WHISPERING SMITH

WHISPERING SMITH. Paramount Pictures, 1948. Alan Ladd, Robert Preston, Brenda Marshall, Donald Crisp, William Demarest, Fay Holden, Murvyn Vye, Frank Faylen, John Eldredge. Based on the novel by Frank H. Spearman. Director: Leslie Fenton.

   You can learn a lot by writing reviews, or at least I do. For example, I never knew there was a real “Whispering” Smith, and that he really was a railroad detective, among other occupations. You can read about some of his exploits online here at the Legends of America website.

   A writer named Frank Spearman was intrigued by the name and wrote an early western novel about a railroad detective named Whispering Smith in 1906, but his work of fiction and the his facts seemed to brush up against reality only on occasion.

   There also were three early silent films with Whispering Smith as the hero. Quoting from Kevin Burton Smith’s Thrilling Detective website:

WHISPERING SMITH

   â€œThere was a 1916 silent film […] followed by another silent film in 1926. That in turn was followed by yet another silent flick, Whispering Smith Rides in 1927, inevitably followed in 1935 by Whispering Smith Speaks, his first talkie. Each film wandered a little further from the source material, but the real oddity was 1951’s Whispering Smith Hits London, wherein Smith travels to England and tangles with Scotland Yard …”

WHISPERING SMITH

   There was also a TV series on NBC that starred Audie Murphy in 1961, but it didn’t last long, only half a year. It is easily available on DVD.

   It was Alan Ladd, though, who played Whispering Smith in this movie made in 1948. While Ladd was notorious for being short, he also had the ability to command attention in a crowded room by speaking barely above a whisper. Or at least he did in the movies, and in this one in particular.

   He’s also a railroad detective in this film. His good buddy Murray Sinclair (boisterously played by Robert Preston, who does boisterous very well) is a rancher who works part time for the railroad to clear up train wrecks. When business is bad, he creates his own train wrecks. He has fallen on hard time, however, and in with bad friends.

WHISPERING SMITH

   Murray has also married the girl that Smith had had a wish for, to Smith’s lasting regret, though he will never admit it, to anyone, and to Marian Sinclair’s regret as well (she being portrayed by beauteous Brenda Marshall). It’s this tacit love triangle that lies between these three old friends, as well as Murray’s taste for the good life, one that will (eventually) bring him to a bad end.

   I am not revealing anything I shouldn’t here, not if you’ve watched a few movies and a few of them happen to have been westerns. This was Alan Ladd’s first western, and the first movie he did in color. The stars are fine, the story’s passable, and you should have as much fun watching this one as I did.

WHISPERING SMITH