Intended for release by the Poverty Row outfit Producer's Releasing Corporation, who had given the world The Devil Bat (1941) and Nabonga (1943), Arthur Ripley's somber and thoughtful Voice in the Wind (1944) generated such positive word of mouth around Hollywood that United Artists brokered a deal with PRC to provide finishing costs and theatrical distribution. Shot as Strange Music in eleven days and without retakes, Voice in the Wind stars Francis Lederer as a Czech pianist whose brutal treatment by the Third Reich has wiped clean his memory. Landing in French-governed Guatemala, where the locals refer to the silent stranger as "El Hombre," Lederer attempts to enter the United States through the dubious auspices of brothers J. Carroll Naish and Alexander Granach, never suspecting that these middle men are con artists and murderers to boot. A protégé of German theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt, Francis Lederer came to Hollywood from Berlin in 1931 as the Third Reich gained power. Costar Alexander Granach had also fled Germany as part of Europe's Jewish diaspora and is best remembered today as the mad estate agent Knock in F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). Reliable Hollywood heavy J. Carroll Naish was at this point in his career subspecializing in horror pictures, among them Dr. Renault's Secret (1942) and House of Frankenstein (1944). Long after his tenure as a leading man, Francis Lederer enjoyed a later life star turn in the low budget UA shocker The Return of Dracula (1958).

By Richard Harland Smith