Tuesday's Forgotten (or Overlooked) Film: HATARI (1962) starring John Wayne, Red Buttons and Elsa Martinelli

I haven't seen this film recently so my post is written from affectionate memory. And yet, I have to add that despite my deep-rooted affection, HATARI is one of those films that doesn't, necessarily, improve on excessive re-watching. But watched one or two or even three times, it's quite enjoyable. I shall explain as we go.

HATARI (1962) is a Howard Hawks production starring John Wayne, Red Buttons and Elsa Martinelli. Filmed mostly on location in Tanzania (aka The United Republic of Tanzania), Africa - which is actually the main attraction if you, like me, dreamed of going on safari (with film camera) when you were young and full of oats. ('Hatari' means 'danger' in Swahili.)

One of the film's more memorable enjoyments is the jazzy light-hearted score by Henry Mancini. I owned the album for years and think I might want to get my hands on the CD - now that the film has sprung into my mind again.

An aside: I had a friend who went to live in Africa - maybe Senegal, not sure - with her new hubby. They were there for a couple of years but came back to America, rather chastened, I think. They just could not accommodate themselves to the vast changes in lifestyle. At any rate, I'd given her a gold ring to take with her so that at least something of mine, if not my actual self, would have traveled there. Now that I think on it, I know three people who have been to Morocco, so that's three others in my sphere who have actually set foot on the Continent of Africa.

Back to the movie:

Besides the attractions of Africa and star power of John Wayne, there are a bevy of good looking men in secondary roles - more than enough to make any young heart flutter: Bruce Cabot as 'The Indian' is an older - but still good enough for a flutter or two - white hunter (though nicely tanned) whose leg goring at the horn of a rhino in the beginning of the film adds drama and is supposed to make that particular beast seem mysterious, deadly and too difficult to take back alive except if you're John Wayne. It also makes it easier to add a swaggering young Frenchman to the group, since The Indian must recuperate and can no longer join in the animal hijinks.

Wayne plays Sean Mercer, a gruff co-owner of an outfit based in Africa, whose job it is to catch animals for zoos around the world. This they do with extreme vigor and hands-on enthusiasm. The best parts in the film are those when we're on the chase - since the camera goes right along - adding the necessary gritty verisimilitude to the various treks across the African plains. Just really wonderful camera work by Russell Harlan - director of photography.

Joining Wayne in the animal round-ups, are: an adorably blond and sexy Hardy Kruger as Kurt Muller, the German in the cast, an equally adorable and even sexier Valentin de Vargas (sadly he died this year on my birthday at age 78) as Luis Francisco Garcia Lopez, the Mexican in the cast, (Luis has very little to say in the script, but his eyes and expressive face do the 'saying' for him), Gerard Blain as the less adorable but just as sexy, Charles Maurey, nicknamed 'Chips', the Frenchman in the cast, and finally the almost too adorable Red Buttons as 'Pockets' the American of the secondary group - a handy jack of all trades and inventor - a silly side plot involving rockets.

There's lots of male bonding exposition, joking, smoking, some drunkenness and manly oneupmanship that must be waded through of course - it's a Hawks film - plus testosterone usually flows when John Wayne is around. But I must tell you that a little of this sort of thing goes a very long way.

Well, as you can see, we have a veritable United Nations of actors in the cast. Part of the fun. Gives a kind of international flavor even if it stretches credulity a bit.

Along with all this heavenly pulchritude we also have French actress Michele Girardon as Brandy de la Court who has lived in Africa since she was a child and has known The Indian and Sean all her life. Sean tends to think of her as a girl still, but in truth she's a grown woman and pretty soon the younger men notice and begin to jockey for position. Her choice near the end is rather obvious from the first, but we pretend not to see it. It's meant to be cute.

Okay, so into this mix comes beautiful Elsa Martinelli as Italian wildlife photographer Anna Maria D'Allesandro, almost immediately nicknamed 'Dallas' by Sean - he had initially mistaken her letters requesting interviews and photos for a magazine spread as having come from a male journalist. (She signed the letters with her initials.) So there's exasperated fussing and fuming in the beginning as he initially wants her to leave - the African plains are no place for a woman.

"But what about Brandy?" Oh well, she grew up here. She's one of the boys. Unsaid: Plus she doesn't go in for feminine falderals as Dallas presumably might.

