classicsoncall Review of The Whip Hand

The Whip Hand (1951)

"It's not often we have such healthy specimens to experiment with."

[7/10 · 9 July 2023]

A sinister vibe permeates this story of journalist Matt Corbin (Elliott Reid) as he sets out on a fishing trip to Minnesota's Winnoga Lake, only to learn that it's been devoid of fish for the past five years. With his writer's instinct that there might be a story here, Corbin attempts to investigate while wary town folk do all they can to prevent his progress. At first it appears that innkeeper Steve Loomis (Raymond Burr) is leading that charge, but he's really taking orders from a mysterious and well-hidden figure by the name of Peterson (Otto Waldis). Filmed in 1951, the picture does its best to instill the Cold War paranoia of the Fifties, while borrowing concepts from the prior era's Nazi Germany. The enigmatic Peterson comes out of hiding and is revealed to be a former Nazi germ warfare specialist, engaged in efforts to poison the country's water supply with his experimental toxins. I guess the filmmakers didn't consider how the current residents of Winnoga managed to survive their own drinking water, but I guess viewers weren't supposed to think about that. With the help of resident Janet Keller (Carla Balenda), Corbin learns that Peterson's alter ego is that of Dr. Wilhem Buckholtz, and surreptitiously gets a note to his editor at American View magazine, who in turn sets the authorities out to Winnoga to capture Buckholtz. Though they needn't have bothered, as the German baddie was summarily stomped to death by the victims of his cruel experiments in a more than fitting conclusion.