Later known for his comic teaming with Wallace Beery, Raymond Hatton, in the teens, with support roles in "Young Love" (1915)(also a DeMille production) was forging a career as a "hero's friend" when he was given the role of his life as a cowardly embezzler in "The Whispering Chorus". With more than a passing nod to Dicken's "Our Mutual Friend", Hatton plays John Tremble, 2nd assistant of the Clumley Contracting Company, whose whispering chorus (his conscience) is sowing seeds of envy and discontent in him. The superimposed images of heads forever giving him advice shows DeMille was trying experimentation.
Christmas Eve is a pretty sorry affair at the Tremble's. Long suffering wife Jane's (stately Kathlyn Williams) pathetic attempts at cheer meet with John's grumbles and his determination to find money by whatever means he can. When up and coming State's Attorney George Coggeswell (phlegmatic Elliot Dexter) demands that Clumleys do an audit of their books he finds embezzlement but by this time the thief, Tremble, has "disappeared" and is living as a hermit in an old shack. A body washed up on shore gives him the perfect opportunity to begin life anew as he plants papers and articles on the body so it will look as though "John Tremble" has been murdered and he, now as "Edgar Smith" is free to start a new life.
But in DeMille's world cheaters never prosper and Tremble, through his cowardly approach to life goes from bad to worse. After years of degradation when he finally finds a job on the wharves (Noah Beery plays his co-worker) an accident cripples him and when he finally summons courage enough to contact his mother, police are put on his trail. An instance of the unusual symbolism - when Jane finds well deserved happiness with George, the scene switches to a drunken John being seduced by an opium girl (Julia Faye). The ending, with John finally showing a few remains of decency and goodness, must have stretched viewer's credulity to breaking point. It had no really admirable characters, the main one (Tremble) being a bleak opportunist, and no happy ending. Unfortunately coming at the end of the war it was exactly what people didn't want to see - extraordinarily experimental though it was. Really ahead of it's time, just a shame at that particular time no one wanted to know.
Christmas Eve is a pretty sorry affair at the Tremble's. Long suffering wife Jane's (stately Kathlyn Williams) pathetic attempts at cheer meet with John's grumbles and his determination to find money by whatever means he can. When up and coming State's Attorney George Coggeswell (phlegmatic Elliot Dexter) demands that Clumleys do an audit of their books he finds embezzlement but by this time the thief, Tremble, has "disappeared" and is living as a hermit in an old shack. A body washed up on shore gives him the perfect opportunity to begin life anew as he plants papers and articles on the body so it will look as though "John Tremble" has been murdered and he, now as "Edgar Smith" is free to start a new life.
But in DeMille's world cheaters never prosper and Tremble, through his cowardly approach to life goes from bad to worse. After years of degradation when he finally finds a job on the wharves (Noah Beery plays his co-worker) an accident cripples him and when he finally summons courage enough to contact his mother, police are put on his trail. An instance of the unusual symbolism - when Jane finds well deserved happiness with George, the scene switches to a drunken John being seduced by an opium girl (Julia Faye). The ending, with John finally showing a few remains of decency and goodness, must have stretched viewer's credulity to breaking point. It had no really admirable characters, the main one (Tremble) being a bleak opportunist, and no happy ending. Unfortunately coming at the end of the war it was exactly what people didn't want to see - extraordinarily experimental though it was. Really ahead of it's time, just a shame at that particular time no one wanted to know.