Needless to say, Dallas, a determined woman, stays on. Though I must add that as far as picture taking, she doesn't seem to have much professional paraphernalia and apparently only one small 35 mm camera. Not that you see her working that often. But as usual I'm nitpicking.

Everything that happens in this movie is foretold in the first half hour or so so that the only reason for watching are the thrilling (and I mean, thrilling) animal chases, the African landscape, the accompanying music and the aforementioned Hardy Kruger and Valentin de Vargas who are hardly the main stars.

My favorite line in the movie: "My name is Luis Francisco Garcia Lopez, I don't wear pajamas."
You have to watch the scene to know why this signifies. I swoon every time. Even if it's only a brief screen moment.

The truth is, John Wayne was really too old to be playing the smitten school boy, even a reluctant one. And Elsa Martinelli's character was too young to have fallen for this very irascible older guy whose attractions, I must say, are not what they once were. Though I was never one to pooh-pooh the appeal of extreme competence - the alpha male syndrome and all (I can be a sucker for that myself). But again I'm nit-picking, Wayne's the star and that's that.

Wayne and Martinelli meet 'cute'.

Don't get me wrong, I liked John Wayne in most of his screen incarnations - always playing John Wayne - but when younger, he was easier on the eyes and his 'manly' shtick hadn't worn out its welcome. But by the sixties, he was oh-so-predictable that you had to role your eyes. (Except for maybe in TRUE GRIT.)

The rest of the film is basically a will they/won't they with animal chases in between and near the end two little elephants to up the 'cute' quotient and make Dallas seem more 'motherly' and adorable just in case we were thinking she might be too sophisticated for Sean.

Okay so why am I recommending this film when I seem to be damning it with faint praise? Well, you know I'm the contrary sort. Besides what annoys me may not necessarily annoy you.

Take a look, see what you think. I know that when I was young and impressionable, I really loved this boisterous Howard Hawks tale of adventure in a kind of theme-park Africa. Despite my older self looking back with a certain amount of cynicism, I probably wouldn't mind seeing it again one of these days. It's not a bad film at all to watch with younger kids either. Despite my grumpiness, there are some really delightful scenes and the whole thing does kind of make you wish you were there.

Don't forget to check in at Todd Mason's blog today to see what other forgotten (or overlooked) films and/or audio visuals, other bloggers are talking about today.

Tuesday's Forgotten (or Overlooked) Film: DADDY LONG-LEGS (1955) starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron.

Let me say going in that I've never found Leslie Caron a scintillating screen presence except for maybe, in GIGI. So there's that to consider. But I can see Fred falling for her French bubbly effervescence - why not. He's an old guy, she's young and vibrant. There's that accent AND she really, really knows how to dance. Plus she's awfully cute. What more could any man want?

And I know that there are MANY people who think Fred was just too old for this role - I've even heard that some people find the whole thing creepy. I don't, but then far as I'm concerned Fred was ageless. But let's not dwell on the reality, ladies and gents. This is a movie. A musical. In Technicolor. It's Fred Astaire. Honestly, who cares how old he really was? It's make-believe!

I'll tell you a secret, I found Gene Kelly much more objectionable (age-wise) opposite Caron in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. But that's just me.

DADDY LONG-LEGS (1955) is a film directed by Jean Negulesco with a screenplay by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron based on the wonderful (maybe even legendary) epistolary novel of the same name by Jean Webster. Read more about that version on my earlier blog post here.

As with most adaptations of novels, the movie takes liberties, but that's to be expected. For instance, in the book, the young American waif is named Jerusha 'Judy' Abbott. But since Caron is so obviously French, her name was changed to Julie Andre and she becomes a waif in an orphanage in the French countryside.

Traveling in France, Jervis Pendleton III (Fred Astaire) a fabulously wealthy businessman, stops off at an orphanage which he sponsors. He spots a charming young girl, Julie Anders (Leslie Caron) and decides to underwrite her education in the states. To that end, Julie shortly gets shipped off to a college in New England where her roommate and friend will be (coincidentally) Jervis's niece, Linda (Terry Moore). (Not that Julie knows about the family connection. She has no idea that Jervis is 'her' Daddy Long-Legs.)

You know how girls's colleges were depicted in movies once upon a time: fun, fun, and more fun. Sweater-sets, plaid skirts, saddle shoes, singing, dancing, the students all perky and bright-eyed and looking to connect with husband material. (There's a male college conveniently near by.)

