La gitana loba

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Henry Levin; Produced by Wallace MacDonald for Columbia Pictures release. Screenplay by Griffin Jay and Charles O'Neal; Photography by L. W. O'Connell; Edited by Reg Browne; Musical Director: Mischa Bakaleinikoff. Starring: Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen, Barton MacLane, Blanche Yurka, John Abbott and Fritz Leiber.

Good use of the supernatural werewolf legend in this tale of a gypsy girl haunted by her dark destiny. The film takes a healthy "oral history" approach towards the supernatural element. Special effects money is saved by having the werewolf look exactly like a wolf rather than like a wolfman.

This film when werewolf films are discussed gets a bad rap, and even though there are no " Special Effects", film is effective.It uses elements from two classic 1940's horror films " The Wolf Man" (1941) and " Cat People" (1942)and uses them well.Well made and acted apart from leading man Stephen Crane who acts like he is reading from cue cards.Overall this film is a nice surprise, i went into this not expecting much but thought it a good film, not that far behind the two classics already mentioned.

Entertaining take on the werewolf legend as established by Curt Siodmak in The Wolfman, blended with elements of Val Lewton's The Cat People. Interesting differences between this and The Wolfman are that the werewolf is a woman and she actually transforms into a four-legged wolf. Surely this last decision was made to save money on expensive makeup and transformation seems, but the transformations are handled with clever use of shadows and editing. The lead actors are competent, if bland, but Barton Maclane stands out as the police lieutenant, with some wonderfully written, very funny moments of sardonic exasperation and commentary. His character is also written as more open-minded than most stock police detective characters in these films. Atmospheric, fun, overlooked and underrated, Cry of the Werewolf is a must-see for fans of werewolf movies and/or classical Hollywood horror.

Note: as with so many movies of that era, there is racist content in this film. It includes the appropriation and distortion of Gypsy culture and African people, and the purely servile presence of African-Americans in one brief scene.

CRY OF THE WEREWOLF is about a legend, a family secret, and a curse. There are gypsies, a devil doll, and a Transylvanian connection! Is the gypsy princess Celeste (Nina Foch) more than she appears to be? Of course, there's a werewolf as well, with a bit of a twist. Several deaths occur as the beast tracks down those who could expose the gypsy tribe.

Police Lt. Barry Lane (Barton Maclane) is stumped, while Bob Morris (Stephen Crane) does some snooping of his own. One of the best parts has him sneaking around the basement vaults at a mortuary, while the werewolf pursues him. Will Bob uncover the truth, before his fiancee, Elsa (Ossa Massen) becomes part of the tribe?

Indeed, there's a certain CAT PEOPLE vibe to this movie. Suspenseful and mysterious, COTW is a very entertaining entry in its sub-genre..

EXTRA POINTS FOR: Viewers spotting the rubber band around the poor wolf's snout to make him look more fierce! It sort of works, until it becomes obvious he's just trying to get it off!...

Apart from Universal's "Larry Talbot" series, it seems that most of the early werewolf films are fairly maligned nowadays; this one, emanating from Columbia, is another of them: ironically, that studio had inserted a talking(!) lycanthrope in their bloodsucking flick THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1944) but, when it came time to make a standalone entry into the subgenre, they opted to use a normal wolf (amusingly shown 'munching' all through the opening credits)!! To be honest, the film under review has much more to do with RKO's CAT PEOPLE (1942) than THE WOLF MAN (1941) – actually the principal inspiration behind the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur classic itself: not only is the monster of the female variety but, towards the end, she is likewise shown terrorizing the heroine (though these scenes have none of the impact of the panther's celebrated late-night stalkings!). Still, all things considered, I have to say that I enjoyed this 63-minute film: the obligatory concocted folklore may not have added up to much this time around, but the atmosphere is fairly nice throughout; Nina Foch (THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE's heroine here graduating to the monster role) and Osa Massen fill the central roles quite adequately, too (their authentic foreign origins helping more than their acting talent in this regard), and even the combined police detection and comic relief (usually redundant elements in this type of movie) prove tolerable under the circumstances.