The Werewolf of Washington

As you can probably guess from the title alone, "Werewolf of Washington" is basically a direct take on "The Wolf Man" story, shaped into a kind of political satire.

We join press secretary Jack Whittier on assignment in Hungary, where his girlfriend buys him a silver cane with a wolf's head handle. When his car breaks down he encounters some strange gypsies, and is attacked by a wolf which he beats to death with his cane. After the wolf is dead it changes back into human form, but the police don't even arrest him for murder. Jack is convinced that there is some kind of a government cover-up going on, but a gypsy woman tells him that he has become a werewolf, cursed with the sign of the pentagram ("Oh, so the pentagon's involved?"). He then returns to Washington, and finds that a series of people he meets are murdered in animal-like attacks ...

This movie does have a lot of very funny and memorable moments. The "phone booth" attack and most of the scenes with the president (particularly the bowling alley sequence) rank particularly highly, and this is certainly a film you won't forget in a hurry. It's one of the most original werewolf movies I've seen in a long time. The acting is surprisingly good considering how incompetent some aspects of the film appear to be, and that's where a lot of the comedy comes from. Dean Stockwell gives an excellent, nervous performance reminiscent of Lon Chaney Jr, and Biff McGuire as the president is just great.

However, it isn't all good news ... it was directed by Milton Moses Ginsberg, who seems primarily to have worked as an editor but has directed several obscure movies (his first movie "Coming Apart" actually appears quite popular critically). The film-making isn't terrible, but it's not really of professional quality -- in some scenes you can even catch that elusive shadow of the cameraman. Considering it was made by an editor, the movie is slow-moving and doesn't flow as well as it should, and some of the cuts just don't work at all. The dialogue is pretty clunky most of the time, although there are some clever plays on words. It's a political satire made at a time when it was fashionable to attack the administration, so of course there's plenty of topical humour going on.

Yes, it's silly and it's cheap and it's pretty incompetent, but it's also a lot of fun. I'm even tempted to give it a higher rating, but I might not live that down. Just see it if you want some quick laughs.

This thing is all tongue in cheek. And in some ways it's a bit charming. The president and all his people are a bunch of clueless idiots. If it weren't for six years ago, I would have said this was impossible. Of course, it was 1973 and the country was reeling from Watergate. There was racial tension and distrust. Now we have Dean Stockwell whose career has been dotted with psychos and weirdos. He finds himself at the end of the werewolf chain, having been bitten in Hungary. He serves as press secretary with the mild inconvenience of turning into a werewolf when the moon is full. He kills a little, bowls a little, terrorizes people in telephone booths. He suspects what has happened to him but, of course. no one will buy it. To the bitter end, the President of the United States is insincere and manipulative (and stupid). The film is pretty predictable, but its comic moments are the best. Don't expect to take this seriously. Maybe a scholar will look at it and see it as pure satire. Unfortunately, it's not that good.

My copy of this film may have been so worn and old it may well have been discovered in a cave next to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but I enjoyed this freaky horror comedy, mainly down to the acting talents of the always great Dean Stockwell (and some nifty werewolf makeup).

Dean's a young press aide, self-exiled to Hungary after having an affair with the President's daughter. While there, he gets attacked and bitten by a werewolf, but as you would imagine he ignores the pleas of a gypsy woman and is recalled back to Washington to help out the President. It's not long before he's becoming as hirsute as Robin Williams and chomping down on various people.

It's more comedy than horror, this film, but it still has its moments. Stockwell hams up the werewolf angle, panting like a dog, chewing up his room. The guy playing the President was good too, and the whole piece is played rather broadly and ends on a pretty good gag. It all looks to have been made for about six dollars but I found it to be pretty entertaining stuff.

The opening of this film is great - it sorta spoofs The Wolf Man (1941). LOL I love the humor from the get-go. The more the film goes on the more you'll find some cute & oddball werewolf and other humor. This is a comedy-horror so if you chose to watch it you should keep the fact it's a comedy in mind.

The movie is not bloody - although there are people killed by the werewolf. The transformation is pretty neat - again reminiscent of the classic Wolf Man transformations. The look of the werewolf in this film reminds me a little bit like the werewolf in 'The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (1973)' - which came out the same year of this film.

Overall this is neat werewolf flick with some silly humor. I found it worth watching.

6/10

Werewolf of Washington, The (1973)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Washington Press Secretary (Dean Stockwell) is banging the President's daughter when he is sent to Transylvania where he is bitten by a werewolf. He returns to Washington and starts killing off various members of congress. This could certainly benefit from the "so bad it's good" thing because this turkey is all over the map. The director doesn't seem to know if he wants to make a political satire, a horror spoof or an actual horror film. The werewolf makeup is rather pathetic but there are a few funny spoofs including the wolf constantly acting like a dog. One scene has the werewolf licking up a dwarf, which must be a first for werewolf films.