THE WHISPERERS

GB
1967
1hr 45mins
Dir: Bryan Forbes
Starring: Edith Evans and Eric Portman

An elderly eccentric lady living in poverty comforts herself with fantasies

This bleak northern drama is dismally sad, hauntingly depressing, and emotionally exhausting. It was filmed on location in Oldham, Lancashire, yet despite this, there is a single stock shot of a Southern Railway express hauled by ‘Lord Nelson’ LN Class 4-6-0 No.859 Lord Hood passing through Headcorn station on an express. This shot had previously appeared in The Price of Wisdom (1935) and Carry On Sergeant (both qv). The scene which follows has Eric Portman in the toilet on the train and it is very much a genuine sequence and not a set, as confirmed by the camera bucking around all over the place to the motion of the train.

The stock shot of Lord Hood passing through Headcorn station on an express