The Whisperers

'The Whisperers' (1967) is understated dark majesty.

The supremely versatile film-maker Bryan Forbes directs a remarkably bleak and eerily unsettling treatise on the multifarious cruelties inherent with old age. 'The Whisperers' (1967) is an extraordinarily persuasive work of macabre cinema that has lost none of its considerable power to enthral and perturb with equally forceful rigor. I have long been an avid fan of Forbes's sublime cinema, and I still passionately feel that 'The Whisperers' remains one of his very finest films. One must absolutely mention the extraordinary Edith Evans who is completely mesmerizing, and surely delivers one of cinema's most genuinely affecting performances here; and it is tantamount to a cultural travesty that this masterpiece has been allowed to mildew away in entirely unwarranted obscurity. Forbes's 'The Whisperers' along with his equally unsettling, chill-inducing existential nightmare 'Séance on a wet afternoon' are arguably two of the most rewarding works of darkly immersive melodrama produced within the UK's tremendously exciting cinematic Renaissance of the 1960s. (Hopefully some tasteful, forward-thinking label might soon release this fine film on a fully restored features-packed Blu-ray!)