The Whip Hand

Journalist Matt Corbin is traveling through Wisconsin on a fishing trip and discovers a nearly deserted town where the few inhabitants are secretive and hostile. A shifty lodge owner named Steve Loomis warns Matt away, claiming that all of the region's fish mysteriously died years ago. The story makes Matt more curious, and his investigation uncovers a Soviet plot to poison the American water supply. He now must return to the city alive.

In July 1949, RKO Pictures purchased the story written by Roy Hamilton. The film was originally set in New England and was titled The Man He Found. The term "the whip hand" is a horse racing metaphor for having the advantage or upper hand.^[1] In the original draft of the film, the villains were escaped German Nazis involved in a plot to hide Adolf Hitler, portrayed by Bobby Watson. However, when studio chief Howard Hughes viewed the completed film in November 1950, he ordered portions of the film reshot because the communists had replaced the Nazis as the world's greatest villains.^[1][4]

Location shooting took place at Big Bear Lake as well as at the RKO ranch in Encino.^{[citation needed]}

The film lost an estimated $225,000.^[2][1]