And now, a pair of films where the growing hirsuteness of a character's hands -- and the rest of their body, too -- is a major plot point:
Grade: C
Doesn't take long to figure out this one was made for TV -- and if the lack of graphic violence wasn't enough to clue us in, we certainly knew once it started fading to black at regular intervals.
Even so, this slight but amiable look at lycanthropy avoids most of the usual TV-movie traps. It's not too bland, not too pat, and occasionally even has a crisp edge to its dialogue or set pieces.
Moon of the Wolf leans heavily -- maybe too much so -- on atmospheric (i.e. muggy) shots of rural Louisiana, where it was filmed. Then again if the crew had to put up with that miserable-looking weather, more power to them for documenting what they went through. Friends of ours were victims of extortion by that state's infamously corrupt justice system, so we have no urge to visit that neck of the woods to begin with, and Moon of the Wolf did nothing to make a road trip seem more appealing.
Of course the thing about Moon of the Wolf is that the number of whodunit possibilities is really quite small -- two, by our count. It's the kind of movie where you pretty much know the identity of the werewolf from the start, but then you wonder if you aren't being tricked: maybe the whole scene (and it's a good one) with the sulfur and asafetida was a red herring, and it's really that other person.
Sadly, though, the filmmakers chose to go with the less interesting option. On top of that, if you speak French -- or are familiar with certain middling 1970s prog-folk bands -- then the film's suspense takes a hit, since the phrase that le Grandpa Joe keeps mournfully repeating in his sickbed (and other characters mangle as "lou-kah-rouk") is easy enough to break down.
Also, "AWARD"! That's right up there with a giant can that just says "FOOD" on it, or "POISON/SLEEPING TABLETS" for that matter. But after all, this is on the wall of a doctor who gets this gem of a line:
Sheriff: "How come you didn't tell me [she] was pregnant?"
Doctor: "I knew she was pregnant...I was third in my class."
If he'd gone on to recite his SAT scores, we wouldn't have been a bit surprised.
Having seen Moon of the Wolf -- which we actually watched after Queen of the Amazons and before Kong Island, but who's counting -- we've also furthered our progress in the Drive-In Movie Classics box set we plan to take on after the 250-pack. Why? Because it's on that too!
(At least it's not Shock or Snowbeast, which made their way onto both of those box sets plus the Chilling Classics set as well. Bo Svenson and Vincent Price, thrice? Seems Mill Creek likes 'em tall.)
Oh, and these dogs are dead now. Poor dogs; we hope you caught the squirrel at least once, each.
Bride of the Gorilla (1951)
Grade: D
We had to be a bit coy in our review of Moon of the Wolf to avoid spoiling the identity of the werewolf, but there's no doubt here: Raymond Burr is a gorilla.
Or he's a man who becomes a gorilla. Or a man who thinks he becomes a gorilla, à la Nicolas Cage in the wonderful Vampire's Kiss. Whatever, he'll take anything that isn't yet another fat joke or Perry Mason reference.
Burr plays Barney Chavez, a plantation foreman in Brazil who -- as Homer Simpson once observed -- dares to live out the (South) American dream by killing his boss (Paul Cavanagh), marrying his wife, and taking his stuff. In the business, we call that "the triple".
Chavez's perfidy is quietly observed by Al-Long (Gisela Werbisek), a loyal old servant with a witchy side. This gets us curses, dangerous plants -- and Werbisek's astonishingly strong resemblance to Geoffrey Palmer in drag.
(Sorry, old girl, but it had to be said. Please don't curse us.)
In 1951, Burr's star was ascending about as quickly as Lon Chaney Jr.'s was falling, though their respective highs and lows were still five or six years away. Here, the affable old fellow plays a police commissioner who feels pretty sure that Chavez did the deed, but doesn't have quite enough evidence to arrest him.
Chaney's Brazilian cop speaks perfect English, upon which Bride of the Gorilla hangs a lampshade by having him give the following hilarious speech about halfway through:
"I sometimes regret that I went to university, and then returned to this jungle with its superstitions. It only served to confuse me...How could I help being confused? My native mind is filled with these superstitions. My legal mind was developed through books, written by people without emotion."
Coming from a different actor -- say Raul Julia, or Klaus Kinski -- it might almost be plausible, but from Chaney's lips, these lines play like ground beef dropped onto a concrete floor.
The most interesting thing about Bride of the Gorilla is that it somehow feels about five years ahead of its time. Hard to pin down exactly why that is, but we were surprised to remind ourselves that it came out as early as 1951.
It also has a few loopy moments, like when the genteel Dr. Viet (Tom Conway) wants to warn Chavez's coneboobiferous wife Dina about his deterioration. (Dina is played by Barbara Payton, and boy, her life is a cautionary tale if one there ever was.)
Servant girl Larina (Carol Varga) opens the door for Dr. Viet and is hanging around, eavesdropping. But when he asks to speak with Dina alone, she abruptly gets an "Oh, what the fuck!" look on her face, smashes an object on the ground, apologizes -- and leaves, never to be seen again.
Now, we know Larina and Barney had a thing before he threw her over for Dina -- but why would a private conversation between Dina and Dr. Viet make her explode with rage? If anything she might hope that Viet, whose attraction to Dina is obvious (and unrequited), would somehow drive a wedge between them. Oh, well.
Anyway, that's Bride of the Gorilla: yet another "jungle" movie, it's not so goofy as to leave us embarrassed for anyone involved, but not compelling enough to graduate beyond the doldrums. Still, we've certainly seen worse, and Burr has a sort of smoldering, dark-eyed presence that makes him a pretty plausible antihero (even if the only "heroic" thing he does is making time to be nice to goats).
So, welcome to the jungle, Raymond -- but somehow we suspect you've been here before.
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