Coming Soon from Hammer Films: Whispering Smith Hits London

If you like wisecracking, hard-hitting heroes, mysterious femme fatales and bad guys who’ve got old-school, velvet villainy down to a tee, you’re in luck. Or if you’re a fan of stories that serve up murder, mystery and romance with a dash of humour and a soupçon of noir, this one’s for you. Because the next title to be released by Hammer Films will be the glorious Whispering Smith Hits London (1952).

It becomes the latest film in the Limited Collector’s Edition Range, an ongoing project that ensures a broad variety of Hammer productions are painstakingly restored and presented as highly collectable, limited-run 4K/Blu-ray sets complete with a rich array of supporting material. This includes rarities from the archive plus brand new, bespoke programmes, original artwork and lavishly illustrated literature. 

Whispering Smith Hits London is available to pre-order now, so we took the train to Hammer Towers and sat down with one of the people behind its release, Steve Rogers, so we could get the full story…

Rona Anderson (right) as Anne looks up at her captor, played by Greta Gynt. In 1951 the latter famously made a global splash at the Royal Albert Hall when, in an apparently impromptu display of affection, she put her arms around Field Marshal Montgomery and gave him a kiss!

Hammer News: Let’s deal with the whispering elephant in the room right away! Who the heck is Whispering Smith? And why’s he called Whispering when he never whispers? I’m assuming he’s at least called Smith, right?

Steve Rogers: Well, technically, he’s "Whispering" Smith as it’s a nickname – and it’s a character that started off as a railroad detective in a 1900s western novel and, over the next six decades, he popped up as the star of various films and a TV series, with pretty much a different actor each time. Sort of like a cowboy lawman version of Doctor Who.

HN: But he’s not a cowboy in this one..?

SR: No, he isn’t – that’s where things get strange. This script was an original, contemporary 1950s crimer that they dropped the Smith character into as an American private detective in London. It’s all covered in the booklet and far too convoluted to get into here.

HN: Okay, fair enough. Now we’ve got that out of the way, how would you describe the plot (in a spoiler-free fashion) to anyone who’s never seen the film?

SR: A holidaying American detective becomes enamoured with a pretty girl who convinces him to investigate a murder. Obviously, he doesn’t get much of a holiday.

HN: What genre are we talking here? Crime thriller, sure. But does it have a noir feel, or a more light-hearted approach? Or a bit of both?

SR: It’s a bit of a cop-out to say "fusion", but it is. Predominantly, it’s a Noir – some of the shots, especially the night scenes filmed in Windsor, are pure Noir – but it’s also got a bit of light touch (in-character) screwball comedy, a bit of romance and – if you don’t like puppets or weird old men – some scenes that are just as unsettling as anything in Dead of Night or Queen of Spades.

Richard Carlson followed in the footsteps of actors like Alan Ladd and George O’Brien when he played Whispering Smith, the character created by the American novelist (and bank president!) Frank Spearman. 

HN: Smith is played by Richard Carlson – an American actor. I’m guessing this was part of a deal whereby Hammer was obliged to cast a name known to US audiences as the lead?

SR: Obligation makes it sound like they were forced to – Hammer actively wanted these stars as not only would they make their films more saleable to a homegrown audience but they would get traction in the US also (a market that most British films of this era failed to crack).

HN: Oh! I genuinely thought it was an obligation that Hammer had to US distributors and /or funders, and there was in effect a list of actors (almost entirely American) whom they could cast in order to fulfil certain contractual stipulations. Did that come later, or rather like Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942), regarding ‘the waters’, was I misinformed?

SR: The various co-production deals from the early 1950s, in general but not always, were along the lines of the US company part-funding the production and providing a "name" actor recognisable to the US audience. In return for this investment they usually got US/Western hemisphere distribution rights while Hammer kept the rest of the world.

A name actor on the poster benefits all parties and only an idiot would turn down an actor who makes the film they’re trying to make more saleable, after all. Hammer could have pushed back on casting if they didn’t agree – James Carreras was no shrinking violet – so all of these casting decisions were less obligations than they were collaborations.

