Werewolf Flicks: Cry of the Werewolf (Daughter of the Werewolf) (1944)

This is going to be one of the shortest intros I've ever done, because I had no idea this movie was a thing at all until I stumbled across it on YouTube a couple of years ago. I was honestly just looking around, when I found an upload that read, "Cry of the Werewolf 1944 FILM FULL MOVIE CLASSIC HORROR." For me, it was a surprising find, as I had never heard of there being any werewolf movies of the 40's aside from the movies that Universal produced featuring the Wolf Man, except for maybe The Return of the Vampire, which prominently features a werewolf character. I didn't get around to watching it until December of 2018 but when I did, I was further surprised to find that it wasn't a public domain movie produced by a Poverty Row studio that went under immediately after its production, one where the print was virtually unwatchable; rather, I learned that it was produced by Columbia, which still may not have quite been among the majors in the 40's but certainly had more to it than something like Monogram. And the depiction of the werewolf itself, though not amazing by a long shot, was definitely not the Wolf Man ripoff that I was anticipating. But that's where anything noteworthy about the film ends, as there's a very good reason for why it's as obscure as it is: it's so mediocre. It has no well-known horror stars like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, or Peter Lorre (or no recognizable actors, in general) to raise it up, it does have some instances of atmosphere and mood but not a lot, no startling effects work, and only a couple of really memorable sequences during its very brief, 62-minute running time. It's not even that bad enough to have an enjoyable schlock factor; in the end, it's just a very "so-so" movie, one not prone to leave much of any impression.

The LaTour Museum in Louisiana is devoted to the mysteries of the occult, with plenty of displays centered around vampirism, voodoo, and werewolves. The building itself was once the home of the LaTour family, with the mistress of the house having been Marie LaTour, whose husband discovered was, in reality, a werewolf. He was promptly murdered by his wife in her wolf form upon learning her secret and she fled the house afterward, her ultimate fate unknown. The museum's director, Dr. Charles Morris, has devoted his life to solving the mystery and seems to have made a breakthrough, according to the museum's janitor, Jan Spavero, who leaves early one night to relate the news to the princess of a tribe of gypsies camped nearby. The princess, Celeste, is the daughter of Marie LaTour, who was taken in by the gypsies after fleeing her home, and she learns from Spavero that Morris has found her mother's burial place and is preparing a manuscript on the subject. Vowing that no disbeliever will air such a secret, Celeste appears at the museum the next night and hides herself with a secret passage in the sitting room that her mother once occupied. After the museum closes for the night, Morris sends his adopted daughter, Elsa Chauvet, a Transylvanian, to fetch his son, Bob, from the airport, having called him in because of his recent discovery. Ignoring Elsa's warnings about a "devil doll" found on his desk, Morris heads down the passageway himself and is attacked, his yells echoing through the museum; the place's tour guide, Peter, follows the sounds down into the passage. When Elsa returns with Bob, they find Morris' manuscript burning in the fireplace in his office and later find Peter in the sitting room, his mind completely broken by something that horrified him. The police are called and Morris' body is found down in the passage. Lt. Barry Lane, who, naturally, doesn't believe in the existence of werewolves, begins to suspect Elsa after a woman's fingerprints are found on the inside of the passage's door, along with a wolf's hairs under Morris' dead fingernails. Little does he that it's the work of a genuine werewolf, one who will stop at nothing to ensure the secret of her mother's burial place is kept hidden from outsiders.

Cry of the Werewolf was the directorial debut of Henry Levin, who began as a stage actor before being hired by Columbia in 1943 to work as a dialogue director on several films, the most notable of them being Passport to Suez, one of the movies based around the "Lone Wolf" character, originated in a series of novels by Louis Joseph Vance (said movie was also the ninth and final film in which actor Warren William played the character). The following year, Levin was one of several Columbia dialogue directors promoted to full-on director (others included William Castle and Mel Ferrer) and after Cry of the Werewolf, he went on to have a very steady career, working in all sorts of genres. He did several movies with Glenn Ford, like The Making of Millie, The Man from Colorado (which also starred William Holden), and Mr. Soft Touch (co-directing with future Them!-director, Gordon Douglas). His most successful film was 1949's Jolson Sings Again and a decade later, he directed Journey to the Centre of the Earth, with James Mason and Pat Boone, the latter of whom he worked with before. Throughout his career, he worked with notable actors like Charlton Heston, Jack Palance, Betty Grable, Errol Flynn, and Dean Martin, to name a few. Unlike a lot of directors of his generation, Levin didn't go into television until right at the end of his career, when he did some episodes of Knots Landing and Scout's Honor, a 1980 TV movie with Gary Coleman. Levin died on the very last day of filming on the latter, suffering a heart attack at 70.

