The Whistle at Eaton Falls

At the conclusion of Siodmak’s contract with Universal in 1951, before his return to Europe three years later, the director decamped to Columbia seeking a project in a different register, far afield from the noir mode of filmmaking that he had mastered during the prior decade. The resulting film was an intricately plotted social drama chronicling the struggles of a factory labor union in a small New Hampshire town amid the post-WWII production downturn, its narrative centered on Brad Adams (Lloyd Bridges), a respected worker and union leader with the plastics company that stands as the town’s last remaining economic engine. When the company’s owner dies in a plane crash en route to secure a critical business deal, his widow (Dorothy Gish, in her penultimate screen performance) enlists Brad to step in as president—just as the company’s financial straits have become impossible to ignore. Tasked with laying off many of his fellow workers to save the company from bankruptcy in the face of rising costs of production, Adams throws himself into the search for an alternative solution that would keep the company afloat while preserving his comrades’ livelihoods—hopefully ensuring the survival of his beloved hometown in the process. Courtesy of Flicker Alley. This brand-new 2K restoration was undertaken by the Louis de Rochemont estate and spearheaded by Tom H. March and David Strohmaier. Negative scanning was done by FotoKem Industries through the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division facility in Culpeper, Virginia.