Howard Bretherton’s Whispering Footsteps is a near-feature length (technically a short film) noir drama where the lead character struggles to keep his patience against public suspicion of being a murderer. Written by Dane Lussier and Gertrude Walker, the movie comes from the early years of the classic film noir with a focus on the protagonist’s psychological state in most scenes.
John Hubbard plays Marcus Aurelius, a bank clerk in the small town of Medallion, Ohio, who finds his life embroiled in uninvited suspicion when descriptions of a murderer on the loose fit his own appearance. As his fellow boarders and acquaintances increasingly give him scrupulous looks, he risks losing his job and is driven to self-doubt and watching both his actions while battling his failing patience with sceptics.
Whispering Footsteps is good on the premise for its time. Being a suspect, in the eyes of others and himself, is one of the essential elements of a noir protagonist. Many scenes are centered on Hubbard’s inner, psychological conflict, creating a fair degree of mental fog around his character. However, the weaknesses of the production are obvious. Hubbard is shown as excessively nice and too much of a gentleman to be the murderer – which takes away from the audience’s share of confusion about his possibility of killing women.
The movie doesn’t put its background music to good use and moments of shock immediately lose their impact due to slack transitions between scenes. Joan Blair as Helene LaSalle makes a half-cooked femme fatale who is always more helpful than troublesome toward Hubbard. She appears and acts more like a lady than a femme fatale. The biggest let-down with the movie’s plot is the rushed reveal of the actual killer and lack of explanation for his motive behind the murders.
Bretherton’s Whispering Footsteps may make a relevant study item for film noir historians and students but not for those who have enjoyed the gems in the genre and are looking for more sparkle.
