The Whisperers
Saturday March 13, 2010 in 60s cinema |
In 1967 Edith Evans was Oscar nominated for her role in the Bryan Forbes film The Whisperers. Although she lost out to Katherine Hepburn, Evans’ performance as Mrs Ross, the tired old lady lost in a world driven by the evils of money, is easily her best performance on film.
Although The Whisperers boasts an excellent John Barry soundtrack, it sits far away from the usual Barry fare of stylish spy thrillers typical of the decade. Barry’s long partnership with Forbes (which included the similarly moody Seance on a Wet Afternoon) allowed him to compose for a different view of the 60s, one shot in stark black and white where the poor struggled on a meagre existence. Forbes depicts this in the early scenes of The Whisperers; a cold and miserable winter, the library full of the old as they huddle against the warm pipes, the needy shuffling along a line at the social services.
Evans (who was nearing eighty at the time) is superb as Mrs Ross, slipping into dementia and believing both that she is watched by unseen guests in her room, the whisperers concealed within a dripping tap or behind the wall, and that she will soon receive the estate of her long dead father. Reality swirls around her, the young couple living above (who include Nanette Newman as the girl upstairs), an officious but kindly civil servant (Gerald Sim) and her wayward son Charlie (Ronald Fraser). Charlie sets the events of The Whisperers into motion, arriving unannounced and hiding a mysterious parcel in her flat. Although he only makes a fleeting appearance, Fraser gives his usual excellent performance, here instantly seedy, untrustworthy, trouble. Mrs Ross later receives a visit from a nosey social worker (Kenneth Griffith, another brief but excellent performance), which leads her to finding Charlie’s parcel – stolen money which she believes to be her inheritance.
The Whisperers has dated in how far a pound will go (at one point Mrs Ross loses a pound note and it is reported to the police), but is nevertheless still effective in showing how far the desperate might go to get their hands on the smallest of fortunes. Mrs Ross is plied with drinks by an unscrupulous woman and left unconscious by the side of the road by her husband (the fine character actor Michael Robbins from On the Buses). All for ten pounds. Miraculously, she survives the ordeal and another social worker (Leonard Rossiter – the brilliant cameos come thick and fast) tracks down her estranged (and, for the purposes of the plot, ten years younger) husband Archie. Archie Ross is more dream casting in the great Eric Portman, who portrays him with just the right mixture of resigned failure and last ditch ambition. Archie’s dream for the quick quid lead him, just like many of the others in The Whisperers, straight into oblivion.
Bryan Forbes has crafted an outstanding film that contrasts a dreamy mood piece personified by the hazy world of Mrs Ross with one that depicts a very sleazy picture of the 1960s. It’s a familiar one; dreary betting shops, petty gangsters in flashy cars and a craze of unrestrained and ruthless demolition serving as a backdrop (one of my favourite scenes is of Archie, working as a part time driver for a criminal gang, waiting by a demolished wasteland where only a small, single public house remains). The Whisperers was filmed at Pinewood Studios and on location in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Like Seance on a Wet Afternoon it makes excellent use of location resulting in, whether intended or not, a curious and fascinating period piece.
Unfortunately The Whisperers is not currently available on DVD, although it does feature in tv schedules from time to time and is well worth investigating for its cast of fantastic actors, of course for Edith Evans but especially for Eric Portman. And also to see the side of the sixties not often portrayed so desperately on film at the time; one that didn’t swing and didn’t revolve around a chosen London few.