Whispering Smith (1948) is a Western film starring Alan Ladd
as a railroad detective assigned to stop a gang of train robbers.
The supporting cast includes Robert Preston and Brenda Marshall.
The picture is based on a novel by Frank H. Spearman and a previous 1926 film adaptation
starring H.B. Warner in the title role, with Lillian Rich, Lilyan Tashman,
John Bowers, and Eugene Pallette as supporting cast.
In 1961, Whispering Smith became a 26-episode NBC series of the same name,
with Audie Murphy, film star and World War II hero, in the title role.
Please see:-
Classic TV Westerns- Whispering Smith
Production
Film versions of the novel had been made in 1906 and 1926.
Paramount had silent rights to the novel from the 1926 film, made by an associated company,
and acquired sound rights.
The film was announced in early 1947 as a vehicle for Alan Ladd. It was Ladd's first Western and his first movie in colour
The script made a number of changes to the original novel including changing the double love story to one.
Brenda Marshall was given her first screen role in four years. Filming began on 14 April 1947.
The role of Whispering Smith was partly based on Jake Lefors. The part of Murray Sinclair, Smith's friend who turns to crime, was supposedly inspired by Butch Cassidy.
The filmmakers built a Western town on five acres of the backlot at a cost of $70,000.
It included 2000 feet of railroad track on which authentic 1870 locomotives owned by Paramount were operated.
The trains were converted from their original wood-burning fuel system to oil. The set was later re-used in many later TV shows and films, including Bonanza.
Reception
The film was not released until 1949, by which time Paramount had made and released another Ladd film, Beyond Glory.
The film was a popular with audiences.
According to Variety it was the 20th most popular film in the US and Canada in 1949.
Possible follow up
Sol Lesser, who had rights to ten Whispering Smith stories, wanted to film some of them with Robert Mitchum.
These films were not made.
However, Audie Murphy later starred in a Whispering Smith TV series.
User Review
WHISPERING SMITH (Leslie Fenton, 1948)
Author: MARIO GAUCI from Naxxar, Malta
26 January 2009
Quote from marioAlan Ladd's first film in color was also his first Western, a genre with which he would become associated after making 11 of them in all (having previously excelled in noirs during the 1940s and early 50s). Here he plays a character dating back to the Silent era: a soft-spoken (hence the title) but sharp-shooting investigator for a railroad company which also employs his best friends – rugged foreman Robert Preston (who married Ladd's girl Brenda Marshall) and old-timer William Demarest. With Ladd away on company business i.e. chasing a notorious trio of sibling train robbers, Preston falls in with a bad crowd headed by cattle rustler Donald Crisp and his albino henchman Frank Faylen and, on whose account, he has been pilfering 'damaged' goods transported by the railroad. Ladd is ordered back home to look into this wave of train wrecks which have been occurring on a regular basis. Suspecting Crisp and his crew, he pleads with Preston to pull out in time but the latter is too deeply involved by now to listen and an eventual shootout between the two childhood friends is inevitable. An ordinary, unpretentious Western to be sure but one that is well acted, competently staged and provides consistent entertainment for the undiscriminating viewer and Western film buffs in particular.