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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1950s
    Movies - 1950s Movies - W 2 Mins Read

    Whip Hand, The (1951)

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    This borderline science fiction tale of a communist cell infiltrating a small American town and planning to unleash a devastating weapon of germ warfare was one of the first in a string of “Reds under the bed” thrillers made in the US during the early 1950s.

    Holidaying journalist Matt Corbin (Elliot Reid) stumbles on the plot while on a fishing trip to the small mountain town of Winnoga in the Wisconsin woods.

    When director William Cameron Menzies started work on the film it was titled The Man He Found and was set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, detailing attempts by Nazis to shelter Adolf Hitler after he flees Germany.

    RKO boss Howard Hughes saw an early rough cut and decided that Nazis were old hat and had Menzies re-shoot key scenes to transform the film into the anti-Communist paranoia piece it became (although the villain of the film was still a Nazi doctor – he worked at a lodge in the woods and experimented with germ warfare on people in the surrounding area who somehow fell under his control).

    Nobody seemed terribly pleased with Hughes’ decision, not least the public – the film cost $376,000 to make but took just $225,000.

    Leading man Elliott Reid was particularly upset by the changes, commenting later; “I so deplore what happened to that movie, when Howard Hughes ruined it (and) destroyed the movie with a disgusting new ending”.

    Matt Corbin
    Elliott Reid
    Janet Keller
    Carla Balenda
    Dr Edward Keller
    Edgar Barrier
    Steve Loomis
    Raymond Burr
    Dr Wilhelm Bucholtz
    Otto Waldis
    Chick
    Michael Steele
    Molly Loomis
    Lurene Tuttle
    Nate Garr
    Peter Brocco
    Peterson
    Lewis Martin
    Luther Adams
    Frank Darien
    Mabel Turner
    Olive Carey
    Jed
    George Chandler
    Carstairs
    Douglas Evans
    Ed
    Billy Nelson
    Sheriff
    Jamesson Shade

    Director
    William Cameron Menzies

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