She-Wolf Of London (1946)

JUNE 27, 2008

GENRE: WEREWOLF (?)
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

You know, it’s bad enough that the Wolf Man collection only has two actual Wolf Man movies, but if they are going to toss other crap on there, at least have them be movies with actual werewolves in them! Christ! I don’t care if I am spoiling it for anyone, She-Wolf Of London does not actually contain a werewolf; just some old broad killing folks and blaming it on her niece. She could at least wear a werewolf costume or something.

At least it’s a decent movie otherwise. The mystery is actually pretty good (two red herrings!) and at 61 minutes it certainly doesn’t waste much time getting going. The very nature of the reality of what’s going on means we don’t get any onscreen murders (even the killer pretty much kills herself when she trips on some stairs), but there’s still some nice suspense scenes. It also has a delightfully odd moment when two of the women (there’s hardly any dudes in this movie) discuss the fact that one of them has broad shoulders. OK.

I also like the tendency for characters in these movies to get all excited about news in order to deliver exposition. At one point, someone says, apropos of nothing, “Oh, did you hear? A man was killed in the park!” It’s good to know that back in the day, there were so few murders that when one occurred it was on everyone’s mind. I can’t imagine going home and saying “Hey, some dude got stabbed in Echo Park last night!”, even if I was the one who did it.

The star of this film is none other than June Lockhart, who you all know as the old nut in Troll (plus I guess she was on some classic TV show called Lassie or something). It’s very rare to watch one of these old Universal monster movies and see an actor that is even still alive, let alone working, so that made me happy. Would have been happier if she was a werewolf though. Seriously, what the fuck!

What say you?