The taglines for The Whole Truth (1958) were pretty hard to ignore: "You'll go back to your wife over my dead body...AND HE DID!" and "The Year's Slickiest, Quickiest Whodunnit." Unfortunately it seems that the taglines were better than the film itself. The Whole Truth was based on the 1955 London play of the same name by Philip Mackie. The rights had been purchased by Romulus Films, Ltd with the intention of making it a co-production with Twentieth Century-Fox to star Stewart Granger and his then wife, actress Jean Simmons, but Romulus eventually ended up producing the film alone and distributing through Columbia Pictures. The film was directed by John Guillermin (who later made The Towering Inferno, 1974) and was in production from October 14 – December 11, 1957 at the Walton Studios in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England.

Stewart Granger starred as a Hollywood producer who is set up by a detective to make it look as though he stabbed his actress lover (played by Gianna Maria Canale). His faithful wife (played by Donna Reed in Simmons' intended role) doesn't believe it and she stands by her man and clears his name, despite his infidelity.

Also in the cast is ace cad supreme George Sanders who played Men-You-Love-to-Hate so frequently and so memorably that he titled his autobiography Memoirs of a Professional Cad. Apart from a brief stint as "The Saint" and later "The Falcon", Sanders' career was really made on roles like the one in The Whole Truth: thoroughly reprehensible characters who are nonetheless charming as sin and great fun to watch.

Not so much fun, according to Granger in his autobiography, Sparks Fly Upward, was the making of the film, "Much as I loved it, London seemed cold and bleak but in spite of seeing my mother, Elspeth and my friends, I was beginning to feel like a stranger. The film I had contracted to do for Romulus, The Whole Truth was a run of the mill "whodunit", and I had the lovely Donna Reed playing opposite me with the suave George Sanders supplying the villainy. Our director went on to fame directing an oversized ape in the remake of King Kong (1976). I'm sure he got on better with that mechanized gorilla than he did with us. He was peculiarly lacking in charm, to say the least."

Producer: Jack Clayton
Directors: Dan Cohen, John Guillermin
Screenplay: Jonathan Latimer; Philip Mackie (play)
Cinematography: Wilkie Cooper
Art Direction: Tony Masters
Music: Mischa Spoliansky
Film Editing: Gerry Hambling
Cast: Stewart Granger (Max Poulton), Donna Reed (Carol Poulton), George Sanders (Carliss), Gianna Maria Canale (Gina Bertini), Michael Shillo (Inspector Simon), Richard Molinas (Gilbert), Peter Dyneley (Willy Reichel), John Van Eyssen (Archer), Philip Vickers (Jack Leslie), Jimmy Thompson (Assistant), Hy Hazell (American Woman), Carlo Justini (Leading Man), Agnes Laughlan (Englishwoman)
BW-85m.

by Lorraine LoBianco

SOURCES:
Sparks Fly Upward by Stewart Granger
AFI.com
The Internet Movie Database.