Whispering City

Intriguing thriller in Quebec involving all kinds of suspense tricks including old murders and new, fake murders and phantoms, haunting memories and romance, suicide and a poor brilliant pianist working on his debut under the terror of his intolerably intolerant wife. The intrigue is difficult to follow as it develops all the time with surprising turns into upside down turbulence, but it nevertheless sticks together and adds up in the end. If you regard the piano concerto ('the Quebec concerto') as the hub around which everything evolves, you'll find it a rather masterful composition of intrigue, cinematography and music - in brief, nothing is actually missing in this intricately spiced stew of a very complicated but exotic repast. It's even worth watching again for enjoying the details.

This is a very good Canadian film. On the face of it, one would expect a strictly routine lady reporter investigating some unusual doings, but it's much more than that. I won't spoil the intricate plot, but it does take concentration to follow. Paul Lukas is, of course, his usual magnificent self The camera work is especially good and the backdrop of a city that most Americans didn't see very much of on the screen is quite good. The classical tone set by Helmut Dantine's character's composition, The Quebec Concerto, is very impressive.

One realizes who the villain is from his first appearance and yet the movie achieves not quite Hitchcockian suspense by the end. This is indeed an unjustly overlooked film.

This unusual Quebec production from 1947 presents good acting in a thriller context, but unfortunately goes overboard in the final reels with unbelievable, even silly plot twists designed to keep the pot boiling. That turns a serious effort at an alternative to the dominant Hollywood films into just a B-movie curio.

Mary Anderson, who was featured notably in Hitchcock's ensemble cast thriller "Lifeboat" is strong as the female lead. She's a crime reporter for the Quebec newspaper who digs her teeth into a cold case that ultimately gets her into trouble with the murderer, still on the scene, who got away with that old crime.

She gets romantically involved with a pianist/symphony composer, nicely underplayed by Helmut Dantine and has an adversary, a powerful lawyer played by Paul Lukas. Supporting cast is weak, except for Joy Lafleur, flamboyant as Dantine's ailing wife.

Anderson's serious pursuit of the crime story is well developed, but as the villain manipulates events, the screenplay becomes strained and leads to a ridiculous climax scene. Some serious rewriting could hae saved this movie.

Whispering City is a 1947 film starring Paul Lukas, Mary Anderson, and Helmut Dantine, directed by Fyodor Otsep.

Mary Anderson is Mary Roberts, a reporter in Quebec who goes to a hospital to interview a dying actress. The woman tells her that her wealthy, well-known fiance did not die in an accident but was murdered.

Her editor doesn't think it warrants a story, but later, the woman's diary is sent to her. She then becomes a threat to the murderer, attorney Albert (Lukas).

Knowing how miserable his composer client Michel (Dantine) is in his marriage, he fakes the spouse's suicide, which is exposed as murder. He offers to alibi Michel if he will kill Mary.

Well, this movie is no Strangers on a Train or the Quebec-set I Confess, but it's okay. I always thought Mary Anderson was so pretty and graceful; she's lovely here. Oscar winner Paul Lukas makes a good villain, and handsome Dantine acquits himself well.

This was the last film directed by the Russian director Fedor Ozep (i.e., Fyodor Otsep), who had been the husband of Anna Sten. (He had directed THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV in 1931, Stefan Zweig's AMOK in 1934, etc.) As a Quebec production set in Quebec City and at the spectacular Montmorency Falls, this film has a strange history, because it was first shot in French in the same year under the title of LA FORTERESSE, and then re-shot in English with a different cast. The English version is 98 minutes long and the French version 99 minutes long (perhaps because the French speak less fast?) Two French Canadian actresses carried over to the new cast, though in minor roles. In this second version, Paul Lukas does an excellent job of portraying a suave art-lover, music-lover, and cultural philanthropist who is secretly a psychopathic killer. Pert young girl reporter Mary Roberts (Marie Roberts in the French version), played by the charming Mary Anderson, who had been discovered previously by Hitchcock and appeared in LIFEBOAT, does an excellent job of beguiling us and everyone else with her girlish smile as she tries to expose Lukas as a murderer. Lukas's musical protégé of the moment is a handsome young pianist and composer played by Helmut Dantine, who is a creative but tortured soul married to a hysterical wife, who is played by Joy Lafleur. (In LA FORTERESSE, this part had been played by Mimi D'Estee, who in the English language film is given a small part of a dying woman, which, however, she brings off with style.) All of these people do a very good job, and the direction and atmosphere are excellent. The film is notable for the use of a modern piano concerto by the Canadian composer Morris C. David, and with the piano played by Neil Chotem. So classical music and orchestras figure largely in the story. Canada was not known for its feature films at this time, and Canada in American minds was then thought of as a thin strip of land separating the northern border of the United States from the Arctic Circle, populated largely by polar bears and Esquimaux. So this was an early attempt by an infant Canadian film industry to assert itself, to prove that Canadians actually existed and even had their own cities, even though it was all done with a borrowed Russian exile as a director, a Hungarian exile as the bad guy, a Viennese exile as the good guy, etc. But it works. The Canadians can and should be proud of it. I wonder what the original French language version was like, with largely home talent speaking Quebec dialect. The film has a great deal of intensity and is a genuine film noir, which proves, I suppose that whatever that mysterious substance known as 'noir' really is, it does not freeze at the higher latitudes and can survive the northern climes with its vitality intact.