Whispering Smith Hits London
“Whispering” Steve Smith, the famed American detective, has earned a vacation, arriving in London en route to Cornwall but immediately recognised at the airport and intercepted at his hotel before he can continue his trip by Anne Carter, recently employed by a publisher to look into the circumstances of his daughter’s death.
Sylvia Garde an American schooled in London, believed to have been in debt which is what may have prompted her suicide, Smith is reluctant to take the case until an attempt is made to run Anne down; intrigued, he looks further and finds that everyone who knew Sylvia, her fiancé Roger Ford, her solicitor Hector Reith and her best friend Louise Balfour, saw the same woman very differently.
Directed by The Man in Black’s Francis Searle, Whispering Smith Hits London only to be pulled into what is a fairly conventional but entertaining crime thriller carried largely by It Came from Outer Space’s Richard Carlson in the title role, handsome and charming but never overstepping boundaries with his two leading ladies Rona Anderon and Greta Gynt as Anne and Louise, even if his adherence to legal process is dubious.
With Mark of the Devil’s Herbert Lom as Roger pulling strings beyond his role as a children’s puppet entertainer and Spaceways’ Alan Wheatley as Reith, a sinister trip to the Star Opaque home for convalescents and Anne’s brief professional liaison with safecracker Cecil (The Ladykiller’s Danny Green) are little more than diversions, adding menace and humour but only serving to delay the resolution.
An otherwise formal step-by-step investigation, written by John Gilling and Steve Fisher from a story by Frank H Spearman and known as Whispering Smith vs. Scotland Yard in America, the film is a transatlantic hybrid, the leading man designed for international appeal but set in a mannered and even stuffy upper-class English environment, the only mystery who Sylvia really was, each witness likely biased even if they are not actively concealing the truth.
Restored in 4K from the original negatives, the new edition of Whispering Smith Hits London arrives in the company of two new commentaries, an appreciation by film noir fan Chris Alexander, an overview of the extensive career of Herbert Lom, a look at the differences between the UK and edited US version, both contained in the set, an interview with editor Alfie Cox and a short archive documentary on Bray, the Thameside home of Hammer.
Whispering Smith Hits London is available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray from Hammer now