Nina Foch had appeared in The Return of the Vampire, which Columbia produced the previous year, in a supporting role where she was the target of Bela Lugosi's Armand Tesla; here, she's graduated to monster status herself, now playing Celeste, the werewolf gypsy princess. Said title is not just an expression as she basically does rule her tribe, and is hellbent on ensuring that the secret of her cursed mother's tomb is kept. To that end, she makes her way into the museum and makes her down into the secret passage in the sitting room, where she waits for Dr. Morris and kills him when he comes downstairs. Like her mother before, she uses her wolf form to do her dirty work, not only when she kills Morris but also to take care of Jan Spavero, per the elders' decree, when he makes a dumb move that leads to him becoming a suspect in Morris' murder, endangering the tribe. She also declares at an inquest that Spavero was never a member of her tribe and that he simply after being evicted from the tribe. It's at the inquest when she first meets Bob Morris, who questions her about her tribe's practices and about Marie LaTour. They meet again at the undertaker's office, where her tribe brings their dead, and initially, she seems to attempt to kill him when she stalks him in her wolf form down in the building's basement, where the confidential records are kept. But when she meets him again as a human, she takes a certain interest in him, going as far as to let him visit her tribe's camp, where the two of them get more acquainted. She subtly bewitches him in the process, to the point where he can't stop looking at her and later tells Elsa that her tribe is innocent. The film does attempt to portray Celeste in a sympathetic light, as a pathetic woman who hates the horrible curse that lies upon her, due to being the daughter of a werewolf. Among other things, it keeps her from experiencing the happiness of being in love with a man, and this causes her to grow jealous of what Bob and Elsa have. As a result, she decides to make Elsa her "sister," saying, "Since I am forbidden to love him, so shall you be!... You will learn to live as I must live: apart, beyond the reach of men and mortals. And for that love which once shone in a man's eyes, loathing will be substituted. You shall be feared and hated." She uses her powers on Elsa, causing her to act insane when Bob finds her afterward, raving that she killed Morris. Later, as the police search the passage and find her mother's secret crypt, Celeste attacks them in her wolf form, but gets shot in the arm in the process. She appears to Bob and the still hypnotized Elsa, trying to get the latter to kill him, but Elsa is able to use her own will and some help from Bob to resist her. Celeste changes into the wolf again and attacks Bob but the police manage to break into the room and shoot her dead.

I don't know why it seemed like almost a requirement for the leading men in horror and sci-fi flicks made during this era to be bland and stiff but, regardless, we have one of the worst perpetrators of this trope in Bob Morris (Stephen Crane). This guy has no charisma at all and simply goes through the motions in his acting, speaking his dialogue in a really flat, monotone voice that makes him seem not to care that much about the fact that his father has been killed or that he has the unenviable task of piecing together his burned manuscript in order to get a clue about what happened to him (he sounds like Jimmy Stewart but without the talent). Moreover, he later confesses to Elsa that he does believe that there could be something supernatural about his father's death, which is why he's going through the trouble of restoring his notes, and that doesn't inject any life into his acting either. Speaking of which, for two people who are supposed to be adopted siblings turned lovers, you don't buy the chemistry between Bob and Elsa for a second, even when he tells her that he notices what a lovely woman she's become and is thinking about taking her back with him to Washington as his wife. The same goes for his scenes with Celeste, whom he first grills at the inquest about her tribe and their connection to Marie LaTour, and later meets at the funeral home while he's trying to sneak a look at their confidential records. Bob's constant looking at her, supposedly due to her beauty and his having had a spell cast on her, to where he tries to tell Elsa that Celeste's tribe are innocent and misunderstood, doesn't come off as any different than the way he normally talks and acts. He's only barely able to muster up some more emotion during the latter part of the third act, when he comes across the hypnotized Elsa and tries to convince the police of what's happened to her as well. His acting isn't much better when he tries to break through to Elsa and stop her from shooting him, and even then, he doesn't save the day, as Celeste attacks him as a wolf and it's the police who break into the room and save him by shooting her dead (he's not even that shaken up afterward).

