"Whispering Smith hits London" spins a tale about a private detective whose simple desire for a quiet holiday gets thwarted. Shamed into investigating a suspicious suicide, he finds himself wading through a morass of crime, blackmail and obsession. The movie is a pleasantly entertaining work with a suitably labyrinthine plot. It also boasts a number of interesting, indeed fascinating characters. The whole functions well enough, but lacks the bitter conviction or misanthropic gusto that might have turned it into a hardboiled noir masterpiece. Plus, let's face it, when it comes to actors the Humphrey Bogarts of this world are few and far between...
The beginning is pretty funny, depicting the arrival of a bouquet-toting starlet who longs for peace and solitude - and for lots and lots of newspapermen, of course.
Anyway, "Whispering Smith" is plagued by a plot hole that is difficult to explain away. After some initial misgivings our private detective hero reluctantly agrees to investigate a suicide case. Before long he is doing all the things any competent investigator would do : he interviews friends, traces witnesses, visits relevant locations and so on. So why does he fail to arm himself with some kind of photograph or portrait of the deceased, which, surely, should have been one of the very first things to do ?
The beginning is pretty funny, depicting the arrival of a bouquet-toting starlet who longs for peace and solitude - and for lots and lots of newspapermen, of course.
Anyway, "Whispering Smith" is plagued by a plot hole that is difficult to explain away. After some initial misgivings our private detective hero reluctantly agrees to investigate a suicide case. Before long he is doing all the things any competent investigator would do : he interviews friends, traces witnesses, visits relevant locations and so on. So why does he fail to arm himself with some kind of photograph or portrait of the deceased, which, surely, should have been one of the very first things to do ?