The Whispering Chorus

Raymond Hatton who had a long and distinguished career since the very beginning of film is usually remembered for playing cantankerous old cusses as sidekicks in western films. But back in 1918 he was the protagonist/lead in Cecil B. DeMille's The Whispering Chorus, the story of a man tried and convicted for his own murder.

The character Hatton plays seems to be cursed. He embezzles from his boss and fearing discovery flees from his wife and mother. He gets what he considers a stroke of luck finding the body of a derelict. He mutilates the body and takes the dead man's identity. That would seem to guarantee success.

But here the cops get it backwards and declare Hatton under his real identity dead and the dead man wanted for the murder of Hatton. Quite a rude awakening when Hatton returns after 12 years.

Furthermore his wife marries a man who is now the governor of the state and he's played by DeMille silent regular Elliot Dexter. Quite the jackpot Hatton finds himself in.

The title The Whispering Chorus comes from the ghostly heads that appear to Hatton emphasizes every aspect of his nature. He has a genius for choosing the wrong path every time, listening to bad advice from his chorus of ghostly heads.

The special effects were state of the art for 1918, but DeMille also had a good story to work with and Hatton while such a loser does manage to obtain audience sympathy. In some ways this anticipates what Eugene O'Neill did on stage in Strange Interlude.

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.

Raymond Hatton is "John Tremble - 2nd Assistant Cashier of the Clumley Contracting Company." He hears voices from the Hall of Echoes. Kathlyn Williams is "Jane Tremble - his wife." Eventually, she will hear voices of her own. Elliott Dexter is "'Fighting' George Coggeswell - A far-seeing young legislator who heads a commission with extraordinary powers to investigate the muddy waters of the state's politics." He tilts the scale of justice with pipe ashes.

Mr. Hatton is stuck in a $25 a week dead end job, with no hope for the future; living with his mother (Edythe Chapman) he is unable to even buy a cheap little dress for Ms. Williams, for Christmas. To make ends meet, Mr. Hatton embezzles $10.000 from his company. Plagued by guilt (and an investigation), Hatton drops out of sight, for a couple of days. Whilst fishing, he reels in a dead man, and decides to exchange identity with the deceased Edgar Smith. He becomes Smith, and very unwisely (as it turns out) frames him for both the Tremble embezzlement, and the murder of Tremble - so that he may achieve martyrdom. Then, he becomes a fugitive…

This is an epic psychological drama; always interesting, it slowly becomes more and more unnerving, even horrific. The crescendo of images and plot build wildly, to an INTENSE ending. The film sometimes appears to be off-track, but winds up a tightly woven nightmare. There are SO MANY images to praise - but, just watch... Also, look for the cross-cutting as Hatton fishes for a dead body while Dexter fishes for Tremble - then, later, Tremble hooks up with a Chinatown prostitute while his wife marries Dexter.

Director Cecil B. DeMille and the production team are in peak condition. Hatton, remembered mainly as a "supporting" or "character" actor, performs supremely in the lead role; he effectively portrays the "slow acid of discontent steadily consuming" the soul of John Tremble. Williams shows some psychological problems of her own. Noah Berry has an important role as a longshoreman who guiltily houses Hatton, after unintentionally crippling him.

It's difficult to believe this film was released in 1918, and has received relatively little acclaim. It's a NOT TO BE MISSED silent classic.

********** The Whispering Chorus (3/28/18) Cecil B. DeMille ~ Raymond Hatton, Kathlyn Williams, Elliott Dexter, Noah Berry

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 very early film by Cecil B. DeMille presents quite a moral problem. A man, working a thankless job and having trouble providing for his wife and mother, decides to embezzle some money. Knowing he is going to be discovered, he takes off and hides in a makeshift shelter. As he goes fishing he discovers a dead man who is up against the shoreline. Basically, he uses the dead man as part of a plot to take pressure off himself. This is well crafted with the final act done as only it could be. The acting is pretty good for early silent era. The technique of using ghostly characters is hit an miss. It's like the old cartoons where an angel and a devil occupy two opposing shoulders. Not a bad silent film.