Fantastic!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is One Odd Movie. Starting with the Title that is Meaningless Unless One Knows About a "Riding" Term Meaning the Upper Hand or Some Such Thing, Suffice to Say it is Meaningless. Add to That the Story was Changed Midstream from Nazis to Communist at the Insistence of Howard Hughes.Still, Director Menzies Manages to Make the Thing Look Good, Despite Some Bad Acting that He Left Unattended. The Film Still Manages to Bring the Paranoia of the Time Front and Center with Bizarre Scenes and a Foreboding Atmosphere.It Really Kicks In with the Third Act that Includes Mad Lab Scenes, Female Bondage, Zombie Like People Used as Guinea Pigs, and Some Communist Nut-Case Speeches. This is One of Quirkiest Entries in the Anti-Communist Movies Made During the McCarthy Era and that is Saying Something because Most of Them were Really Quirky.The Commie Characters All Look Like Something Out of a Comic Book with Exaggerated Features and Props. They're One Scary Looking Bunch. The Protagonist and His Love Interest are So Sanitized and "Normal" Looking They Seem to have Stepped Out of a Disney Movie. The Contrast is Quite Startling and Add to the Surreal Nature of the Movie When Watched Today.

****SPOILERS**** The movie "The Whip Hand" was to be about a Nazi spy ring in the US planning to use biological and chemical, or WMD's as their known now, to wipe out the entire US population. But with the war, WWII, over it was decided by producer Howard Hughes to change the format and substitute the Nazis as Commies or even better yet Nazis who converted to Communism making them twice as evil. We the audience get the drift of what's going on in the movie with a speech by some Communist big-shot in the Kremlin speaking in Russian, without any subtitles, about the plan the Commies have to destroy America that's to originate out of the sleepy little Minnesota ghost town of Winnoga.It's in Winnoga that our hero photojournalist Matt Corbin, Elliott Reid, is on vacation on a fishing trip and ends up getting his skull fractured while running for cover when a violent storm breaks out. Looking to get help Corbin runs into Dr.Edward Keller, Edgar Barrier, who together with his in house sister and part-time nurse Janet, Carla Balenda, treat his wound. It's not that long that Corbin decides to stay in town to check out the fishing which he finds out that the fish, or trout, have all died out from a mysterious virus some five years ago. It soon becomes apparent to Corbin that the Commies had landed and with their Nazi allies are planning to take over the United States by polluting it's water supply if nothing is done, by him, to stop them.****SPOILERS**** With Janet, despite her brother working for the Commie/Nazis, joining him in his fight for America's survival Corbin starts to uncover a secret underground hideout that the Communists and their Nazi allies are using in them experimenting their secret weapons. That's toe used to turn the entire population of the US into an army of mind numb Zombies and tips off the FBI & CIA as well as the local authorities where it is. The entire operation is run by fugitive Nazi now Communist fanatic Dr. Wilhelm Bucholtz,Otto Waldis, who with the help of his Nazi friends and paid off US immigration officials claimed to be a holocaust survivor. It's the crazed but brilliant Dr. Bucholtz who like the Japaneses kamikazes of WWII is ready and willing to die for his cause world wide Communism and has already created an army of Zombies, who walk around aimlessly bumping into each other, to achieve that evil goal. It's Corbin who later breaks into Bucholtz's underground bunker and with the help of his just created Zombies puts an end to his wild crazy and hair-brained dreams. P.S Check out a graying and very rotund Raymond Burr as Steve Loomis one of Dr. Bucholtz's evil henchmen.

THE WHIP HAND, an interesting curio of a film that's very much of its era, tells the story of a small rural town in the American South which finds itself at the mercy of a band of merciless Communists who'll do anything in their power to keep their plans for germ warfare a secret. Yes, welcome to the world of '50s paranoia and McCarthyist witch-hunts, where the ordinary-looking guy next door just might be a closet pinko.The guy helming this little B-movie is William Camercon Menzies, responsible for the equally paranoia-laden INVADERS FROM MARS. And THE WHIP HAND turns out to be an entertaining little movie, one which thrives on building a sense of mistrust throughout as the crusading reporter hero gradually becomes aware of a sinister plot in darkest Minnesota. Cuddly bad guy Raymond Burr (REAR WINDOW), a go-to guy for '50s villainy, is inevitably one of the bad guys behind it all.THE WHIP HAND is watchable and features an unfamiliar cast doing their best with the lines they're given. Sure, it's very much dated these days, but the same dating makes it interesting as a product of its era. The bad guys are far more interesting than the good, especially the well-defined characters like the pervy guy with the flat leather cap or the creepy gamekeeper. The decision to change said bad guys from Nazis to Communists at the last moment makes it all feel a little muddled, but it's certainly not a bad film and rewarding to those with an interest in film as a medium for social commentary.

A photo-journalist on vacation arrives at a small town in Mid America to relax and do a little fishing. First, he finds that all the fish have died. Next he finds the residents all paranoid and secretive, especially the owner of the local lodge. When he accidentally trespasses on lodge property, he is attacked by guard dogs, and threatened by armed guards.None of the local townsfolk will talk to him except the doctor's sister (read love interest) and the crusty old storekeeper. Little by little he comes to realize that the entire town is on a mission to develop germ and bacteria weapons which they intend to use to cripple America. I know - the plot is preposterous. But you ain't heard nothing yet. In the original story, all the bad guys were Nazi's and they even had Adolf Hitler hidden away at the lodge, but this movie was released in 1951 at the height of the McCarthy hearings and the Commie scare. So - all the bad guys became Communists.Only in the movies.