Whispering Smith

Whispering Smith is a 1948 American Western film directed by Leslie Fenton and starring Alan Ladd as a railroad detective assigned to stop a gang of train robbers. The supporting cast includes Robert Preston, Brenda Marshall and Donald Crisp. The picture is based on a novel by Frank H. Spearman and a previous 1926 film adaptation starring H. B. Warner. Plot The bad Barton boys—Blake, Leroy, and Gabby—rob a train and shoot a guard. Luke Smith, known as "Whispering" to some for his quiet ways, is a detective for the railroad sent to investigate. Murray Sinclair, an old friend of Smith's, is in charge of the railroad's wrecking crew. He's glad to see Smith, who shoots Leroy and Gabby and is saved when a bullet is deflected by a harmonica in his pocket, given him long ago by his sweetheart Marian, who is now Sinclair's wife.