O Lobisomem de 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.

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.

Here's an oddity. It's a werewolf movie which operates as a comedy about a Whitehouse press secretary who is bitten by a lycanthrope while stationed in Hungary. He is recalled to Washington and winds up killing a bunch of people connected to the President. This came out during the Watergate scandal and the main character does stay in that famous hotel but I think it would be a stretch to push this one too far as a satire, as the material is a bit thin for that; after all, one of the best gags has our hero getting his fingers jammed in a ball while bowling pre-full moon. Its still kind of hard to dislike though, and I am always a sucker for werewolf make-up. The transformation scenes were actually not bad and Dean Stockwell is pretty committed in the main role - he looked wired to be perfectly honest. Overall, a fun 90 mins for werewolf fans.

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.

I've seen some pretty lame horror comedies but this is one rancid hair ball. Your ten year old comes home with funnier jokes than this. So bad it makes you angry at the waste. Dean Stockwell has never looked more ill at ease or has been more miscast that he is in this miserable attempt at satire.It's so noncommittal about it's style of comedy that it takes about ten minutes into the film before you can figure out it is indeed a comedy.I know some of you may be thinking how could it not be with at title like The Were Wolf Of Washington? Well around the same time Dick Clark produced a TV special called The Werewolf Of Woodstock and it was definitely not intended to be comedy though it was so awful it induced howls of another kind.This is so bad it's just bad.Two thumbs up...the keester.