Silent Feature: The Whispering Chorus

Credits

Studio: An Artcraft Picture
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Released: March 28, 1918

Featured Cast: Raymond Hatton, Kathlyn Williams, Elliott Dexter

Producer-director: Cecil B. DeMille
Screenwriter: Jeanie Macpherson
Source: a Parley Poore Sheehan story
Art director: Wilfred Buckland
Cinematographer: Alvin Wyckoff
Editor: Cecil B. DeMille

Theme

When an accountant embezzles, his life becomes a nightmare of lies.

Reviews

“The Whispering Chorus is intended to represent the small voices and thoughts of the average mind that work for good and evil. The thought is a good one for the purpose of picturization and the manner in which it is worked out interests. The usual tricks of double exposure are employed in setting the story on the screen, but they are not worked to death.”

– The Weekly Variety, March 29, 1918.

Letters From Regional Theater Owners

“One of the few high-priced productions that your patrons can see that it really is expensive to produce. I consider it a work of art. Let your patrons know of it. But there are some gruesome scenes.”

– M.C. Kellogg, Homestake Theatre, Lead, South Dakota, Exhibitors Herald, Vol. VIII, No. 5 (July 27, 1918)

Figures

The Whispering Chorus cost $72,499.55 and grossed $242,109.27.
(These figures have not been adjusted for inflation nor do they include the considerable profits realized from reissues, television syndication, and home entertainment formats.)