Whispering Smith is a 1948 American Western film directed by Leslie Fenton and starring Alan Ladd as a railroad detective assigned to stop a gang of train robbers. The supporting cast includes Robert Preston, Brenda Marshall, Donald Crisp, and William Demarest.
Luke “Whispering” Smith (Ladd) is a by-the-book, no-nonsense railroad detective whose old friend, Murray Sinclair (Preston), has been fired from his own railroad job. Seeking vengeance, Sinclair begins helping outlaw Barney Rebstock (Crisp) hold up trains. Now, Smith must find and bring his old friend to justice… at any cost.
Tropes:
- Big Bad: Barney Rebstock, a powerful local Rancher, is also the head of the gang of train robbers that Smith is hunting. Smith is convinced Rebstock is the mastermind behind the gang, but is having trouble proving it.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: When the wounded Sinclair tries to shoot at the buckboard containing Marian and Bill, Smith steps out of hiding and shoots the rifle out of his hands,
- The Dragon: The sadistic and psychotic Whitey Du Sang is Barney Rebstock's right hand man and chief enforcer.
- Evil Former Friend: After his friend Murray Sinclair is fired from the railroad and begins helping Rebstock wreck trains, Smith must go after him.
- In the Back: Smith's Evil Former Friend Murray Sinclair attempts to put a Last Breath Bullet into Smith's back but expires before he can do so.
- Last Breath Bullet: Subverted. Especially shocking in that it's the hero's former best friend gone bad who's trying to take him with him.
- Pocket Protector: Smith shoots Leroy and Gabby Barton and is saved when a bullet is deflected by a harmonica in his pocket.
- Posse: After Rebstock's gang holds up a train and Whitey murders one of the guards, Smith and the sheriff form up a posse which they load up on to a train to get to where the train was robbed, and then head off on horseback after the gang.
- Protagonist Title
- Salvage Pirates: After being fired from the railroad, Murray Sinclair joins forces with Rebstock's gang of train robbers and uses his expertise as the former head of the railroad wrecker crew to cause train wrecks that Rebstock's gang then loot.
- Sesquipedalian Smith: Smith's first name is actually Luke, but most folks call him "Whispering" Smith.
- Shoot Out the Lock: Murray Sinclair shoots the lock off the switch he throws to cause his first train wreck.
- Siblings in Crime: At the start of the movie, Smith is pursuing the Barton brothers, Blake, Leroy, and Gabby; a trio of train robbers. Smith shoots and kill Leroy and Gabby, but Blake escapes,and later returns to take another pop at Smith.
- The Starscream: Whitey Du Sang is The Dragon to Big Bad Barney Rebstock. When the Posse is closing in on the gang at Rebstock's ranch, Rebstock tells the rest of the gang to scatter while he holds the posse off for as long as possible. While the rest of the gang obeys, Du Stang stays behind; believing that Rebstock plans to betray the gang to the posse and keep the loot for himself. He confronts Rebstock and kills him before attempting to steal the loot and dying in a shootout with the posse.
- Stealing from the Till: Murray Sinclair, the head of the wrecking crew, is fired from the railroad for helping himself to thousands of dollars worth of cargo from wrecked trains.
- Trail of Blood: When Smith arrives at Sinclair's ranch, he realises that Sinclair is wounded and inside when spots drops of blood on the porch leading inside .Smith pretends to leave and waits for Sinclair to reveal himself.
- Train Job: Luke "Whispering" Smith a railroad detective assigned to stop a gang of train robbers.
- "Wanted!" Poster: When the Barton brothers force the station agent at Coyote Creek to stop the train ,the agent looks at the three men, and then at the wanted poster on the wall, and realises the faces are the same.
