The Whisperers

This may be the bleakest of all the 'kitchen sink' movies, (it is unremittingly gloomy) and Bryan Forbes' picture of the British Welfare State in the 1960's has an almost Dickensian feel to it. But then Forbes always seemed to work better with subjects which didn't lend themselves to levity.

It's the story of Mrs Ross, a pensioner living on her own and beset by the voices one hears when one is so lonely and in the part Edith Evans is quite magnificent. If you think Evans too patrician for the part of an old woman living in a working class district of an industrial, mostly derelict and rain-sodden city, she does point out that 'she married beneath her' and since she is hardly ever off the screen this is a real tour-de-force, (and she was nominated for the Oscar for it as well as winning a whole slew of other awards). There are also first-rate supporting performances from the wonderful Avis Bunnage and the always consistently reliable Gerald Sim and Eric Portman, terrific as her errand husband). Unfortunately the film's sub-plots involving stolen money and some gangsters seems superfluous and gives the film a somewhat melodramatic air and its down-beat mood meant it was never a popular success and it is hardly ever revived. But seek it out, all the same; it is certainly worth seeing.

The supremely versatile film-maker, Bryan Forbes directs a remarkably bleak and eerily unsettling treatise on the multifarious cruelties inherent with old age. 'The Whisperers' (1967) remains a forceful, extraordinarily persuasive work of melancholic cinema that has lost none of its considerable power to enthral and perturb with equally forceful cinematic rigour! It would be greatly remiss of me if I failed to praise maestro, John Barry's truly magnificent score!

No small admirer of, Brian Forbes's dazzlingly ecclectic cinema, I passionately believe that 'The Whisperers' remains one of his finest films. Exquisitely shot, with exemplary performances, the magisterial, Edith Evans on positively mesmeric form, movingly delivering one of cinema's most genuinely affecting performances. It is tantamount to a cultural travesty that this monochrome masterpiece has long been allowed to mildew away in undeserved obscurity. 'The Whisperers', along with the equally unsettling existential nightmare 'Séance on a Wet Afternoon' are arguably two of the more compelling dramas produced during the UK's dynamic Renaissance of the 1960s. Hopefully some tasteful, forward-thinking celluloid archivist might soon release this exceptionally fine film on a restored, features-packed Blu-ray!

What really hooked me into this film, right from the first shots of the opening credits, was the fantastic photography in here. This is one beautiful-looking black-and-white film.

The superb work of photographer Gerry Turpin and Director Bryan Forbes made this bleak story all the better with just the right amount of closeups and odd-angle shots, and some striking film noir-like light and shadows. This would be a stunner in high-definition.

Then, of course, you have the wonderful acting by Edith Evans, who plays the central character, "Mrs. Ross." Some think she got robbed out of the Oscar the year this was eligible, and they may be right. Not to be overlooked was Eric Portman, who entered the movie about halfway through and he, too, was riveting. He played "Archie," the long-departed husband who comes back (reluctantly) to his now-ailing wife. Portman almost takes over the spotlight in the second-half of the film, but it's still Evans' being the one you'll remember most and the undisputed star of the film.

Yes, the story is a bit sordid in a few spots but I didn't find it depressing, as others have. Instead, I just marveled at the camera-work and considered the story a good character study.

It's a pity this film isn't better-known. It deserves a bigger audience.

First off, I want to say that I am drawn to movies that have, at their core, a genuine feeling of sadness for humanity. It's not so much that these films offer a pessimistic view of the world - although, I guess you can label it that way - as they just seem to have a clear understanding of the horribly awful things we often do to one another.

Shot in black and white, in perpetually fogged out/drizzly England, this story of one older woman's loneliness and dementia tinged world is about 5 steps down into the dungeon of depressing. It offers a kind of sad relief - the kind that comes from knowing that, although things are terrible, they could be much, much worse.

I've always been one to not quite understand the desire for a "feel good" movie. All movies, if they work as they should, will leave you feeling better for having seen them - whether silly or serious. This is one of those films.

Dame Edith Evans, one of the British theater's greatest actresses of the first half of the twentieth century, gives a brilliant performance as a lonely old lady existing in seedy rented rooms in a grimy industrial town while scraping by on National Assistance. This film should be shown to everyone on their first day of work, before they fill out their tax deferred pension withholdings. If ever there was a good lesson for putting something away for one's old age, it is this film. It is a horror story of "This is what's going to happen to you if you don't start putting something aside for your old age."

Mrs. Ross lives alone in poverty despite a family of sorts, a work-shy husband who deserted her and a son who only comes by to hide stolen loot while pretending to visit. Her rooms are a disorderly clutter of books, old newspapers, glass bottles and anything she doesn't want to throw away. Her endless days are filled with visits to the local library reading room, to keep warm; the local mission church; the police station, to complain about the neighbors; and the social security office, to beg for more public assistance; which is doled out a few shillings at a time.

To escape this grim reality Mrs. Ross builds a fantasy world not unlike Luis in "Kiss of the Spider Woman". She exists in her fantasy of a privileged upbringing as the daughter of a Bishop, living in a palace, and watching the white gloved dancers at a ball. She awaits the settling of her fantasy father's estate and the fortune from the family cattle business. When she finds stolen money hidden by her shiftless son during a quick visit, she believes that her ship has finally come home and her fantasies are reality. It is not long before the vulnerable old lady is "befriended" and robbed by a steely eyed con woman, and dumped in an alley near her home. Although the welfare people do all they can to get her back on her feet and her husband to take care of her, by the film's end she has come full circle and has resumed her daily routine and her fantasy world.

Dame Edith, who was the original "St. Joan" on stage in the 1920's, and for whom Shaw wrote "The Millionairess" is rarely off the screen and gives a faultless performance in what could otherwise be a very depressing film about poverty and loneliness. Where at first you sympathise with the old lady who has come down in the world and is now living in genteel poverty, you come to understand that she never went up in the first place, the only genteel world she ever inhabited was in her mind, and that is where she now resides.

As for an acting tour de force, just watching the way Dame Edith conveys the lowly origins of Mrs. Ross without words, as in the way she eats - out of tins - lifting large slices of bread to her mouth (where they fall apart) rather than cutting the slice to small manageable portions, licking her fingers, reading at the table - all the things considered to be bad manners. The way she conveys old tired poverty, by slipping off her shoes in the library to warm her feet on the hot pipes, is a lesson in technique that all aspiring actors should take note of. You know as you watch her slowly make her way down the cobbled streets carrying her large tote bag that this pathetic old lady is a prime target for a mugging, or a slip and fall. I would recommend this film to anyone who wants to study great acting and to those who are concerned with the plight of the elderly.