The Whip Hand (1951)
Directed by William Cameron Menzies

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.

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...