As lovely as she is, Elsa Chauvet (Osa Massen) isn't that much more compelling a character than Bob Morris. Dr. Morris' adopted daughter, you learn that she was born in a small village in Transylvania, one where the superstitions about werewolves were quite prevalent, and met the doctor when he went there to research the subject for his studies on Marie LaTour. Her real father, the village magistrate, asked the doctor to take her with him back to America in order to avoid turmoil that was brewing in Europe at that time and since then, she's been living as a member of the Morris family. Working at his museum, she's shaken by his death (more so than Bob appears to be) and is convinced that it was the work of a werewolf, given the legends from her village and the devil doll Morris found on his desk, as well as the condition of his body, the fact that his manuscript was burned around the same time, and the ties to his work and the legend of LaTour. She distrusts Celeste from the moment she first sees her at the inquest and later tells Bob that she's certain that she's absolutely evil, leading her to learn of her connection to Marie LaTour. And then, there's the matter of Elsa and Bob having grown from adopted siblings to adult lovers. Like I said up above, the two of them have no chemistry and you don't buy the evolution of their relationship, with Elsa's initially believing that Bob looks at her as nothing more than a sister and his later admitting that he's noticed what a lovely young woman she's become being the only clues to it. Therefore, her horror at Bob apparently being bewitched by Celeste and her falling under the princess' spell herself doesn't hold any water, especially since the latter doesn't go any farther than her repeating, "Don't come near me," "Don't touch me," and, "I killed him!", her feeling the pain that Celeste does when she's shot by the police, and Celeste trying to get her to shoot Bob before she's finally able to use her will and Bob's help to resist the influence.

Lt. Barry Lane (Barton MacLane), the detective assigned to the case of Dr. Morris' death, is your typical disbelieving authority figure who, while admitting that there are some odd things about it, finds the idea of werewolves to be ridiculous. When a woman's fingerprints are discovered on the inside of the passage where the body was found and some hairs in his hand turn out to be wolf hairs, Lane suspects Elsa, so much so that he arranges for her apartment to be searched in order to get a sample of her own fingerprints and see if they match. He's so convinced that it's her that he actually has to be shown that the prints don't match before he concedes, though does believe that she may have had an accomplice, namely Jan Spavero, whom he meets at the museum and learns is also from Transylvania. When Spavero implicates himself by leaving a handprint on the lab door after destroying what's left of the burned notes and then disappears, Lane is now sure that he's the murderer and he simply made it look as if a wolf killed Morris (whether or not he still believes Elsa is involved is unclear but he doesn't mention the woman's fingerprints again)... until Spavero's body is found, having been mauled to death. Near the end of the movie, when the hypnotized Elsa raves that she killed Morris, Lane initially decides he has no choice but to take her in, but when Bob tries to convince him of the gypsies' evil nature and its influence over Elsa, he decides to thoroughly inspect the secret chamber in the basement that's actually Marie LaTour's crypt. While doing so, they're attacked by Celeste in her wolf form, and while Lane doesn't know see happened because of the darkness and the confusion of the attack, getting annoyed at his men for what he believes to be clumsiness on their part, he knows something is going on when one man shows him his ripped up sleeve and when he hears the wolf howling. He and his men chase the thing all over the museum, managing to injure it, and they also break into the room where Bob and Elsa are and shoot Celeste dead when she tries to maul Bob. Seeing this, as well as watching the dead wolf turn back into Celeste, convinces Lane once and for all.

