Matt Corbin (Elliott Reid) is on a fishing vacation in the upper Midwest, somewhere in the area of Minnesota. Corbin is a magazine writer for "American View". While fishing, a storm comes up. Attempting to get back to his car, Corbin falls and hits his head on some rocks. When he tries to get help at a nearby lodge he is chased away by a very rude caretaker and a pack of vicious dogs. He eventually finds himself in the small village of Winnoga Lake. The town physician is Dr. Edward Keller (Edgar Barrier). He lives with his sister Janet (Carla Balenda). Keller dresses Corbin’s wound and takes him to the local inn to get a room for the night.
The innkeepers are Steve Loomis (Raymond Burr), a convivial man, and his wife, Molly (Lurene Tuttle). Molly also runs the town telephone system. Loomis tells Corbin that something happened to the lake a few years ago that killed all the fish. Since then the town’s tourist business dried up and most of the residents moved away. At first Corbin thinks there may be a story in what happened to the lake. Loomis tries to steer Corbin away from that idea.
The longer Corbin stays in Winnoga the more he feels that something strange is going on. Other than the overly friendly Loomis, Keller’s sister Janet and the storekeeper, Luther Adams (Frank Darien) the entire town seems to be standoffish, and some are actually a little hostile. Corbin decides there is more going on here than meets the eye. He decides to investigate. What Corbin doesn’t realize is that he has stumbled into a nest of Communists that have plans on destroying the United States using bacteriological warfare, and Winnoga is their headquarters.
“The Whip Hand” was released in 1951 and was directed by William Cameron Menzies. It is an American Crime film.
The movie was originally supposed to be about Nazis hiding in America and harboring Hitler. Since it was the early fifties, and the war was over, the plot was changed to Russians, the current bad guys du jour. The story was altered to accommodate a different evil plot and parts of the film were reshot to incorporate the new and improved threat. The story was also originally set in New England and titled “The Man He Found”.
The film didn’t do well at the box office and that’s too bad. It’s not an overly great movie but it is good. There is a suspense and anticipation to this thriller that keeps you watching. Raymond Burr is fantastic as the sometimes gregarious and sometimes evil innkeeper, Steve Loomis. There is intensity to his performance that is reminiscent of most arch enemies. He does bad, real good. Adding to that is the over-the-top Communist scientist and some nicely done visuals that combine eerie atmosphere and some nice Midwest scenery.
The term “the whip hand” is a metaphor for having the upper hand or one who is in control. The term originally came from racing.