Review of The Whistle at Eaton Falls

Late 40s/ early 50s Hollywood was not notable for its workplace dramas, especially when the workplace was a plastics factory and the drama involved labor/management relations. Which makes this film commendable from the outset if for no other reason than its daring to go against the prevailing ethos of the culture. That it is also visually striking, with great location shooting in New Hampshire and harsh, almost noirish, cinematography that pictorially reinforces the conflicts going on between workers and bosses, as well as being even handed in its treatment of both sides, never demonizing nor putting characters on pedestals, adds up to a film that should have garnered more attention and acclaim than it did. But then again movies have always been escapist in their overall mood, never more so than from the 30s to the mid 50s. The bulk of the film audience then tended to come from the factories or other blue collar work sites and the last thing they wished to do when the lights went down and the big screen came up was to be thrust back there. Especially at the time this film was made audiences wanted to walk down a shadowy LA street next to Liz Scott or down Rio way with Cary Grant. So maybe it's prescient that the product being made in this specific New Hampshire factory is a TV channel selector because workplace dramas and sit coms would, in less than ten years from the time of this movie, become a staple of the much less dreamy small screen in the much more prosaic kitchen or den. That this film, however, is at no point small, prosaic or confined in its tone or look is thanks to director Robert Siodmak, cinematographer Joseph Brun and a fine cast of actors just starting out like Lloyd Bridges, Murray Hamilton, Helen Shields, and James Westerfield, as well as Dorothy Gish, who was winding down.

So why 8 rather than 9 or 10 stars? Didn't care much for the dull ingenues Carlton Carpenter and Anne Francis and the ending was way too upbeat as if all labor problems had been banished from at least Eaton Falls, New Hampshire, forever. Give it a B plus.