Bianca (Blanche Yurka) is an older gypsy who acts as a guardian to Celeste, having been personally given charge of her by Marie LaTour following her birth. She stays in the same carriage as Celeste at the campsite and offers her both guidance as well as some comfort when she needs it, such as when she brings down crying over her unenviable existence after she kills Jan Spavero as a wolf. In that scene, Bianca acts very motherly and tries to comfort her as best as she can, though she can only offer sympathy for her inescapable plight, which she knows she was stricken with the minute she was born. (One of the film's best scenes, actually.) Bianca, however, doesn't think much of Spavero, telling him to stop dawdling when he first comes to the camp with as yet unrevealed bad news and later admonishing him for his stupidity in leaving his handprint at the crime scene, adding that the tribe won't offer any of their promised protection since his act has threatened to bring the police on them. Celeste makes her leave the carriage and Bianca obviously knows what's going to happen, as after Spavero flees into the woods, she and the other gypsies wait outside until they heard his cries as Celeste rips him to bits. At the inquest, when Bob Morris questions Celeste about Marie LaTour and her tribe's links to her, Bianca, apparently fearing that Celeste may break and confess, fakes a fainting to force the inquest into a recess. She's last seen when the gypsies visit the Adamson funeral home, leaving Spavero's body there, and like Celeste, she seems concerned when she hears about Bob's inquiring about the tribe for some research. She's so on edge that she tells Adamson to keep his voice down about Spavero at one point, and when Bob is no longer in the waiting room, they both know where he likely is.

Jan Spavero (Ivan Triesault) works as a janitor at the museum but, unbeknownst to Dr. Morris, is in league with the gypsies, visiting their camp in order to tell Celeste that the doctor has discovered her mother's burial place and is preparing to publish a manuscript about it. After Morris' murder and the discovery of his body, Spavero is caught hiding in a closet in Morris' office by Lt. Lane, who then questions him about what he's doing. Spavero claims to have been down at the DA's office earlier, answering questions, and has come by to do his job, but Lane lets him go home, saying that there's nothing to be done. Before he goes, Lane asks him about werewolves and Spavero simply mentions the superstitions from his country, Transylvania, leading Lane to suspect that he may be Elsa Chauvet's accomplice in the murder. That night, he sneaks back into the museum to completely destroy the burnt notes Bob and Elsa have been trying to reconstruct, and nearly gets caught when the museum's cat, Minnie, hisses and growls at him, alerting a guard there. He comes closes to being caught and is ready to kill the guard with a knife but, fortunately for him, he manages to remain unseen. Too bad he leaves a handprint on the wall that makes him a suspect in Morris' murder and, in turn, endangers the gypsies. Spavero tries to tell Celeste that he'll disappear and the police will never find him but she tells him that the tribe's elders have already decided his fate. She then tells him, "This much I will promise, Jan: you will lie with your ancestors in the ground selected by mother," and Spavero, knowing what she means, attempts to flee through the woods. However, he doesn't get far before Celeste becomes a wolf, hunts him down, and kills him, the gypsies later delivering his body to the Adamson funeral home.

He's only in a little bit of the movie but Peter (John Abbott), the museum tour guide, does manage to come out as a bit memorable, mainly because of his stuffy, English voice and the earnest way in which he tells the visitors the lore behind vampires, voodoo, and werewolves without necessarily believing it himself, though he does admit Dr. Morris that it does get to him a little bit. When Morris is killed down in the passageway, Peter, who had been looking for Minnie the cat, hears him and finds his way down into the passage. Later, Bob, Elsa, and Mac, a security guard, find him in the dark sitting room, completely out of his mind and muttering, "Hear, Minnie. Kitty? Kitty, kitty?" (It's more funny than disturbing.) Obviously, he saw something that broke him completely, but whether it was Celeste becoming a werewolf in front of him, her still mauling Morris' body, or even her bewitching him, as she would later do to Bob and Elsa, is never made clear, and Peter isn't seen again afterward. Incidentally, Mac is played by John Tyrrell, an actor who appeared in over 250 films, including a number of the Three Stooges shorts that Columbia produced. If you're a Stooge fan, it's always fun watching the actual features Columbia made during this time, as you often see the supporting actors who appeared with them in those shorts.

