Wolfblood

After a wolf blood transfusion, a man (George Chesebro) thinks he is becoming a wolf.

This film came to my attention as being "the first werewolf movie". Strictly speaking, that is not correct. The first werewolf movie is The Werewolf" (1913). However, as that film is considered to be lost, ore "Wolf Blood" can be called the earliest surviving werewolf film, which is the next best thing.

Although George Chesebro (who both stars and directs) is not a well-known name, perhaps he should be. The Minnesota-born film star appeared in more than 400 films between 1915 and 1954, which is nothing to sneeze at! Oddly, it gets to the wolf part until halfway through, first focusing on 1920s dance parties and lumber companies (reminding me of Howard Hawks' "Come and Get It"). Much of the werewolf part is told through possible hallucinations, and we are never completely convinced that he has joined the pack.

Interesting for what it is, but probably not a must-see.

This was really good decent drama , someone told me it was a horror.

As it was the first, kind of werewolf movie however there are no actually werewolf in this.

A man thinks, he is turning into a werewolf after being injected by wolf blood.

After he was beaten up and left for death but start to thing he belongs with the pack of wolves.

After hearing that people, who attacked him, have been killed and mauled by a animal.

7 out of 10

Half the film involves trees falling down and the same stock footage of the lumber industry. There are two warring camps. One is sending men to shoot the workers in the other camp. It is getting ugly. There are so many injuries that the foreman (a sort of Nelson Eddy kind of guy) gets in touch with the owner (who happens to be a rich flapper, engaged to a surgeon). She goes to the camp with her fiancé. He will do the doctoring while she assesses the situation. There is no reason for her to be there other than to advance the plot and get her to fall in love with the handsome foreman. At some point, the guy (who acts before thinking) finds that the opposing camp is about to dam up the river and ruin their business. After a confrontation with a couple of lumberjacks, he is knocked unconscious and thrown in a ravine. He is later found by the surgeon who is put in a position of using wolf blood to save his life. Of course, he now begins to act wolf-like. Some say this was the first werewolf movie. There are some fun moments, but, over all, it is just quite moronic.

Despite the title, this isn't a horror film at all; the werewolf elements are only introduced three-quarters of the way in – which are, in any case, merely suggested through the lead character's hallucinations – but these obviously constitute the film's highlight (though rugged, pasty-faced star and co-director Chesebro isn't exactly Lon Chaney Jr.); still, the transformation-by-transfusion is an interesting concept, one which I don't think has been done in subsequent films. However, while the forest locations are certainly nice, the unexciting main narrative involving rival logging companies and the unavoidable love triangle really drown the interest; a subplot involves a villainous moonshiner who's a dead ringer for Walter Brennan – and, for the record, there's even an interminable "Jazz Age" party sequence towards the beginning! The soundtrack accompanying the print I watched features a classical piece which was also used – to much greater effect – in Luis Bunuel's L'AGE D'OR (1930).

Wolf Blood (1925)

** (out of 4)

In the Canadian wilderness, a logger is injured and near death when a doctor gives him a blood transfusion from a wolf. The man eventually lives but soon he begins to fear he's turning into a wolf. Well, I guess Werewolf of London wasn't the first "werewolf" movie. There aren't any transformation scenes here but it's very clear to see that the final fifteen minutes of this influenced the screenplay of The Wolf Man. The film runs a quick 68-minutes but the wolf action really doesn't start until the very end. Up until that point, we've got a pretty over-dramatic love story that doesn't work at all. None of the actors are that interesting and the technical style looks like 1910 and not what we'd expect from 1925. Those interested in the wolf aspect might want to check it out for a historical purpose but others stay clear.