At the orphanage, Julie's only glimpse of Jervis had been of his shadow - just enough to capture her imagination. He is tall and thin with long legs, hence the moniker 'Daddy Long-Legs'. But she is told by the orphanage administrator that she and her benefactor will never meet, that is one of the scholarship's provisos.

Jervis worries that if anyone found out he was sponsoring a lovely young girl, gossip might be hurtful not only to her but to his corporate dealings - Jervis is a hard headed business man first and foremost. He has no interest in friendship with his new ward. In fact, before too long he forgets about her.

Julie, however, has been told she must write to her mysterious sponsor and let him know of her life at school but she must not expect any replies to her letters. Huh?

I don't know about you, but that seems just the teensiest bit off-putting to me. But hey, she's getting a scholarship and a chance to have a better life, so why not. Besides she doesn't really believe he actually means not to respond to her letters.

But as the years pass and she writes her 'Dear Daddy Long-Legs' letters to Jervis - letters which he doesn't even bother to open - she finally realizes that her guardian did, indeed, mean what he said. Though that doesn't stop her continuing to write and unburdening herself to him. She is, after all, very grateful for this chance at a new life, not to mention his continued generosity.

When over time Jervis's gruff secretary, Alicia Pritchard (the wonderful Thelma Ritter) reads some of Julie's letters, she is so touched, she begins to chide her boss for not responding. Even Jervis's equally gruff associate Griggs (the equally wonderful Fred Clark), eventually gets in on the notion. Life is more than just about business, Miss Pritchard insists, to Jervis's surprise. Really? At the very least, he decides to read a letter or two.

Despite his inclination to keep ignoring the young girl he's uprooted and installed in a state-side school, Jervis decides - finally - to check up on her. Yes, he is touched by her letters too. He will drop in at the school to visit his niece Linda never admitting to Julie - whom he meets and is again enchanted by (in the way that only a younger woman seems able to enchant an older man) - who he really is.

Once they dance together (Sluefoot!), of course, it's all over but the wedding invitations. But that's a little later in the story. First Julie and Linda (who can easily see that her uncle dotes on Julie) travel to NYC on school break while Jervis tries to figure out how to tell Julie who is and Julie, smart girl that she is, begins to suspect.

It's all happily ever after of course, and even if we all know (including Jervis) that he's too old for Julie, it doesn't seem to matter much - love will find a way. It's only thirty or so years difference after all.

Several terrific songs and dances later, all's well that ends well. You know how that goes.

Don't forget to check in at Todd Mason's site, Sweet Freedom, to see what other films and/or audio visuals other bloggers are talking about today.

Tuesday's Forgotten (or Overlooked) Film: DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (1936) starring Gloria Holden and Otto Kruger

Since Halloween is just around the corner, I'll be featuring some 'overlooked or forgotten' horror films each Tuesday before The Big Day. As many of you know, I'm not REALLY a horror movie buff, but just to be contrary (as I am fond of being) I do like and enjoy 'monster movies' from the past, most of which left the blood and guts stuff to the imagination - thank goodness. It was mostly about atmospherics then. 

Last Tuesday it was WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935) and this week it's DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (1936). This is a spooky gem I haven't seen in years and years and just found recently on a neat website (not youtube) where apparently anyone can watch a very good print of this creepy old movie for free.

DRACULA'S DAUGHTER is a 1936 film directed by Lambert Hillyer starring Gloria Holden and Otto Kruger. Wikipedia has a comprehensive page detailing the wrangling over the script and cast and who would direct (it was originally meant for James Whale - director of FRANKENSTEIN - who wanted no part of another horror film) but no matter, after many re-writes (the script was only marginally based on a Bram Stoker short story), and even more wrangling with the Production Code people who objected to the film's rather obvious lesbian overtones, a director and cast were finalized.

The film was not as fabulously ghoulish or successful as its predecessor, DRACULA, starring Bela Lugosi, nonetheless DRACULA'S DAUGHTER has enough foggy atmospherics, dark shadows, mysterious murders (which happen off screen) and vampire mumbo-jumbo to satisfy those of us who relish this sort of thing - within reason. We even have the presence of the satisfyingly eccentric Professor Von Helsing and near the end a mad dash in the dead of night from London to Transylvania and Dracula's castle. 