Lt. Lane works closely with another policeman, Homer (Robert Williams), who tends to frustrate him as he has moments of being a tad bit slow. When Lane begins to suspect Elsa, he has to spell out his plan to get a sample of her fingerprints from her passport to Homer, whose job is to get the passport, and in addition to the "high sign," Lane has to whistle to get Homer to drive off when it's time for him to do so. Homer also has a habit of keeping a private record of stuff pertaining to his cases in a private scrapbook to show his wife and kids, as seen when he's cutting up newspaper articles of wolves being reported in the nearby bayous, though Lane doesn't see the connection. He also gets caught up in the climactic struggle with the werewolf, as he's the first one to get attacked, along with another officer, when they find Marie LaTour's secret crypt down in the secret passage. Again, his and the other cop firing on the wolf initially frustrates Lane, who didn't see the wolf in the confusion and darkness, but it doesn't take him long to figure out that there is something running around in the building. Homer is among the cops who burst in on the wolf attacking Bob and shoot her dead, forcing her to turn back into Celeste. They also work with a man at the police laboratory named Pinkie (Fred Graff), who I had to mention simply because of his name.

Dr. Charles Morris (Fritz Leiber) isn't in the film long before he's killed off but he's onscreen enough to come off as a rather kindly man, towards both his employees (he allows Jan Spavero to leave work early one night) and his children, knowing that there's an attraction between Bob and Elsa. His downfall, however, comes from the fact that he doesn't take the threat of the devil doll he finds in his office seriously, despite having an inkling that there might be a connection between it and his work. And when Elsa attempts to call the police about it, he stops her, telling her it's a matter of science. He goes as far to admit that some of it does come down to jealousy on his part, as he wants all of the credit for the discovery he feels he's about to make for himself and plans to share it with Elsa and Bob only after he's sure. Because of that, he doesn't let on about the secret passage he's found in the sitting room, leading to him being killed by Celeste down there and Peter finding his way down there upon hearing the cries and having his mind broken. Finally, I have to mention Adamson (Milton Parsons), the undertaker, simply because he's quite memorable in both his appearance (tall, gangly, bald) and his rather upbeat, almost bubbly, personality, especially when he speaks to Celeste and Bianca about Bob and what an earnest young man he is. He seems delighted when he later sees that Bob and Celeste have found each other, remarking on how they're talking as if they're old friends.

Like I said in the introduction, by the 40's, Columbia Pictures hadn't yet reached the status of the other major studios but they were starting to gain a foothold, mainly thanks to the movies they were producing with Rita Hayworth, their biggest star at the time. Harry Cohn, the notoriously bad-tempered and perverted head of the studio (Nina Foch admitted that she couldn't stand him, a sentiment held by a lot of people), was also rather cheap with the budgets that he allowed for even his bigger productions, and whenever really expensive sets, props, and costumes had to be made, he got the most out of them by recycling them again and again. As a result, the B-movies that Columbia produced managed to look bigger than they really were, and indeed, Cry of the Werewolf does have a couple of impressive sets. Most of the film takes place at the LaTour Museum, which has the feeling of having once been a big, lavish house, with a large main room where Peter begins his tours, rooms devoted to exhibits on vampires (which includes a skeleton with a stake through its rib-cage) and voodoo, the lab where Elsa and Bob try to reconstruct Dr. Morris' burned notes, and the fancy sitting room that was once occupied by Marie LaTour herself, containing the secret passageway that leads down to where her crypt is hidden. Said passageway is through a rather cramped opening on the left side of a mantel, activated by turning a couple of knobs on a piece sitting there, and it leads to a small, winding staircase that heads down into a large tomb-like area. The entrance to the crypt can be activated by pulling a lever up from the floor, bringing down a section of the wall with a stuffed wolf on the other side of it, the crypt being beyond that. You don't see much of the crypt, as its interior is only given one wide-shot and it's darkly lit, but you can make out a coffin on a slab, a couple of urns on either side of it, and a burning oil lamp hanging from the ceiling.

