Whistle Stop

There’s no denying that Whistle Stop, directed by unknown Ukrainian director Léonide Moguy, isn’t anywhere near a great film, but it has a surreal, moody quality heightened by Dimitri Tiomkin’s haunting orchestral score, that makes it unique and memorable in the noir cycle. Opening with Ava Gardner’s emergence from the steam cloud of a just-arrived train, the film depicts the homecoming of Mary (Gardner, the same year as her breakout role in Robert Siodmak’s The Killers) to a small town where her former love Kenny Veech (George Raft) has been playing cards and drinking too much since she left. The feelings between Mary and Kenny are still strong, but so is Mary’s attraction to the wealth of club owner Lew Lentz (Tom Conway), who attempts to usurp Kenny’s place in Mary’s heart. Into this toxic triangle comes Gitlo (Victor McLaglen), a disgruntled employee of Lentz and loyal friend of Kenny who concocts a murder strategy to solve both of their problems. Complications (and more murders) ensue. The story is far from straightforward, and the performances are barely average, but the gestalt experience of the film is almost operatic, shifting between silent longing and intense melodrama (see Kenny’s visit to a dying hospital patient), accompanied by nonstop strings, piano, and a music box that builds to a frenzy.