‘Richard Carlson… is both shrewd and affable, and the well-known British co-stars and supporting artists cooperate effectively. The photography, like the settings, is impeccable.’ - Kine Weekly on Whispering Smith Hits London.

HN: Ah. It all becomes clear, now – thanks. Could you tell us a little about Richard Carlson?

SR: A strong supporting actor who grew into a dependable lead, a bit under-used at this point in time (1951) but who would go on to cult fame in things like The Creature from the Black Lagoon and It Came from Outer Space.

HN: Greta Gynt has a terrific part in this, and certainly provides a memorable presence. What does she bring to her role, and the film in general?

SR: Gynt, by this point in her career, had scored a number of memorable femme fatale roles but, here, she quietly (and, latterly, loudly) subverts that with a performance channelling an unsettling, offbeat energy. It’s one of those performances where over-the-top is exactly on-point.

This Italian marketing material puts Alan Wheatley, seen here with Greta Gynt, central. He plays the part of Hector with his trademark combination of devilry and careless suavity. 

HN: This movie has an incredible supporting cast. Let’s start with Alan Wheatley. He deserves to be much better remembered than he is. Can you talk about what made him so special?

SR: Wheatley is such a superb actor. In looks and demeanour he is not dissimilar to Cushing, actually, and while he cornered the market in superior, sneering cads, his range is way broader than that. He’s one of those actors that always draws the eye – even if he’s at the back of a scene. Can’t speak highly enough of him – he did four films for Hammer and he nails it each time.

HN: And Herbert Lom is superb as a scary ‘puppet master’. People who only know him as Inspector Clouseau’s long-suffering boss are in for a shock, aren’t they?

SR: In the late ’40s/early ’50s Lom had built a whole career around playing slightly unsettling "foreigners" – usually in roles that were beneath his ability. Here he’s given a role that allows him to be simultaneously unnerving, romantic and vicious – it’s a great performance in a film of great performances. He is, of course and rightly, known to posterity as the madman Dreyfus from the Pink Panther films.

Greta Gynt and Richard Carlson (right), seen here with Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchačevič ze Schluderpacheru, better known as Herbert Lom.

HN: I know people might think I’m obsessed by cast members because I often ask about them in detail, but quite aside from the leads we’ve just touched on, this film has an extraordinary number of well-known faces who pop up for a scene or two, really enriching the storytelling. Can you whet our appetites by naming a few of the stars that feature in this way in Whispering Smith Hits London?

SR: The two obvious ones are Dora Bryan and Stanley Baker. Dora plays a high maintenance diva whose act slips when she loses the attention she believes she deserves. Stanley was only, I think, 24 here and it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role as a cub reporter. Very soon after this he did The Cruel Sea – the film that set his career trajectory flying upwards. By the end of the decade he was headlining films for Hammer – both Yesterday’s Enemy and Hell is a City are utter stone cold classics.

HN: Which is your favourite cameo?

SR: It has to be Baker – even in this miniscule part you can see, like Ollie Reed a decade later, he had a brooding intensity that the camera just loved.

Stanley Baker, seen here in Hammer’s Hell is a City (1960).

HN: Hey, we should also salute director Francis Searle. He was a Hammer stalwart who could turn his hand to any genre, and he makes sure this thriller sprints along at a rare old pace. We talked about him when we discussed The Man in Black (1950), but what characteristic touches of his do we see in this production?

SR: I’d like to hope the new restorations we’re creating of these early Hammer/Exclusive films do bring to light what great technicians the crew who worked on these films actually were. They may have had a five quid budget but if you look at the street chase scene I mentioned above, shot at night in Windsor, it looks like something out of Carol Reed’s The Third Man. So the main touch Searle brings to this film is his ability to confound – if you look at most biographies they damn him as a "B movie director". He wasn’t. Well, not always.

Director Francis Searle (central) on location in London’s Paddington Station with Rona Anderson.

HN: Can we talk about a little more about the film’s background? Why did Hammer choose to make the character of Whispering Smith central? It was released not long after Dick Barton at Bay (1950) which the studio decided would be the last of that series. Do you think there was a plan for Smith to be the new Barton, with an ongoing series of his own?

