Cry of the Werewolf * (1944, Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen, Blanche Yurka, Barton MacLane) – Classic Movie Review 13,200

The 1944 horror film Cry of the Werewolf is bad, very, very bad, so bad and for so many reasons that it is amusing throughout. It stars Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen, Blanche Yurka and Barton MacLane.

Director Henry Levin’s 1944 American Columbia Pictures’ B-picture horror film Cry of the Werewolf stars Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen, Blanche Yurka and Barton MacLane.

Cry of the Werewolf is bad, very, very bad, so bad and for so many reasons that it is amusing throughout.

Nina Foch stars as the Romani princess Celeste LaTour, who can change into a wolf at will, just like her late mother Marie LaTour. In the pathetic excuse for a plot, she decides to turn into a werewolf to kill everyone who has discovered the sacred secret location of Marie LaTour’s tomb, entered through a small hole in one of the tiny Columbia Pictures’ studio sets.

Nina Foch, Osa Massen and Blanche Yurka are a formidable trio of exotic female stars, but they are made to look ridiculous, sound ridiculous, and do ridiculous things (though, to be fair. the film would be even worse without them). But that is nothing compared with Stephen Crane, as scientist ‘Bob’ Morris, who hardly skips a heartbeat when he discovers his father has been killed by a werewolf, and seems only vaguely interested in his foreign fiancée Elsa Chauvet (Osa Massen), who hails from Transylvania, just like Celeste LaTour and the Romani people.

Also bad are John Abbott as the tour guide Peter Althius, George Eldredge as George LaTour, Fritz Leiber as the father Dr Charles Morris, Milton Parsons as the undertaker Adamson, Ivan Triesault as Jan Spavero and. worst of all, Ray Teal as ‘funny’ Policeman Ed.

The screenplay is bewilderingly awful, full of irrelevancies and non sequiturs, empty of imagination and inspiration, Columbia Pictures’ production is spectacularly cheap and pathetic, especially for a major studio (it needed Universal to make it), the werewolf transformation is the worst in memory (just a shadow on the wall, and a prop dog leg), and werewolf itself just a harmless, and small Alsatian, probably the producer’s pet dog. Of course small boys will love the secret passages entered by a moving bit of scenery at the edge of the fireplace when you touch a couple of bits of a candelabra. But Columbia Pictures really push their luck by using this around 10 times, and, once inside, the secret passage is just what looks like a studio corridor.

Well, you get the picture. Cry of the Werewolf is bad, but it is amusing throughout, with chuckles and chortles freely available on almost every line and every performance. You warm to it, enjoy it, and relish its awfulness.

It runs on the kitchen sink principle. You throw in anything and hope it’ll all turn out OK. There are voodoo dolls and voodoo murders, which don’t really work with the woman werewolf idea. There’s a lot of talk of vampires in the film, which was developed with the working title of Bride of the Vampire, and not sorted out properly in the script. Obviously, nobody gave a damn.

Born Joseph Stephenson Crane in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Stephen Crane began his brief film career in 1944, signed by Columbia Pictures. Crane righty recalled: ‘To be honest, I was a very poor actor.’ But he opened the Luau, a popular celebrity restaurant, in 1953 and had a successful 25-year restaurant career. Crane is often remembered as Lana Turner’s twice ex-husband.

I’m don’t know quite who to blame for this farrago, but I’m going to blame Griffin Jay (Story and Screenplay) and Charles O’Neal Screenplay), as everything starts from the screenplay. O’Neal was the father of Ryan O’Neal. I think I can also blame the producer Wallace MacDonald for such a shoddy show.

It premiered in New York on 17 August 1944 and was then released as a double feature with The Soul of a Monster, with re-releases into the early 1950.

The cast are Nina Foch as Princess Celeste LaTour, Stephen Crane as Robert ‘Bob’ Morris, Osa Massen as Elsa Chauvet, Blanche Yurka as Bianca, Barton MacLane as Police Lt. Barry Lane, John Abbott as the tour guide Peter Althius, George Eldredge as George LaTour, Fritz Leiber as the father Dr Charles Morris, Milton Parsons as the undertaker Adamson, Ivan Triesault as Jan Spavero and Ray Teal as Policeman Ed.

Joe Dante included the film in his worst horror films list in Famous Monsters of Filmland, calling it ‘a pretty dismal hunk of nonsense.’

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,200

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