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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Cry Of The Werewolf (1944)

Starring Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen, Blanche Yurka, Barton MacLane
Directed by Henry Levin
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A scientist studying the creatures of legend founds a museum in the former home of a female werewolf, and when he seeks to publish her secrets, enrages her daughter, who shares her mother's curse. 

One of Columbia Pictures' rare excursions into horror in the 1940s, this is a small-scale low budget piece, getting around the cost of a werewolf makeup by portraying the creature as an actual wolf.  While that choice is unfortunate, it's still a worthwhile film with Foch making a compelling villainess, MacLane entertaining as a glib police detective, and atmospheric music, some of which was borrowed from the previous year's The Return Of The Vampire. That film and this one make an interesting double feature, with Foch featured in both, and scripts from Griffin Jay, who wrote a number of the Mummy films for Universal Pictures.

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