|
 The 1946 She-Wolf of London is a rather curious addition to Universal's monster movie legacy. Starring June Lockhart and Don Porter, She-Wolf of London is admirable for taking a more cerebral approach than most chillers of its time, but I can't say it was entirely successful. The atmosphere is perfect for an evening's worth of Universal-style thrills, but the end result leaves more than a little to be desired. Depending on how you look at it, it's either a unique entry in the studio's horror pantheon or one of the biggest rip-offs of all time. For me, it's a little bit of both.
June Lockhart
Lockhart plays Phyllis Allenby, a lovely young heiress engaged to Barry (Porter), a dashing lawyer. Yet although her life couldn't be more perfect on the surface, Phyllis shares some deep-seeded concerns about her true identity. She fears that an old family curse has condemned her to transform into a werewolf and roam the night in search of any hapless victims that cross her path.
After a string of baffling murders in a nearby park, Phyllis' suspicions seem to be confirmed when she awakens one morning to find her hands covered in blood. She shuts herself off from Barry and the rest of the world, but the murders continue, driving Phyllis closer and closer to the brink of insanity. But is Phyllis right in suspecting she's fallen prey to a supernatural curse -- or are other forces at work trying to drive her mad for their own devious purposes?
It's hard to describe what put me off about She-Wolf of London without heading deep into spoiler country. Suffice it to say that this film takes a page from RKO's own creepfest Cat People.
Don Porter & June Lockhart
I'm not ruining anything to say that viewers never actually see a monster onscreen, as the flick aims to creep viewers out more on a psychological plane. In fact, there's just as much evidence that Phyllis is innocent as there is to her actually being a creature of the night. The problem is that She-Wolf of London ends up favoring one of these sides instead of playing around with both. The film does a pretty poor job of masking what's really going on, thanks to an early scene whose abrupt nature will come as a big red flag to even less astute viewers. You end up spending most of the time waiting for the inevitable to happen, which the film is surprisingly slow to arrive at considering it lasts a bit over an hour.
Another drawback to movie is that the story isn't that interesting. Once the plot's true machinations are revealed at the end, the events that transpired beforehand just don't seem worth having gone through. It feels as if the writers took the most difficult way possible to arrive at a pretty basic conclusion, melding two different stories into one awkward package. Plus, there are a couple of little things that nagged at me throughout the flick. If the movie is called She-Wolf of London, why is there a suspicious shortage of actual Londoners? Phyllis belongs to a family that's apparently resided in the city for ages, though she and all of the primary players hardly seem English.
She-Wolf of London is one of the lesser members of the Universal skeleton crew, but it's not a wholly terrible venture. The atmosphere is, as always in a Universal creature feature, spot-on (fog-drenched sets and all), and Lockhart does well despite a thin script that has her pouting and staring for about 90 percent of the picture. However, I do have a word of warning to those horror buffs spoiled by the greatness of The Wolf Man and even Werewolf of London. She-Wolf of London may look like it runs with the rest of the pack, but real fans will see it nothing more as a fairly diverting impostor.
Director: Jean Yarbrough
Writer: George Bricker - screenplay, story - Dwight V. Babcock
Cast: June Lockhart, Don Porter, Sara Haden, Jan Wiley, Lloyd Corrigan, Dennis Hoey
Rating: No MPAA Rating (some spookiness)
Classic Movie Guide Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
Run Time: 61 minutes
Studio: Universal Pictures
Format: Black-and-white, fullscreen
Photo credits: Universal Pictures
|
