'The Whisperers' (1967) is understated dark majesty.

The supremely versatile film-maker Bryan Forbes directs a remarkably bleak and eerily unsettling treatise on the multifarious cruelties inherent with old age. 'The Whisperers' (1967) is an extraordinarily persuasive work of macabre cinema that has lost none of its considerable power to enthral and perturb with equally forceful rigor. I have long been an avid fan of Forbes's sublime cinema, and I still passionately feel that 'The Whisperers' remains one of his very finest films. One must absolutely mention the extraordinary Edith Evans who is completely mesmerizing, and surely delivers one of cinema's most genuinely affecting performances here; and it is tantamount to a cultural travesty that this masterpiece has been allowed to mildew away in entirely unwarranted obscurity. Forbes's 'The Whisperers' along with his equally unsettling, chill-inducing existential nightmare 'Séance on a wet afternoon' are arguably two of the most rewarding works of darkly immersive melodrama produced within the UK's tremendously exciting cinematic Renaissance of the 1960s. (Hopefully some tasteful, forward-thinking label might soon release this fine film on a fully restored features-packed Blu-ray!)

Set amidst squalid Manchester backgrounds, an elderly British woman who lives alone and gets by on scraps is robbed and left for dead; she recovers in the hospital, and is eventually reunited with the husband who ran off and left her some years prior. Director Bryan Forbes, who also adapted his screenplay from the novel by Robert Nicolson, builds this material very slowly and steadily--but with no light relief or sense of recovery from its depressing milieu, the film doesn't seem to have a course to follow (the sequences just turn into incidents). Oscar-nominated Edith Evans, a marvelous actress who can do as much for a scene with no dialogue as some actors can with a soliloquy, works her aged vulnerability to its proper advantage. However, when the character returns home from her tragedy (rendered nearly mute by her experiences),she loses all her quirky personality. Similarly, Forbes (as the director) seems not to know where he is in the final quarter, and as the writer allows his narrative to slip away in little drabs. Well-enough made, but the general air of gloom and decay robs the picture of promise. There's no moral here (perhaps on purpose),and no point, either. ** from ****

The film's redeeming quality is the performance of Dame Edith Evans. Dame Edith, who was so good in "The Nun's Story," 8 years before, shines here in the lead role of an elderly woman, living a bleak existence is a run-down part of London.

With her miserable existence, Dame Edith seems to survive doing charitable work, attending church services and complaining about her life's daily existence. She seems to make the most of her drab atmosphere. The scene, particularly at the beginning, reminded me very much of that in "How Green Was My Valley."

The film also brings out that while the government attempts to aid the elderly in England, they really don't do a very good job.

The crime element here of Mrs. Ross (Edith Evans) being a victim is subordinate in relation to her difficult life. Her husband walked out on her so many years before and her son is jailed for robbery.

Eric Portman, as her husband, plays the husband who returns to her after many years, when contacted by the police following Mrs. R's near fatal bout with pneumonia. You know he is never coming back after he literally falls into all that money.

"Are you there,?" Mrs. Ross asks after returning home. The emptiness of her life shall continue, but there must be some renewed satisfaction on her part for being able to resume the life she led-alone for so long.

The picture doesn't succeed here because we're longing for better days for Mrs. Ross. Those happy days, away from her for so long, are not coming back.