De Mille describes Whispering Chorus as “one of the first... of the films that have come to be called ‘psychological.' The conflict in it is in the souls of the characters.... It is the story of a man condemned to death for his own murder. To escape the consequences of thefts from the office where he works, John Tremble... runs away, finds a corpse in a river, mutilates it to make it unidentifiable, puts his clothes on it, with his papers in the pockets, and years later, his own face now disfigured from a waterfront brawl, is arrested and convicted of murdering John Tremble.” (“The Autobiography of Cecil B. De Mille,” Donald Hayne, Ed.)

“De Mille's first two films in 1918 may well represent a kind of artistic zenith for him. The Whispering Chorus is certainly one of his most powerful and visually interesting films, while Old Wives for New, which followed it a couple of months later, was - and is - notable for a sophisticated cutting pattern which predates and parallels the flashback devices used by Bergman in Wild Strawberries. In its combination of Enoch Arden and Stella Dallas plot-lines, with a little male-Madame X in it too, it could have been both over-wrought and artificial, and certainly it cannot altogether escape the accusation of being old-fashioned melodrama, but its acting and especially its camerawork make it a really remarkable film, especially for 1918. Oddly enough, the critics - though much impressed by its power - were not overly-impressed with the technical expertise, referring to ‘the usual tricks of double exposure' and indicating that there must have been quite a lot of such work which has long been unseen and forgotten. There are the usual signs of De Mille's lack of subtlety: it is badly over-titled, and a perfect climactic fadeout (the flower falling from Hatton's hand) is spoiled by De Mille's insistence on added scenes and an underlined final scene which turn poignancy and beauty into near bathos. And as in such films as Scarlet Street, one can't help but feel that the scenario does rather stack the cards against the hapless hero. But it's a bizarre and fascinating film, and a needed reminder of what a strong director De Mille was in his earlier years, and actually could have been again, as The Godless Girl and This Day and Age were to show. However, its total failure was directly responsible for De Mille giving up ideas of artistic experimentation, and deciding instead to give the public exactly what it wanted.”