A similarly interesting location is the Adamson funeral home, which Bob visits in order to find some more information about the gypsies. The upstairs is just kind of so-so but the basement area where the records are kept is a large, dark, and kind of spooky labyrinth, filled with cold storage units where bodies are kept and a large cabinet containing the records Bob looks for. It makes for one of the few scenes in the film that is kind of unsettling, as the whole place seems to be made out of metal, with large doors and a freight-like elevator that you have to use to reach it. The police laboratory, for what little we see of it, also looks nice but is nothing to write home about, and the same goes for the remaining locations, including the large room where the inquest is held, which is just rather bland and, ironically, not nearly impressive as the courtroom that was used in the Three Stooges short, Disorder in the Court. Finally, the gypsy camp was clearly just shot on the backlot and isn't nearly as memorable and has none of the atmosphere of those seen in The Wolf Man a few years earlier.

In addition to some good sets, the film benefits from the cinematography, courtesy of L. William O'Connell, which is often very low and moody, almost noirish, with lots of shadows, dark spots, and shafts of light. It works well during the opening tour, in those rooms containing the exhibits devoted to the macabre, and in the scenes in the museum leading up to and following Dr. Morris' death, including one where Jan Spavero is sneaking around the lab and has to hide behind a door from a guard, but the best cinematography starts popping up around halfway into the film. Like I said, the basement of the Adamson funeral home is maze-like and dark and that feeling is punctuated by how it's seemingly lit only by the lighter Bob uses to search his way through it. And when Celeste goes down there and starts looking for him, the shots of her roaming around, both in human and wolf form, juxtaposed with him attempting to back away into the darkness, are fairly effective (not great, mind you, but the scene works for what it is). Finally, the ending in the museum is very moody in how it's lit only by candlelight and flashlights, thanks to the lights going out early on, and it's particularly eerie down in the basement and the crypt, as you often get quick shots of the werewolf as she prowls through the darkness, attacking when she gets the chance. There's one shot where you get a quick glimpse of her eyes glowing in the dark before she runs for it upon being fired at, which is a bit startling as it's not something you expect to see.

I don't know exactly what I was expecting when I first decided to watch this film, if anything, as the thumbnail for the YouTube video was nothing more than a murky image, but I did have something of an image in my mind of the werewolf itself. Since The Wolf Man so influenced the way werewolves looked in movies for many years afterward, I was expecting to see something along those lines, especially since Columbia had done such a character with Andreas, Armand Tesla's servant in The Return of the Vampire. Imagine my surprise when I see this film and, one, the werewolf turns out to be a woman (making this the first surviving movie to feature a female werewolf; there was a 1913 silent movie featuring one but it's long lost), and two, they used an actual wolf rather than any sort of makeup on the actor. Early on, when Peter tells the story of Marie LaTour, you see the wolf in close-up (it's constantly snapping its jaws because they put a rubber band around its snout) but afterward, when Celeste is revealed to be a werewolf as well, being her daughter, all you see are very quick glimpses of the wolf, shots of its feet, or in shadow and silhouette in the darkness. They also seemed to make use of a German shepherd or other such dog for when Celeste attacks Bob Morris in the office during the climax, and I have a feeling they did the same for the shots of the wolf's feet in some shots. And the transformations from Celeste into the wolf and vice versa are done through simple dissolves from one to the other, as well as in-between cuts in one instance.

In his first scene, Lt. Lane accidentally refers to Marie LaTour as a vampire instead of a werewolf and the ironic thing is that there are tropes here that feel more akin to that subgenre. While being a werewolf is still portrayed as a curse, the change is a voluntary one rather than a forced one brought about by the full moon (which is never seen or even mentioned here) and Celeste often uses it to do her dirty work, making it more like when vampires intentionally become bats, as well as wolves themselves, in some cases. It's never made clear how Marie LaTour herself became a werewolf but no mention of the curse being passed on through a bite or an attack is ever made, as nothing happens to those who get bitten and clawed up by the wolf. Also, while her mother is shown to have been attacking and killing livestock in her wolf form, which led to her husband finding out the truth, Celeste herself doesn't appear to be under any influence she can't resist when it comes to her wolf half, although she still loathes what she is and is unable to have a relationship a man because of it, which prompts her to try to make Elsa her slave. Speaking of which, like a vampire, Celeste is also able to bewitch others, first in a subtle way where she gets Bob to start talking nicely about her tribe and later in a more overt way, where she has Elsa completely under her control, to the point where she almost gets her to kill Bob (as you can see, they use the same lighting on the face technique to emphasize her power that was often done with Bela Lugosi). And while this movie does mention silver bullets (which Homer proposes at one point, prompting Lane to comment that they may as well donate their fillings to the purpose) in passing, this werewolf is more than vulnerable to good old-fashioned lead.

