The Whispering Chorus

Back in the day movie directors weren't household names as they are today. Besides comedians Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle, directors of their own movies, the general public was largely unfamiliar with those helming their films behind the camera--that is with the exception of Cecil B. DeMille. Producing a string of successful films, DeMille purposely didn't pigeonhole himself into one particular genre. His March 1918 "The Whispering Chorus," an expressionistic, psycho thriller, proved the director was bold enough to branch out into areas rarely addressed in cinema up to this point.

"The Whispering Chorus" pleased movie critics with its stylized sophistication, bolstered by his art director Wilford Buckland, who created a darkened aura of what could be labeled a noir world where a devious act leads to life changing events. Buckland's Renaissance lighting highlights the leading character's angst of his act while secondary details lurking in the background augment his anxiety.

An underpaid account clerk for a large construction company embezzles a few thousand dollars to sustain his family while a panoply of voices in his head, the whispering chorus, lend him conflicting advice. He disappears when an investigation into the short account begins, leaving his bewildered wife. He devises a scheme when he comes upon a dead body to make it appear the corpse is him. Caught later with the clerk's ID, he's charged unbeknownst to police of killing himself.

Longtime screenwriter to DeMille, Jeanie Macpherson, adapted her intriguing script from a Perley Sheehan story, which could easily be confused with a later Raymond Chandler or James Cain potboiler. Her scenario gave DeMille the chance to frame a series of symbolic images throughout, including rose pedals falling to the floor as an electronic switch is pulled.

This 82 minute silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille was somewhat ahead of its time, being a serious attempt to film a drama of conscience in all its harrowing complexities. The 'whispering chorus' of the title consists of the rival impulses of the anti-hero, John Tremble, who is played by Raymond Hatton. A filmic device was used which may seem corny to us today, but at the time was doubtless very effective and perhaps innovative, namely the appearance on screen of diaphanous heads of good and bad people whispering to Tremble in his ear things like 'go ahead and do it' or 'an honourable person would not do such a thing'. Tremble is a man who is a bit too narcissistic for his own good, which is all too familiar to us today with the rise of smart phones from which people cannot extract their noses. Preoccupation with 'self' to the exclusion of all else has possibly become today's main social psychological problem. But in 1918 this ailment was still in its traditional form, known as selfishness. Tremble gives way to the bad voices of his whispering choruses and because he feels so sorry for himself and his lack of a new overcoat, steals some money from his employer. He has previously gambled away his last few dollars and staged a petulant scene at home in front of the miniature Christmas tree and his long-suffering wife and mother, tossing aside their small presents as being insignificant. Such spoilt-brat behaviour is bound to lead to doom, and as doom is always eagerly waiting for people to fall into it (as it has an insatiable maw) the anti-hero duly sinks into hopeless moral compromise. He disdains what he has got, namely a devoted wife and happy home, and wants what he cannot readily have except by theft. But then his theft is discovered and, to avoid going to jail, he fakes his own death and absconds to Cincinnati. (All of the action takes place in cities along the river, though the only locations we see are waterside ones.) He lives the life of a labourer and vagabond, becomes maimed and disfigured, and has a very rough time. Meanwhile his wife (played by Kathlyn Williams) has obtained a well paid job and after some years remarries a man who becomes the Governor of his state (played by Elliot Dexter). Tremble, having 'killed himself', then ironically ends up being caught many years later and charged with his own murder, as he is assumed to be the other man (whose body he had fished out of the river dead, and had not killed). All the complications one can imagine result from this state of affairs. The film is thus a very early 'film noir'. It is certainly not cheerful viewing. This film was preserved and restored by my old friend Dave Shepard, who died earlier this year. I would like to pay tribute to him, as a genuine hero of the history of the cinema. We knew each other when we were young. By a strange coincidence, when I was seventeen I independently met and befriended the stage actor John Griggs, one of the most passionate early collectors and preservers of old movies. It was only afterwards that I met Dave. It turned out that John Griggs had been Dave's mentor from the time he was a boy, as they lived near each other in New Jersey. I may be the only person left alive now who knew John Griggs, who was himself such a delightful and amusing man and enthusiast for early cinema. He had amassed over the decades a gigantic collection of 35mm prints of silent films, and this collection passed to Dave, giving him a huge head start in his career as a film preservationist. I well remember a short documentary film which Dave directed in his early twenties about children's games. He shot it mostly in a playground on 16mm in black and white and made a serious effort to understand children's mentality. It was very charming. He was always basically a sentimentalist. That film is not listed at IMDb, and I have forgotten its title. I am certain it was never distributed, and Dave was n t satisfied with it; indeed, I liked it better than he did. This DeMille film is not included in the partial list of restorations by Dave in his Wikipedia entry, but then he restored so many, there is probably no complete list of them in existence. Who knows, maybe the original print came from John Griggs. Dave and I used to discuss Eisenstein, Buster Keaton, and D. W. Griffith endlessly, and also foreign films. It was René Clément's FORBIDDEN GAMES (1952), which we both so greatly admired, which inspired Dave to want to make his own little documentary about children's games. All true cinema lovers owe a debt to Dave Shepard which they can only repay by watching as many as possible of the films which Dave loved so much and to which he dedicated his life to save and preserve for others to enjoy. Here's to you, Dave.

