Mrs. Ross, in the Bryan Forbes film The Whisperers (1967), is an elderly woman who lives alone and whose mind is leaving her. She is often ill-treated. Based on a novel by Robert Nicolson, this is another Sixties British piece about the working class, with concentration on human callousness.

The technical-artistic efforts of director Forbes and editor Anthony Harvey are estimable. So is Forbes’s scriptwriting except that the movie’s finish minimizes loneliness. The celebrated Dame Edith Evans is magnificent in the difficult part of Mrs. Ross. There is a persistent simple dignity in the intelligent portrayal here. As the husband who abandoned Mrs. Ross, Eric Portman is superlative.