Whispering Smith (1948)
A decent if not outstanding western starring Alan Ladd as a law enforcement officer on the railroads who returns to his old stamping grounds to find best friend Robert Preston has joined an unscrupulous band of train wreckers.
Whispering Smith was Ladd's first starring western and first in technicolor, his easygoing character with a ruthless edge set the template for many westerns to come and made him a firm favourite among genre fans and he's very good here.
In fact the whole film is good, it's attractively shot, has good production values, many railroad sequences and a decent cast accompanying Ladd, but whilst a good film, it's certainly not a classic of the genre as the plot is a little formulaic at times and perhaps doesn't quite grip as much as it should. Perhaps watched on it's own i may think differently but the night following the excellent
Last Train from Gun Hill wasn't the best time to watch another railroad western.
Following this second viewing i was left wondering if someone had either read du Mauriers's novel or at the very least seen Hitchcock's film of
Jamaica Inn from ten years previous and decided to adapt it as a western.
Shit goes down at Medicine Bend.