistler" films made during the 1940's. "The Whistler" was a popular mystery radio program and the films were based on the character who would whistle and then introduce and sometimes comment on the story. The story is about a young man and woman who plan to get married. The woman disappears just before the wedding and the man searches for her. At one point while the couple are courting, they share his apartment and every night he flips a coin to decide who sleeps on the couch and who gets the bed, every night he wins the couch by calling "heads." He then shows the coin and it is a two-headed coin.

The Whistler appears in the night as a black shadow.

Ted Nichols and Alice Dupres are driving to a wedding office to get married. Ted is an American and probably an ex-serviceman. Alice is a French immigrant who was briefly married to a US soldier in France.

The wife at the wedding office tells the pair that her husband can not marry them until the next morning. They go to a hotel where their car breaks down. The sleazy hotel clerk charges an excessive rate for the room and will not let Ted sleep there as they are not married. Ted goes to sleep in the car, has the car fixed, and returns to the hotel to find the room empty and Alice gone. A private detective, Gaylord Traynor, introduces himself and suggests that Alice is trying some kind of confidence game on Ted. Ted tells Gaylord about their courtship trying to convince him that they were really in love. Ted met Alice when she tripped near his cabin and he gave her first aid. She told him that she was briefly married in France to an American serviceman named Barkley who was from a wealthy family, and that he later died in action. She had recently arrived from France, visited her late husband's relatives the Barkleys, didn't get along with them, and left. Alice moved into Ted's apartment where each night he flipped a coin to decide who slept in the bed and who got the couch.

Ted always "won", calling the coin "heads", and getting the couch. When Ted puts the coin away, both sides are shown, and both have heads.

The coin is a Los Angeles Rubber Stamp Company President Monroe prop coin. Only the obverse side of the coin is shown.

White metal, 38 mm, 20.68 gm
Obverse: President James Monroe facing half left, no text
Reverse: Bird of Paradise and man kneeling in temple surrounded by eight-pointed star, no text

For more information on these prop coins please visit: Motion Picture Prop Coins

Ted and Gaylord drive to his apartment where he shows the detective photographs of Alice and her wedding certificate from her first marriage. Gaylord punches Ted.

Gaylord runs away with the papers and takes them to the Barkleys, who he was actually working for. Ted goes to the police and is told to forget Alice. At the large Barkley house, what is really going on is shown next.

Various Barkleys do not want Alice to inherit her husband's estate and are keeping her locked up. Back at Ted's apartment, the Whistler advises Ted:

"You walked right into that one." Ted goes to the Barkley house and talks to a Charlie Barkley who tells Ted that he is Alice's husband, that Alice has lived in the United States for several years, is mentally ill, and has spells where she runs away from the house. Ted finds Alice's French passport in his car's glove compartment which indicates that Charlie is lying and that Alice came to America recently. The Barkleys take Alice to a private medical institution where she is locked up. Gaylord has become suspicious of the Barkley family and manages to get a photograph of Alice and her husband who looks nothing like Charlie. Ted finds out the name of the institution and heads there to rescue Alice. He runs into Charlie Barkley there.

He manages to get Alice downstairs.

Ted and Alice encounter the Barkley family, Gaylord, and the police. A policeman tells Ted that Gaylord called them and that all will be taken to the District Attorney's office where things will be sorted out. The film ends back at the marriage office.

Ted and Alice are really going to get married this time.

Michael Duane as Theodore 'Ted' Nichols
Lenore Aubert as Alice Dupres Barkley
Richard Lane as Gaylord Traynor
James Cardwell as Charlie Barkley
Director: D. Ross Lederman
Writers: Maurice Tombragel, Edward Bock, Cornell Woolrich (story)