One way in which this film differentiates itself from The Wolf Man is its depiction of the gypsies and their relation to the werewolf. Rather than being completely terrified of this creature that's part of their superstitions, in this instance, the gypsies have taken one in as their princess, just as her mother had decreed when she joined their tribe. While there is some horror to be seen in their reactions to when Celeste slaughters Jan Spavero out in the woods, the gypsies are not frightened by Celeste at all, instead accepting her as their ruler, with the elders even condemning Spavero to die by her wolf's claws when his carelessness threatens them, and are more than willing to protect her and the secret of her mother's burial place. In fact, this movie does not paint the gypsies in a good light at all, as Bob decries them as devil worshipers near the end, which may not sit well with those have ties to them (it has a similarly unflattering depiction of voodoo during the opening, which was the norm for the time).

Few of the movie's major scenes are likely to leave much of an impact. Dr. Charles Morris' death is complete offscreen, as you just hear his screams echoing through the walls of the museum after he goes down into the passage (he sounds more like he's taking a massive dump than getting ripped to pieces) and Peter follows the sounds into the passage, after which he's last seen stumbling around in the dark sitting room, mumbling his lines about looking for the cat and coming off as more silly than creepy. The scene where Jan Spavero is nearly caught while attempting to destroy the burned notes in the museum's lab is well-shot and the sight of him preparing to stab the guard should he come through the door is a bit suspenseful but, again, nothing to write home about. After the scene in the funeral home basement, the most memorable and effective bit in the movie is when Spavero, after endangering the gypsies with his carelessness, realizes, to his horror, what's to become of him. He runs out into the woods in a desperate attempt to escape, as Celeste becomes a wolf (the change is shown through her shadow) and stalks him through the forest. The chase is shown through a series of quick shots of Spavero fleeing, dragging his limping foot, and waist-high shots of the wolf as she closes in on him. It then cuts to a shot of the gypsies back at the camp, reacting when they hear Spavero's screams (much more effective than Morris', I might add), with one woman covering her child's ears, as the camera pans down and across to a steaming pot of stew, while the wolf's howling is heard. Pretty good scene, and it punctuates the following one, where Celeste is shown crying in Bianca's embrace, lamenting her hellish existence.

Then comes the scene in the funeral home's basement, where Bob Morris makes his way through the dark maze with only a cigarette lighter as a makeshift torch. After some creeping around, Bob manages to find the cabinet with the records that he's looking for, but before he can get to them, he hears the sound of the elevator that leads down there, followed by Celeste's echoing footsteps as she steps into the place and begins searching for him. Closing the cabinet, Bob slips back into the darkness, as Celeste transitions into her wolf form between cuts and prowls around the place in a much quieter fashion. Bob spots the wolf's silhouette at one point, along with her shadow, and promptly runs for the elevator. The wolf chases after him but he manages to get inside the elevator and close it, riding it back up to the main part of the building. But when he gets off of the elevator, he comes face-to-face with Celeste in her human form. Right before the climax comes the moment where Elsa, while looking at the painting of Marie LaTour in the museum, trying to figure out the source of the evil power she's sensing, is confronted by Celeste and learns that she is LaTour's daughter. Celeste proceeds to put Elsa under her spell, planning to condemn her in the same way that she is, and Elsa faints, with Celeste adding, "When you awaken, you too shall be the daughter of a werewolf." She picks her up and takes her down into the secret passage, when Bob comes in, looking for Elsa. His search leads him into the sitting room, where he opens the passage himself, hearing some rustling within it. Initially, it seems like all it was Minnie the cat, who comes walking out, but Bob walks down into the passage, feeling that Elsa is down there. Reaching the bottom, he finds what looks like a spot of blood and small lever on the floor near it. When he pulls, it lowers a section of the wall behind him, revealing a stuffed wolf attached to the other side and another room beyond that. Elsa then appears behind him, acting completely out of her mind and claiming that she killed his father.