The plot:

Mild-mannered vampire hunter Professor Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) is picked up by Scotland Yard for the murder of Count Dracula - he was caught red-handed in a dark underground crypt near an open coffin - dead vampire within, wooden stake driven through heart. (Is it murder if you kill a man who's been dead for 500 years?)

Von Helsing spins the usual vampire tale to the cops. He is disbelieved by Sir Basil Humphrey (Gilbert Emery), Head of Scotland Yard, who assumes the good professor must be mad. 

Von Helsing turns to his old student, steely-browed Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), a successful London psychiatrist. Though Garth is no detective, he will try and help his friend even if he doesn't believe in vampires.

He's an 'it's all in your mind' practitioner who comes complete with a perky socialite secretary whose main job it appears, is to manage the good doctor's bow tie.

Enter the Countess Marya Zeleska, played with sleek and sinister dramatic aplomb by Gloria Holden.

She comes complete with a lamentable Servant/Henchman With Aspirations named Sandor (Irving Pichel). Sandor's grooming, unfortunately, leaves a lot to be desired. He looks as if he's wearing lipstick and worse, he parts his hair in the middle. Tsk. Tsk.

We meet the creepy pair early on when under the noses of the cops, the Countess disables a London bobby and absconds with Dracula's body. Out in the dark countryside she then sets fire to the coffin and contents, watched over by her sartorially-challenged henchman.

See, the countess figures that if she burns Dracula's body she'll be free of its cursed influence. She's not happy being a vampire. She wants to lead a 'normal' life once again. She wants to play happy music on her piano.

Sandor scoffs at her wishful thinking. He sees nothing but death in Zeleska's eyes. Let's face it, the guy is a total downer.

But as it happens, his doom and gloom prognostication is right. Zeleska's hideous compulsion is not to be denied. Soon enough, on a suitably foggy night, a dandy in top hat and tails becomes the next hapless victim.

In the meantime, Zeleska (she passes as a mysterious artist in society circles) has zeroed in on Dr. Garth (Otto Kruger) at a London party. Since he's a renowned psychiatrist he must help her fight her deadly compulsions. At first Garth is intrigued and confident he can help her - but that's only because he's not aware she's an actual member of the undead fraternity.

When a sweetly innocent (and indigent) young thing is brought to the Countess's studio to pose for a portrait (now where have I heard that story before?) she soon meets her fate as yet another of Zeleska's victims.

But fortunately not before the girl is hypnotized by Dr. Garth in her hospital bed and with dying breath clues him in to Countess Zeleska's real nature. (They also notice the two tiny puncture marks on her neck. Zeleska is not a sloppy diner.)

Somewhere in the vague recesses of my mind there lurks a scene full of creepy allegory in which the young model is strapped to an X shaped wooden cross while the Countess leers at her. But damn if I can find any proof of this scene's existence in any of my old film books. I know I've seen it and I thought I remembered reading the scene had been cut from later versions of the film. But I'm probably wrong. Of course it might have been another film altogether. You know how old lady memory works...or not.

At any rate, once the jig is up, so to speak, the Countess, who is nothing if not adaptable, insists that Doctor Garth accompany her on a late night flight to Transylvania. Once there she will welcome him into the legion of the undead and he will rule by her side forever. Sounds like a plan.

Except: Sandor balks. Wait a sec, he was promised eternal life first. But really, with hair parted in the middle - what did he expect?

The doctor balks too. He has no wish for eternal life, Zeleska must be mad.

So to ensure his cooperation, the Countess kidnaps the doctor's perky secretary (whom Garth secretly loves, of course) and off we go to Transylvania. Where the first thing we see is a happy peasant wedding and happy peasants dancing.

Until they spot a light on in the supposedly abandoned Dracula Castle. Uh-oh.

Terror has returned to the foothills of Transylvania. The peasants scatter.

Hot on the trail of the Countess, Garth lands his plane (did I forget to mention that the good doctor is also a pilot?) in the Transylvanian countryside and hires a coach with a nervous coachman to take him to Dracula's Castle. Having some iota of good sense, the coachman will only go so far and the rest of the way the doctor must manage on foot.

In the end, good triumphs over evil (in a roundabout way) as a second plane carrying the Head of Scotland Yard and Professor Von Helsing arrives in the nick of time.