Cecil B. DeMille himself described this early feature as one of the first 'psychological' films ever made, but it's actually a more-or-less typical late-Victorian Age cautionary fable, expressed (as might be expected) with a heavy dose of morality and melodrama. The story shows how a single moment of weakness (in this case the desperate embezzlement of $1,000 by a poverty-stricken bookkeeper) will ultimately lead to misfortune, and worse. Haunted by a guilty conscience, the long-suffering victim gambles away (in the following order) his savings, his self-respect, his family, and finally his own identity. Reduced at last to a penniless, crippled vagrant, he is finally arrested and, after a series of misunderstandings, charged with his own murder! Most of the heavy-handed exposition and delivery is hilarious when seen today, and the inadvertent humor kills the lingering impact of the film's often striking (for 1918) visual artistry.

It's interesting how demille studied the market and constantly sabotaged his own films for better sales when that wasn't really a thing back then between directors/producers. Im sure all the erotic,promiscuous, submission, branding and sacrifice scenes sold well back then and they would today. I'm not saying you cant have them but in demille's films they make no sense and are there simply to sell more tickets. I don't know why i liked his 1910s films cause having watched them again, they're incredibly stupid. Carmen would be better without carmen. So is male and female without the male female aspect. The squaw man and the virginian are boring and amateurish and it's a miracle they were received that well but its clear why they were.

Which brings us to the whispering chorus which is actually pretty good until the last 20-30min. Other than the characters that have no progression or change (john is the dumbass, and others are the kind good people all throughout), The story has some focus unlike his other films during the teens that jump between many different unrelated subjects (usually bold and controversial ones like miscegenation, heredity, sexual submission, racism, ... ) and the disjointed parts come together naturally. But like the rest, it goes downhill on a pathetic attempt to end on a high note and have the audience leave satisfied.

I knew the film would end with a "sacrifice" without even watching it. Why? Because all his 1910s films have a heroic sacrifice that's incredibly insanely stupid. His first film, the squaw man 1914, ends both parts of the story with a sacrifice. Male and female, old wives for new and .... have one too. The cheat 1915 ends with a double back to back sacrifice as if the asian guy was the villain here.

And in the whispering chorus, you guessed it, another super stupid sacrifice where john dies to save jane. Save jane from what?!!! Her hardships (if there'd be any) are nothing compared to his death. The dramatization of her supposed problems is idiotic. Each scene here is idiotic in context because they were made independent of one another without thinking about the overall film. And how are you gonna have a film called "the whispering chorus" that starts with a poem about it and not consider that maybe killing an innocent man would hunt her for the rest of her life!

I don't think a film is good/bad because i agree/disagree with its message or even not having any message. But when the morals are the focus of your films and you're incapable of conveying them because you had to add these scenes to sell more tickets, then the film is bad based on what it wanted to achieve.

This release marks the end of the recent silent Cecil B. DeMille double features for the time being and in many ways is the best of the lot thanks to the study in contrasts it provide. It features two films made back to back by DeMille in 1918. One is a moody psychological drama with expressionistic overtones while the other marks the beginning of a series of films which would explore the changes in society brought about by World War I.

OLD WIVES FOR NEW takes a look at postwar mores and suggests that the status quo is no longer so. As the title implies this is a film about divorce and divorce as a solution to marital problems, a then unheard of idea which clearly sets the stage for what took place during the 1920's regarding public morality. Basically a domestic drama with moments of comedy, WIVES charts the course of six characters whose interactions propel the story along while making shrewd observations that are still with us today. The scene where the lead character remembers his wife as she once was is both poignant and honest in its emotions. The cast is uniformly fine with Theodore Roberts a standout as the philandering business partner who comes to a bad end.

Just before WIVES DeMille released his most startling and revolutionary film THE WHISPERING CHORUS which shows him following D. W. Griffith's lead in trying to expand the boundaries of contemporary cinema. The story of a poor bookkeeper who embezzles funds to provide for his wife only to fake his death to avoid detection sets the stage for the cruel twist of fate that resolves the film. Along the way DeMille uses a number of stylistic tricks to enhance the downbeat elements most notably the use of multiple exposures to signify "the whispering chorus", those voices we all have inside our heads that tell us what and what not to do. Raymond Hatton is marvelous as the lowly clerk who undergoes a number of transformations before facing up to the aforementioned cruel twist of fate that brings the movie to a stunning conclusion. It's a pity that he was primarily used in supporting roles throughout his career.

CHORUS is my favorite among the early DeMille titles currently available. Although this transfer looks really good for the most part, the color tints are oversaturated in some places but that can be corrected by adjusting the color intensity on your set downward. WIVES looks better overall as it has only a few wear and tear problems at the very beginning. As a silent film enthusiast if you were to get only one of the DeMille twin bills then this is the one. It shows him at the top of his game as a silent film director and shows the direction that he was headed in, becoming the unofficial harbinger of public taste, something which rarely failed him over the rest of his remarkable career...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.