Whispering Smith

A big box-office success for Ladd, WHISPERING SMITH was billed by Paramount as his first western and his first picture in color. He was cast as a real-life, gun-toting railroad detective whose low voice and quiet demeanor earned him the monicker "Whispering Smith." The film opens with a spectacular credit sequence over a great western panorama--green valleys, rolling hills, snow-capped mountains, and a powerful blue sky--into which Ladd rides. A gun enters the frame, takes aim at Ladd, and shoots his horse out from under him. We then learn from a group of railroad men of the legend of "Whispering Smith," the detective in charge of investigating a recent rash of tra...