We've all met him. The good guy who is beyond reproach. The clean-cut gentleman always well dressed. Never misses work. Has a smile for everyone. Yep...we know where this is going. It's always the quiet ones who smile a lot and notice the birds above. Sex-crazed killers! Fiends! The good will they seem to exhibit is just a curtain hiding their true evil. Our feature today is 1943's "Whispering Footsteps," directed by Howard Bretherton.
Mark (John Hubbard) is our great-all-around-guy in a small Ohio town. He's a bank teller and quite the stud. Women lust for him but he's fairly oblivious. Uh oh, a beautiful coed was strangled to death by a sex-crazed fiend in Indiana, the second such murder. Mark was there last night and may have arrived home by train in the middle of the night. Alibi? Nope. Uh oh, a fancy-shmancy city dame moves into the town looking sultry in her heels and expensive clothes. Helene (Joan Blair) is, of course, sweet on Mark, and bats her eyelashes at him while dating the much older bank president, and Mark's boss, Harry (Charles Halton). Helene needs to be sweet on Harry because he owns the store she manages and needs cashflow. Still, Helene does make a play for Mark. Meanwhile, the married Harry is not happy that Mark and his daughter Brook (Rita Quigley) are getting close.
Sure, in this small town, Mark is not hurting for dames. More murders occur and they are getting closer to this small town. Brook and Helene are the only ones who believe Mark is not the killer. Bad news for Mark, the description of the killer printed in the newspaper is a perfect description of himself. Brook and Helene lie to the detective (Cy Kendall) as more murders of beautiful dames occur, and now one here in the same town. The detective knows Mark is the killer but can't prove it because the dames are helping him create alibis. Harry tells Mark not to come back to work because the townsfolk all seem to think he's the killer. Helene and Brook? Well, if they don't get into a catfight, they may get strangled.
Is Mark the killer, or is this too easy? Are beautiful dames turned on by sex-crazed lunatics? Will Brook and/or Helene make it to the end credits? Mark's ruination in this town will be caused by gossip, but as we all know, gossip is usually true. For a neat mystery with a sordid plot, and some beautiful dames in peril, see "Whispering Footsteps."
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