The climax begins when Bob calls the police over, as Elsa continues to rave that she killed Dr. Morris. Lt. Lane initially sees no alternative but to take her in but Bob does manage to convince him to go down and thoroughly search the basement area. As they head to the passage, the lights suddenly go out and Lane sends one of his men to find the fusebox, while he, Homer, and another officer named Al head on down to the basement. In the office where they're staying, which is currently lit only by a candelabra, Elsa is shown to be feigning sleeping from a drug that Bob gave her, watching him when he's not looking and spotting a gun in the desk drawer when he opens it up, looking for something to light his cigarette. Down in the basement, it's discovered that the secret room behind the stuffed wolf is a crypt containing the body of a gypsy woman (Marie LaTour), when Homer and Al get attacked by Celeste in wolf form. A lot of shooting commences, as the wolf attacks Al, and the scene gets dark from the men dropping their flashlights in the chaos, while outside, the other officers hear the commotion and cover the exits. When it's over, Lane, who didn't see anything, angrily yells at Homer for shooting bullets everywhere and tells him and Al to come down; Al, though, has proof of what happened, as his left sleeve is in tatters from the attack. Meanwhile, Bob is, unknowingly, almost attacked from behind by Elsa but saves himself by standing up from the chair he was sitting in upon hearing more gunfire. Out in the museum, Lane and the men hear the now wounded werewolf howling in pain and move in, firing again when they see her eyes in the dark. Elsa begins to react to what Celeste is going through, grabbing her shoulder in pain after the sound of one gunshot, and claims that they're trying to kill her sister. In one room, the police find a spot of blood on the floor, when the wolf manages to slip out the door, causing it to creak behind her. They chase after her and, after losing sight of her, are forced to split up to cover more ground.

Celeste, now in human form, enters the room where Bob and Elsa are, closing the door behind her and locking it. Noticing that Elsa is feeling the pain of the bullet wounds like she is, Celeste, ignoring Bob telling her that she's trapped, tells her that they must build another temple, since the old one in the basement is now desecrated. Bob goes for the gun in the desk drawer, only to find it gone and to see Elsa pointing it at him. Celeste attempts to influence Elsa into shooting Bob, while he tells her to put the gun down, telling her to use her own will. After a short, verbal tug-o-war between them, Celeste sees that she's lost influence over Elsa and, blood running over her hand, crouches to the floor and becomes a wolf once again. Elsa then faints from the exhaustion of resisting Celeste's control and Bob stops her fall, sitting her down in the chair. Celeste then attacks and Bob struggles with her, ending up on the floor (it's not as exciting as it sounds, though). The police hear this and run to the door, busting it down and opening fire on Celeste, the wolf letting out a squeal that sounds awfully cat-like as she's hit. Lane helps Bob to his feet, just as the lights finally come back on, and he rushes to Elsa, comforting her. The policeman who was sent to fix the fusebox, Ed, walks in and sees the wolf's body lying on the floor, watching as it turns back into Celeste for the last time, and Lane tells him it's something he can one day share with his grandchildren.

One thing these B-movies that Columbia produced during this period aren't known for is great, memorable music scores, as they often used a bunch of stock music in order to save money. That's certainly true of Cry of the Werewolf, which has a very forgettable score with Mischa Bakaleinikoff acting as musical director. There are some occasional points of noteworthiness, like pieces used for some of the suspenseful scenes and the traditional bits of string and tambourine used for the gypsies, but other than that, it's unlikely you'll remember any of this music, as it's simply meant to fit the footage it's put rather than evoke emotion or come off as all that memorable.

Cry of the Werewolf is best summed up as a movie that's simply there, with nothing to make it jump out as being anything special. While it has some memorable supporting characters, nice use of sets made for more prestigious films, noteworthy cinematography, a couple of effective scenes, and a werewolf portrayal that's certainly not a Wolf Man ripoff, it's a very so-so film on the whole, with leading characters who range from dull to just okay, no noteworthy effects work, a music score that's in one ear and out the other, and a story that's rather forgettable, with a climax that's just "eh." It's not an awful movie but it's not a great or even good one, either; it just fills an hour and some change. I don't know if I would recommend it other than as a way of killing 62 minutes.