THE WHISPERING CHORUS
starring Raymond Hatton and Kathlyn Williams
MOTION PICTURE CLASSIC
June, 1918
To any one desiring a wholly miserable afternoon or evening, we cheerfully recommend Cecil DeMille's production, "The Whispering Chorus," based on a story by Perley Poore Sheehan. "The Whispering Chorus" is guaranteed to take the joy out of life. Herein John Trimble steals from his employer, deserts his wife, runs away when detection threatens, and then fakes his own "murder." Trimble finds the body of a drowned man, disfigures it so that it is unrecognizable, dresses it in his own clothes, leaves various notes indicating a fear of murder at the hands of a mysterious Edgar Smith, and disappears. The body is found, and some years later, Mrs. Trimble marries a man who finally becomes Governor of the State.
Trimble, now a derelict, is arrested as Edgar Smith, tried and convicted of murdering himself. His plot has proven a boomerang, and he is actually sentenced to the chair for the crime he faked. Trimble goes to his doom without telling his secret, thus protecting his former wife's happiness. The whispering chorus of the title is made up of the wee sma' voices which whisper in your ear and mine when you think about doing something naughty.
Right now one of these wee sma' voices is whispering to us
to forget all about saying anything unkind of "The Whispering
Chorus." But we are telling the sma' voice to beat it.
The truth must be told. "The Whispering Chorus" is
well done, but it is the quintessence of morbidness. There is
only one antidote for its seven reels of disfigured corpses, morgues,
dope-wrecked derelicts, death-cell glimpses and electric-chair
moments. The antidote? About fourteen reels of Keystone bathing-girls.
Raymond Hatton presents the disintegration of Trimble in graphic
fashion.
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