The cranio-carpo-tarsal or "whistling face" syndrome was first described by Freeman and Sheldon in 1938. More than 60 cases with great variability of expression are known till now and autosomal dominant as well as recessive inheritance and sporadic cases suggest a genetic heterogeneity. We review 60 well-documented cases of the literature and present a patient with a severe form, who died of bronchopneumonia at the age of 9 months. The facial stigmata of his mother and the ulnar deviations of his maternal grandfather support the autosomal inheritance of the syndrome.