SR: I don’t think it was a deliberate plan. There’s a bit more to it, but John Gilling had written a crime script that did not feature Whispering Smith. James Carreras entered a production deal with an American producer who owned film rights to the Smith character and they spliced the two together – so it was a production of convenience. There were indeed plans for further films but the deal fizzled out and no more appeared.

HN: If memory serves, two versions of the film exist. Same basic narrative, but different titles and different scenes which give a slightly different flavour to both. Could you throw more light onto this, please? And will both versions be included in the Limited Collector’s Edition Range release?

SR: Yes, both are on there. The US version — retitled Whispering Smith vs Scotland Yard – is a slightly different edit and runs to, I think, seven minutes shorter. Hammer films of this vintage were often retitled and sometimes re-edited for the US market as the American distributors would tailor the content to their own audience.

US marketing material for the film which received it Stateside premiere in March, 1952, just a few weeks after its UK launch. The American trade publication Variety singled out the movie’s villainous partnership, noting, ‘Lom and Wheatley do well by their dirty work.’

HN: And could you tell us about the supporting material we can enjoy with this release?

SR: Well, there’s a new commentary on each version of the film, Noir expert Chris Alexander talks about what makes this particular Hammer film so great, a look at Herbert Lom’s films of the ’50s, a discussion of the whole "different versions of the same film" situation, an archive interview with Hammer editor Alfie Cox, an archive travelogue from 1951 about Bray village and the usual chunky booklet with numerous new articles on the film, actors and Hammer of this period.

HN: Sounds good. I bet that archive travelogue about Bray is an absolute delight, by the way. Love those. Now, I’ve asked you this question in relation to previous movies in the Limited Collector’s Edition Range, and I’ve not correctly anticipated your answer once… What’s your favourite moment in the film?

SR: That’s tricky – there’s a few to choose from this time. Possibly that grim scene with the creepy old geezer at the nursing home... I was going to say the street pursuit but I’ve already mentioned that a few times, so I’ll go with the scene where Smith first meets Lom’s character. It’s superbly shot and lit but watch Lom’s performance – the way he delivers his dialogue is sincere and warm, while his eyes, body language and general demeanour is in counterpoint to that, giving us something utterly unsettling. Masterclass. Plus puppets – lots of horrible-looking puppets.

Herbert Lom returned to Hammer to play the madman Petrie in The Phantom of the Opera (1962) and the duplicitous Doctor Hartz in The Lady Vanishes (1979).

HN: I know the scene. Gorgeous and macabre at the same time. In fact, when I watched Whispering Smith Hits London a few weeks ago I was surprised by how good Lom was as the sinister Roger Ford in that bit, and throughout the whole thing. (I know – I really shouldn’t have been!) The wealth of location filming and its remarkable cast also felt like treats. What pleasant surprises did the film hold for you?

SR: All of it was a pleasant surprise – I thought the entire film was a fabulous mix of unsettling strangeness, hard-nosed fisticuffs and just plain fun. It was exactly what I was not expecting and it hit the bullseye anyway.

That’s the thing with these rarely-seen Hammer films – like director Frank Searle they confound expectations. So many Hammer filmographies start at The Quatermass Xperiment and dismiss what came before in a few sentences and that does these films a real disservice. Restoring and presenting these rarities to a new audience alongside the stone cold classics like Curse of Frankenstein is our pleasure and our privilege.

HN: That begs the question, although it’s perhaps a little unfair, but in terms of Hammer’s non-horror output, where would you place this title? And what do you think people will love about it?

SR: In the league table of Hammer films I’d honestly put it up there in the top third. It’s unlikely there’s many people still with us who saw this film in cinemas and it’s been rarely seen since, so I think what people will love the most is the opportunity to see an old Hammer film as new. That’s got to be pretty cool.

Big thanks as ever to Steve Rogers for his time and insight. As mentioned above, Whispering Smith Hits London is available to pre-order now and another Hammer movie directed by Francis Searle, The Man in Black, is also part of the Limited Collector’s Edition Range. You can check out both titles and many more right here.