Film Review
One of the last films to be directed by William Cameron Menzies in the
twilight of his long and distinguished career,
The Whip Hand is a tense B-movie
thriller with a totally chilling premise which perfectly encapsulates
prevailing fears (soon to become paranoia) over the threat posed by
Communist Russia. Originally, it was titled
The Man He Found and featured
fugitive Nazis as the principal villains, with Hitler showing up alive
and well in the final reel. Once this film had been shot RKO
producer Howard Hughes decided that Nazis were old hat and insisted
that scenes be re-shot with Communists crow-barred in as the bad
guys. It was a canny move as the modified film was certainly more
contemporary, although it naturally helped to fan the flames of the
anti-Communist witch hunt which had already begun to engulf Hollywood.
One of the strengths of the film is that it does
not have a showy cast with a strong
male lead. The most recognisable face is that of Raymond Burr,
who is superb as a quietly menacing villain. With glowering
fiends like Burr to contend with the boyish Elliott Reid makes a
suitably vulnerable hero, likeable but hopelessly out of his depth -
something that adds greatly to the film's tension and unremitting
bleakness. The doom-laden aura owes much to Nicholas
Musuraca's beautifully creepy chiaroscuro photography, which brings a
genuine sense of terror to some of the film's darker sequences.
The grimness of its subject matter may have been the principal reason
why
The Whip Hand struggled
to find an audience, despite its admirable production values and
compelling storyline. The fact that it lost over 200 thousand
dollars at the box office did little for its director's already waning
reputation, and did even less for an increasingly disillusioned
Hughes. After this, William Cameron Menzies would make only two
further films, including
Invaders from Mars (1953),
which tackled the threat of a Soviet attack on the United States
in a more allegorical vein.
© James Travers 2014
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Whilst on a fishing holiday at Lake Winnoga, Wisconsin, reporter Matt
Corbin stumbles across a town with a mysterious secret. Since a
deadly virus wiped out the fish stocks in the lake Winnoga has become a
ghost town, and the few remaining residents appear keen that it should
stay that way. The key to the mystery would appear to be an
isolated lakeside lodge belonging to a recluse who arrived in the
district a few years ago. When Matt attempts to visit the lodge
he is warned off by armed thugs. He then tries to smuggle out a
message to the his employers, but in doing so he unwittingly condemns
an innocent party to death. In his bid to resolve the mystery
Matt enlists the help of Janet Keller, the sister of the local doctor,
but both realise that their lives are in peril when it emerges that
they are up against a Communist plot to launch a germ warfare attack on
the United States...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.