User Reviews

"Whispering Smith Hits London" with not much impact. A famous American detective in London on holiday is drawn into investigating the supposed suicide of a young woman and uncovers more than meets the eye. It should have been more exciting but the plot is simple and the revelations when they come are easy to see and the climax is a bit silly. One character who has shown eminent cool throughout the film goes laughably wild eyed and frenzied at the end.

As the hero Richard Carlson is his usual stolid self. Unfortunately several very good actors like Herbert Lom, Alan Wheatley, Laurence Naismith, Reginald Beckwith are wasted in underwritten roles. The delightful Rona Anderson only has to act dewy eyed over Carlson which again doesn't stretch her thespian skills though she has a good scene where she is cracking a safe. The film is slightly livened up by the presence of some always welcome character actors like Dora Bryan and Danny Green and the sight of future stars like Stanley Baker in a bit role.

Had promise but failed to live up to it.

"Whispering Smith hits London" spins a tale about a private detective whose simple desire for a quiet holiday gets thwarted. Shamed into investigating a suspicious suicide, he finds himself wading through a morass of crime, blackmail and obsession. The movie is a pleasantly entertaining work with a suitably labyrinthine plot. It also boasts a number of interesting, indeed fascinating characters. The whole functions well enough, but lacks the bitter conviction or misanthropic gusto that might have turned it into a hardboiled noir masterpiece. Plus, let's face it, when it comes to actors the Humphrey Bogarts of this world are few and far between...

The beginning is pretty funny, depicting the arrival of a bouquet-toting starlet who longs for peace and solitude - and for lots and lots of newspapermen, of course.

Anyway, "Whispering Smith" is plagued by a plot hole that is difficult to explain away. After some initial misgivings our private detective hero reluctantly agrees to investigate a suicide case. Before long he is doing all the things any competent investigator would do : he interviews friends, traces witnesses, visits relevant locations and so on. So why does he fail to arm himself with some kind of photograph or portrait of the deceased, which, surely, should have been one of the very first things to do ?

*Caution - Very big spoilers contained in this plot summary.* An American private eye called Steve Smith (Richard Carlson), famously known as Whispering Smith, arrives in Britain for a holiday, but is hired by Anne (Rona Anderson); the secretary of New York publisher Mr Garde, who believes that his daughter Sylvia who allegedly committed suicide was in fact murdered. Initially, Smith dismisses Anne as somebody who is attempting to stir things up and use him to prove her worth to her boss since she only recently started working for him. However, when Anne narrowly avoids being run over by a car, he believes her theory could be true and agrees to help. The pair uncover a blackmail ring lead by the lawyer, Reith (Alan Wheatley), and the murdered woman's lover Ford (Herbert Lom). Meanwhile, Smith is struck by the beauty of Sylvia's former friend, Louise Balfour (Greta Gynt), who appears to be falling for him. However, when Smith succeeds in getting one of the blackmail gang's victims to speak out; the electrical goods shop owner Manson (Reginald Beckwith), he is murdered and a vital clue to the identity of the murderer lies in a photograph of Manson and a girl that was used as the instrument for blackmail. But is it really Sylvia who was drowned in the Thames?

Rarely seen nowadays, this b-pic crime thriller is an example of the kind of stuff Hammer specialised in before they shot to international fame with their Gothic horror films like The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958). It survives as a very agreeable entertainment and it is generally brisk paced and exciting under the direction of Francis Searle. He spent the vast majority of his film career in the quota quickie business making only one 'A' film in his entire career; a comedy called Girl In A Million (1945). Some of his b-features rank among the very worst that this country ever produced; but there were a few exceptions including this that make us regret that he was never again handed a major picture.

Whispering Smith is played with an easy going charm by Carlson and his scenes with Anderson are a joy to watch. Anne is overly keen in assisting him with his investigation much, it seems, to his dismay and this allows for some nice light comedy. For example, he is astonished to discover that she has gone and advertised for a safe cracker in a newspaper: she admits to having been forced to try every title until one of them eventually agreed to publish it! She gets an elderly crook called Cecil to agree to do the job, which is to break into the safe of the lawyer Reith. Smith arrives to find Anne actually taking the cutters torch to the safe while Cecil looks on in delight: "She's got talent that one", he tells an amazed Smith. All along the detective gives the impression of being annoyed by Anne's interference but, in actual fact, he is falling in love with her and vice versa.

There are moments of suspense too like when the killer (Lom) murders Manson to prevent him from talking. He does it in his own shop when it is full of customers pushing him into his workshop and making him turn on all the radios in there up to full blast to disguise the shot. There is also an amusing dice with death in a nursing home, which is being used as a legitimate front for hired criminals that sees Smith narrowly avoid being put into a straitjacket, having whiskey poured into him and being found as an accidental death due to alcohol poisoning. The idea of a rather eccentric looking nursing home acting as a front for criminals is attractive and I thought it might have been worked into the plot more. But no. It did, nonetheless, remind me of an episode of The Avengers that saw various villains using things like marriage bureaus and retirement homes for former railwaymen as fronts to delightful tongue in cheek effect.

Herbert Lom is effective in a dramatic role as the murdered girl's lover - I always preferred him in things like this and in his hit 1960's TV series The Human Jungle as opposed to his most famous role as the mad Inspector Dreyfuss in the terribly overblown Pink Panther comedies - and Greta Gynt is stand out as the picture's femme fatale. Look out for Dora Bryan too as a society woman who is somewhat miffed when the journalists at the airport desert her on the news that Whispering Smith has arrived in the country taking away all of the attention from her.

Richard Carlson plays Steve Smith, a well known detective who goes to London for a vacation. He is harassed by a lovely lady to look into what appears to be an open and shut case of suicide, however he refuses to look into the matter until some one makes an effort to run the girl down in his presence. Smith then finds himself dropped down the rabbit hole as he tries to find out what is really going on.

Odd mix of romance and mystery has a great cast that includes Herbert Lom and other British stalwarts. The problem is that as good as they are and as menacing as they seem the plot implodes about 40 minutes in as it paints itself into a corner and then tries to get out. The writers unfortunately made some really odd choices that seem to be there only to keep the plot moving, for example we never know what one character looks like until the final dash to the end. Surely someone, anyone would have had a photo-say the police? It makes no sense.

Also not making a great deal of sense is the person behind it all who is revealed to be as insane as they come complete with a lip smacking eye rolling performance. We were suppose to by this? I painfully limped to the ending vowing never to watch this film again.

(The running time of the print I saw was about 85 minutes long not the 77 listed in most reference material)

I suggest you avoid this.

For those who love Hammer Films, the film appears to have been lensed at the Hammer offices, I could be wrong but the grounds of a key location seems to be the Hammer studio in Bray.

WHISPERING SMITH HITS LONDON (1952, aka WHISPERING SMITH VS. SCOTLAND YARD) is another early Hammer murder mystery, with Richard Carlson as an imported American detective who arrives in London to do Scotland Yard's job for them. They've ruled a mysterious death as suicide but he quickly realises that foul play was involved, and soon uncovers the usual blackmailing ring - as well as taking time to romance the ladies.

This one feels a bit snappier than some, although B-movie specialist director Francis Searle doesn't do a particularly great job, as this is never as suspenseful or exciting as it should be. John Gilling wrote the story and there are some familiar faces in support, including Herbert Lom, THE LADYKILLERS star Danny Green, Laurence Naismith and Reginald Beckwith. But it's all very by-the-by, and the budget is just too low for this one to stand out; in Carlson we're saddled with another indifferent protagonist, and the viewer struggles to care.