One of Hammer's biggest disappointments was their only attempt at lycanthropy. They had great source material (Guy Endore's marvelous 1934 novel 'The Werewolf of Paris'), their star director Terence Fisher, and a charismatic young lead in Oliver Reed. But it turned out to be one of their weaker entries, though not as poor as Fisher's subsequent film ('The Phantom of the Opera').
A major problem was having to belatedly change the period setting to Spain (to use up sets they'd built at Bray for a shocker about the Inquisition that never happened). The familiar band of rhubarbing British supporting actors in other Hammer horrors got away with it when the setting was Germanic Mittel-Europe. But here the priest, shepherd, innkeeper and tavern regulars never convince us for a moment we're in 18th century Spain. The extras in the Marquis's (decidely constrained looking) banquet chamber don't look or sound remotely Spanish either.
Nor do things improve up the cast-list. While Reed is great, Clifford Evans and Hira Talfrey are pretty bland and uninteresting characters, Richard Wordsworth is miscast, and John Gabriel just plays it the same whatever film he's in. However, Catherine Feller was, for Hammer, an unusually spirited heroine, except her role amounts to very little. Even the lighting, by usually reliable Hammer regular Arthur Grant, doesn't lend much by way of real mood.
But the two sequences where Reed actually turns into the ferocious werewolf are very well done. The first, in the brothel, unnerves the audience with Reed seen almost entirely in shadow. The climax, where we see his transformation in the jail cell - as fellow prisoner Michael Ripper looks on in terror - is one of the scariest moments Fisher has ever given us, followed by a thrilling climatic chase as the villagers pursue Reed over the rooftops.
Hopefully, one day a studio will make a proper film of the Endore novel.
A major problem was having to belatedly change the period setting to Spain (to use up sets they'd built at Bray for a shocker about the Inquisition that never happened). The familiar band of rhubarbing British supporting actors in other Hammer horrors got away with it when the setting was Germanic Mittel-Europe. But here the priest, shepherd, innkeeper and tavern regulars never convince us for a moment we're in 18th century Spain. The extras in the Marquis's (decidely constrained looking) banquet chamber don't look or sound remotely Spanish either.
Nor do things improve up the cast-list. While Reed is great, Clifford Evans and Hira Talfrey are pretty bland and uninteresting characters, Richard Wordsworth is miscast, and John Gabriel just plays it the same whatever film he's in. However, Catherine Feller was, for Hammer, an unusually spirited heroine, except her role amounts to very little. Even the lighting, by usually reliable Hammer regular Arthur Grant, doesn't lend much by way of real mood.
But the two sequences where Reed actually turns into the ferocious werewolf are very well done. The first, in the brothel, unnerves the audience with Reed seen almost entirely in shadow. The climax, where we see his transformation in the jail cell - as fellow prisoner Michael Ripper looks on in terror - is one of the scariest moments Fisher has ever given us, followed by a thrilling climatic chase as the villagers pursue Reed over the rooftops.
Hopefully, one day a studio will make a proper film of the Endore novel.