A few intriguing quibbles:

Though most of this film takes place in London, there is nary an English accent to be heard in the cast. It's a mish-mash of American accents and English pretending wannabes. Even the very few English actors, don't sound quite right. The young model who meets her fate at the Countess's hands sounds positively American Southern. Very odd.

And oh by the way, since when does the head of Scotland Yard actively chase criminals? And country to country? Transylvania is not exactly next door to London (as perhaps implied in the film).

In a scene early on, Doctor Garth is supposed to be on a shooting holiday. He stands holding a shotgun stock down, double barrel pointing up at his own head while leaning against a car and talking to his secretary who has shown up to cut his holiday short. I don't know much about guns and things, but this seems not the advisable way to handle firearms. And oh by the way, does it really take a double barrel to shoot grouse?

Despite these minor blips, DRACULA'S DAUGHTER still makes for a creepily good film for any dark and stormy night - especially in October.

Since it's Tuesday, this is my entry in the weekly meme usually hosted by Todd Mason as this blog, Sweet Freedom. So don't forget to check in and see what other films and/or audio/visuals other bloggers are talking about today.

Forgotten (or Overlooked) Film Tuesday: WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935) starring Henry Hull, Valerie Hobson and Warner Oland

Not to worry, I'm not talking about that odiously brutal and bloody film made in 1981 (with all kinds of newfangled hairy and fang-y special effects) about two callow American youths on the loose in London - one of them a werewolf. Ugh. Not my kind of film whatsoever.

Nor am I talking about THE WOLF MAN (1941) starring the eponymous Lon Chaney, Jr. which I suppose has become the standard by which all werewolf films are judged. At least among those of us with good long affectionate memories. Plus this is the movie with the never to be forgotten Maria Ouspenskaya as a gypsy woman. If you had to pick just one werewolf film to watch above all others, this would be it.

But luckily, we're not forced to choose.

My particular film is from 1935 and offers a version of a wolf man whose terrible side-effects can be contained by the serum from a flower which only grows in the mountains of Tibet. (Of course.) And which only blooms by moonlight. (Of course.) The mariposa something or other - a supposedly Latin name which Warner Oland as a fellow werewolf stumbles over in conversation with Henry Hull who is about to blossom (so to speak) as a werewolf in the full bloom of a London moon.

WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935) is a film directed by Stuart Walker starring Henry Hull, Valerie Hobson and Warner Oland. Despite the year, this is not as archaic as one might think or expect. In fact, it's not a bad film at all, probably because of the terrific cast which also includes Spring Byington as a chatty air-headed friend (or aunt) of the leading lady and a guy named Lester Matthews who is quite good as Valerie Hobson's childhood chum and spurned boyfriend, Paul, who has arrived back on the scene, it would seem, just in the nick of time.

Henry Hull plays Dr. Wilfred Glendon, a botanist traveling in the wilds of Tibet searching for a rare flower. While in the mountains, his superstitious bearers desert him and his traveling companion, but the two men soldier on. Hunting for flower specimens is not a job for the faint of heart.

When Hull stumbles across the elusive blossom on a mysterious ridge in the moonlight, he is attacked by a werewolf and bitten on the arm. Watching the goings-on is yet another werewolf hidden behind some rocks. Little did we know that the hills of Tibet are apparently teeming with lycanthropic bad guys.

At any rate, the scene then switches to the civilized environs of London and Dr. Glendon's home and laboratory where he is currently attempting to force the rare moon flower to bloom (he's managed, despite his tribulations, to bring a specimen back from Tibet). We meet his lovely wife, Lisa (Valerie Hobson) and their chatty friend Ettie Coombs (Spring Byington) - both of whom are forbidden entrance to the inner recesses of Glendon's lab.

It develops that the scene outside the laboratory on this particular day is that of a jovial afternoon tea party/exhibition of the collection of rare plants that Dr. Glendon is famed for. Among his many specimens available for public viewing are large carnivorous plants that eat bugs and frogs and manifest all sorts of odd behavior - kind of like that plant in Little Shop of Horrors. In fact, we notice that Ettie Coombs has a small dog and we immediately fear for its life in that garden of nasty flora. I mean, I had heart palpitations.

Fortunately for us and the little dog, the director doesn't go there - though that doesn't lessen our expectation that he might.

