The Whip Hand (1951)

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Matt Corbin (Elliott Reid) is a magazine writer on a fishing trip in Winnoga, Minnesota. He discovers all the fish in the town's lake are dead and the locals are none too friendly. He starts nosing around and finds himself in the middle of a Communist plot to overthrow America with germ warfare. The original story for this had Nazis as the villains instead of Communists. But producer Howard Hughes felt Reds were more timely so the story was changed to Communists who used to be Nazis. Which is all kinds of hilarious if you think about it.Elliott Reid, a fine character actor I've seen in tons of stuff, is an atypical lead but does a solid job. His big romantic scene is a pretty big fail, though. Frank Darien is fun as the elderly general store owner who tries to help Reid. Carla Balenda, no doubt given the female lead by Hughes, offers a bland and forgettable turn here. I don't think she changed facial expressions more than twice. Raymond Burr plays one of the Commies. He's the most famous actor in the movie. The rest of the cast is made up of lesser-known but quality actors, some of which classic movie fans might recognize (Lurene Tuttle, for one). Perhaps the most pleasant surprise about this movie is that it's directed by William Cameron Menzies, legendary production designer whose directorial efforts include Things to Come and Invaders from Mars. Menzies gives this movie a stylish direction lacking in most other '50s Red Scare flicks. The movie looks like a film noir, not a political thriller. It's a beautiful-looking black & white movie. Whether you take the story seriously or not, I don't see how you can deny it's a well-crafted film of its type. It's a reasonably suspenseful thriller with some style and some neat creepy moments late in the film.

****SPOILERS**** The movie "The Whip Hand" was to be about a Nazi spy ring in the US planning to use biological and chemical, or WMD's as their known now, to wipe out the entire US population. But with the war, WWII, over it was decided by producer Howard Hughes to change the format and substitute the Nazis as Commies or even better yet Nazis who converted to Communism making them twice as evil. We the audience get the drift of what's going on in the movie with a speech by some Communist big-shot in the Kremlin speaking in Russian, without any subtitles, about the plan the Commies have to destroy America that's to originate out of the sleepy little Minnesota ghost town of Winnoga.It's in Winnoga that our hero photojournalist Matt Corbin, Elliott Reid, is on vacation on a fishing trip and ends up getting his skull fractured while running for cover when a violent storm breaks out. Looking to get help Corbin runs into Dr.Edward Keller, Edgar Barrier, who together with his in house sister and part-time nurse Janet, Carla Balenda, treat his wound. It's not that long that Corbin decides to stay in town to check out the fishing which he finds out that the fish, or trout, have all died out from a mysterious virus some five years ago. It soon becomes apparent to Corbin that the Commies had landed and with their Nazi allies are planning to take over the United States by polluting it's water supply if nothing is done, by him, to stop them.****SPOILERS**** With Janet, despite her brother working for the Commie/Nazis, joining him in his fight for America's survival Corbin starts to uncover a secret underground hideout that the Communists and their Nazi allies are using in them experimenting their secret weapons. That's toe used to turn the entire population of the US into an army of mind numb Zombies and tips off the FBI & CIA as well as the local authorities where it is. The entire operation is run by fugitive Nazi now Communist fanatic Dr. Wilhelm Bucholtz,Otto Waldis, who with the help of his Nazi friends and paid off US immigration officials claimed to be a holocaust survivor. It's the crazed but brilliant Dr. Bucholtz who like the Japaneses kamikazes of WWII is ready and willing to die for his cause world wide Communism and has already created an army of Zombies, who walk around aimlessly bumping into each other, to achieve that evil goal. It's Corbin who later breaks into Bucholtz's underground bunker and with the help of his just created Zombies puts an end to his wild crazy and hair-brained dreams. P.S Check out a graying and very rotund Raymond Burr as Steve Loomis one of Dr. Bucholtz's evil henchmen.

The man who directed and designed this film, William Cameron Menzies, was one of the great unheralded geniuses in the history of film. More than almost anyone he raised set and production design to the level of art; and his sets for the silent Fairbanks Thief Of Baghdad are still eye-popping. Menzies will probably be best-remembered as production designer of Gone With the Wind, a film he largely molded visually, and whose best scenes bear his unmistakable stamp. Alas, Menzies was never a good director, though his films are often interesting to look at. A good example is his 1953 Invaders From Mars. The Whip Hand, though, is just awful; dreadful script, poor acting, no pace; and it doesn't even have the Menzies 'look'. Yet as a period piece it is not without interest. It starts beautifully, in a studio-designed rustic setting (and the best set in the film); and then a rainstorm soaks a vacationing fisherman, who proceeds to go into the local town and ask for help in getting treatment for a head injury he sustained when he fell against a rock. The townfolk turn out to be even harder than the rock he hit his head against. They refuse to be more than perfunctorily friendly (with the exception of a superficially outgoing and jokey Raymond Burr), and are continually contradicting one another. It seems that there are strange doings on a lodge across the lake; and nocturnal visits to the lodge by the doctor, who doesn't want to talk about it. As things turn out, Communists have taken over this Minnesota town and turned it into a center for the study of germ warfare! This movie could have been so good. I was rooting for it all the way; hoping against hope that it would get its act together and finally work,--dramatically, logically, thespically. But it never did. The heavy hand of Howard Hughes had a good deal to do with ruining what slight chance this movie had of being good, as it was originally supposed to be about Nazis, and he decided, as studio chief, that he knew better, so he ordered much of the film re-shot to make the villains Russian agents instead. I'm surprised he didn't put Jane Russell in it as well. Lang, Hitchcock or even Siodmak might have worked wonders with the material. Menzies himself might have done better had his employer showed better taste and judgment. The movie's worth seeing if only for the spectacle of gifted people making asses of themselves both in front of and behind the camera, as there are flashes of real talent here and there.

Atrocious. The first 20 minutes or so are competent, establishing the normally reliable premise of a curious stranger stumbling upon a paranoid, hostile town. But "Bad Day At Black Rock" this isn't. At a certain point, the viewer develops the queasy feeling that the producers gave up and said "Oh to hell with it. We don't know what we're doing here. What do you say we just try to wrap things up and go bowling?" Bad performances abound, especially from "leading man" Elliott Reid (sort of a poor man's Farley Granger) who does everything except raise his eyebrow and stroke his chin whenever he puts together another piece of the puzzle. Whoever plays the pitiful old shopkeeper rather embarrassingly seems to break character a couple times. The only person who leaves any kind of favorable impression is Raymond Burr (playing a sleazy local). He hams it up entertainingly, undoubtedly aware of how awful the whole thing is.There is one incredibly weak exchange during a supposedly suspenseful chase towards the end. Reid and his cardboard love interest are trying to escape and he inquires "Are you wearing a watch?" She answers in the affirmative. His matter of fact reply? "Good." I half expected her to fire back with "Yes. Did you comb your hair?" At another point the love interest is in a reflective mode. "I can't believe my brother's a Communist" she states sadly. I want to say that Reid responds with "Yeah, tough break huh?" but it's hard to recall. I had lost a number of brain cells by that point.The last ten minutes of this sorry excuse for a motion picture have to be seen to be believed. Just goes to show that clunkers were indeed made back then as well. Then again it is quite unintentionally funny if one watches it in the right frame of mind.