Well, as the party progresses, a sinister stranger (played by Warner Oland of Charlie Chan fame) named Dr. Yogami (but whom Ettie persists is calling Dr. Yokahama) shows up uninvited. He tries to get in to see the Tibetan flower he knows that Glendon has in his inner lab. Dropping hints all over the place about 'werewolfery', we are led to understand that Yogami must be the other werewolf - the one who was watching the attack on Glendon from behind the rocks. Glendon seems awfully dense about this and refuses to help Yogami.

When Glendon asks Yogami whether they have met before, Yogami eerily says, yes, they met in Tibet, in the dark. Hmmmm....

Later, Yogami goes so far as to warn Glendon that a werewolf must kill the thing he loves most. Uh-oh.

What I don't understand is how Yogami is able to keep from changing into a werewolf for what seems like an inordinate amount of time, but that's neither here nor there. We never do see Yogami growing fangs or covered in messy hair.

Later, when the blossoms are stolen from the laboratory, we see a smiling Yogami using the serum. But he knows and we know that there are only two blossoms and none readily blooming in the lab. Glendon is devastated at the loss of his moon flowers because he too was using their serum to prevent his lycanthropic tendencies from coming to the fore - as it were.

What's a werewolf to do?

Without the serum, Glendon runs riot in and out of the dark alleys of London and even goes so far as to climb up into Ettie Coombs' bedroom during a party - her new house is located at the edge of a not so nice neighborhood. Isn't it interesting how werewolfs (and for that matter, vampires and such) always seem to stick to the poorer districts. Don't the rich deserve to be killed with the same impunity? But I digress...

Ettie - being rich - manages to shriek loud enough to save herself as everyone comes stampeding into her room. Assuming she's had a bad dream (the head of Scotland Yard is one of her guests) - Ettie was taking a nap after imbibing too much at her own party - the men poo-poo her claims of being assaulted by a beast. (You'd think she'd have SOME marks on her. But apparently not.)

After several nights and several deaths of low-life women (the expendable kind), their bodies torn apart by some sort of animal, it dawns on the cops that maybe there was something in Ettie's story. Then of course, there's that unnatural howling heard in the night.

In the meantime, Wilfred's marriage to Lisa appears headed downhill. Even when he's not being a werewolf, he treats her as if she is his to command. Though she tries hard to include him in her activities, he is always too busy to take part. (Don't forget he spent months traveling in Asia without her.) And that's where Paul her childhood friend comes in. He's still in love with her and though an honorable man, he is only to happy to spend time with Lisa.

Wilfred is naturally jealous and who can blame him? But Lisa has had enough of his coldness and shutting himself up in his laboratory at all hours of the day and night, she wants to have a bit of fun. Who can blame her?

The ineffectual doctor takes a small room in a shabby neighborhood and barricades himself to spend the night. (There is a funny bit between two gin-soaked rival landladies who keep knocking each other out in their quest to rent their rooms and/or find out what is going on.) But soon as he turns wolf, Wilfred jumps through the window and off he goes. Then later he heads on up to his country manor and barricades himself in the tower much to his servant's consternation. But that doesn't help either, especially when Lisa and Paul show up so that Paul can get another look at the house he knew as a boy.

Wilfred attacks Lisa but Paul steps in and yet somehow both avoid being bitten. But the damage is done, Paul recognizes the werewolf as Dr. Glendon. Uh-oh.

Near the end there's also a fight to the death in the laboratory between the two werewolves, Wilfred and Dr. Yogami.

Wilfred survives only to be shot dead later at his home, by the head of Scotland Yard. As he dies, of course his appearance reverts to that of his human self.

The special effects in this film (the hairiness and fangs and all) are not as comprehensive as they will appear later in Lon Chaney Jr.'s version of the wolf man because, from what I read somewhere, the actor Henry Hull didn't want to spend hours sitting in a make-up chair.

Besides in this version of werewolfery, as Dr. Yogami explains:

"The werewolf is neither man nor wolf, but a Satanic creature with the worst qualities of both."

That would explain why before he heads out for a night's butchery, Wilfred puts on a coat and scarf and hat. Those cold London nights can be killers.

This is an excellent movie for Halloween or for that matter, any other night of this spooky old month when the forces of evil are exalted. If you'd like, you can watch it on youtube at this
link.

Since it's Tuesday, naturally it's Forgotten (or Overlooked) Films day. But Todd Mason who normally would gather the links has family business to take care of, so there may be no links today. Please check in at his blog, Sweet Freedom, to see what's what.