Mon 15 Mar 2010
DAY OF THE WOLVES. Gold Key, 1973. Richard Egan, Martha Hyer, Rick Jason, Jan Murray, Jack Bailey, Percy Helton, Herb Vigran. Screenwriter-producer-director: Ferde Grofé Jr.
There is something to be said about production values. You have to have a story to begin with, but without a budget to back it up and without a director to make the actors sound good and look better, the whole business of making movies is a waste of time.
Case in point, right here. This is a nifty tale of a gang of seven men, individually recruited and deliberately kept uninformed of each other’s identities (known to each other only by numbers), who take over a small isolated town by locking up the small police force and robbing all the main businesses in organized fashion over a period of three hours or so.
Jan Murray (the comedian and TV game show host) is Number One, the leader of the group, and Richard Egan is the sheriff who’s just gotten fired (by a pitifully weak city council) and even so is the only man in town willing and able to fight back. Martha Hyer as his wife does not have much a role, this movie coming very much toward the end of her career.
The plan does not go off without a hitch, as I hope I’ve led you to believe, but it’s still a good one — the plan, that is — and watching the gang of seven put it together and try to pull it off makes for entertaining viewing.
The photography and camera angles are poor, however, bargain basement level, the sound man was in a different truck, and what this movie desperately needed and didn’t get was a director who, as I said above, was able to put his actors in the best possible light.
The production is flat, in other words, and with the Hollywood cast mixed in with local townspeople (Lake Havasu City, Arizona) and only a little exaggeration, it was sometimes difficult to tell the difference (Richard Egan and Jan Murray being two notable exceptions).
I didn’t much care for the ending, not as much as I’ve read what others have had to say about this movie. I think personally that Ferde Grofé had run out of cleverness at that point, and went with the obvious. Money for a better movie he never had all along.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Little films like this one live or die on the small things, production values, directorial skill, and the basic set up. This one sounds as if it had one out of the three, but that wasn’t quite enough.
1973 was pretty much toward the end of the career arc of everyone in the film, which likely didn’t help, and in general having to rely on local talent for one of these is not going to lead to much success.
This sounds like one of those films whose reach exceeds its grasp. A shame because the same basic setup paid off well for VIOLENT SATURDAY where all the small factors combined in just the right mix. Richard Egan was in that one too, but with a lot more support and all those things like production values and good direction intact.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
I’ve been doing some more research on the movie. I can’t verify these as facts, but here’s what I found on a couple of websites:
http://theactionmutant.blogspot.com/2008/10/day-of-wolves.html
“Shot on a shoestring cost of $187,000 in the spring of 1971, DotW was filmed with a non-union crew that was comprised of professional actors & some of the townspeople of Lake Havasu, Arizona.”
http://www.realpoliticalfacetalk.com/r/dayofthewolves.html
” …If this sounds somewhat familiar it may be that the movie has some famous fans. Arguably, one of the first that comes to mind is Quentin Tarantino. His ‘Reservoir Dogs’ has some similarities to ‘Day of the Wolves’ and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he was a fan of the film and paid a bit of a tribute with ‘Reservoir Dogs’. (Of course it could just be a coincidence or Tarantino could have got the idea from the original ‘Taking of Pelham 123’.)”
I believe the amount of the budget; I have a big ‘maybe’ regarding Tarantino, but if it’s true, it could be a reason for finding a copy to watch.
— Steve
March 16th, 2010 at 5:33 am
I see Richard Egan is teamed up again with long time character actor Percy Helton. In the 1950’s Egan and Helton were in a forgotten film called WICKED WOMAN, starring the sleazy Beverly Michaels who slinks through the movie driving both men crazy.
It was Percy Helton’s greatest and biggest role in a lifetime of small roles. He had a big movie poster of the film over his bed. The scene where he blackmails a beautiful woman into letting him slobber all over her has to be seen to be believed. Viewers may be shocked or disgusted, but it probably is every little ugly old guy’s dream! Then Richard Egan, her boyfriend, walks in and things spiral down read fast.
March 16th, 2010 at 9:58 am
The small town being invaded by crooks with only the stalwart local lawman standing between them and the helpless population was a fairly common theme from the fifties on. The most recent variation on it was that one about the small Alaskan town invaded by vampires.
I suppose it was a left over from the frontier mind set, though in most real cases the local population promptly armed themselves and shot the poor outlaws to pieces rather than leaving the job to one stalwart lawman.
It’s one of those Hollywood stereotypes that just never was true (save for a few cases in the Civil War or along the border in the Mexican Revolution and those were para-military, not a ragtag bunch of outlaws). As the James Gang, the Daltons, and the Younger’s all found out, those peaceful farmers and storekeepers were more than a match for a few outlaws. The outlaws usually ended up lined up in coffins to have their bullet ridden corpses photographed.
Makes for a good suspense film though — even if it isn’t exactly true to life.
Steve
Tarantino may well have gotten the idea from this film, it’s the kind of drive-in fare he loves, but the theme was nothing new. It had already been explored in VIOLENT SATURDAY (both the film and book) to some extent, and isn’t all that far from the original OCEAN’S 11 in it’s basic set up.
But my guess would be that Tarantino was more likely inspired by this than the others.
March 16th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I think Tarantino’s inspiration for reservoir dogs was likely a bit of everything, but mostly the original “Taking of Pelham”. The fact that you’re talking about a made-for-TV movie almost 40 years after its production indicates that it was something unusual and that it holds up now (even with admittedly low budget/production values).
Cheers
Greg Quinn
(Producer, Return to Lake Havasu: The story of Day of the Wolves)
March 16th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Greg
I hadn’t thought about it being a made-for-TV movie before, but looking back, I see that it makes sense. Clever plot, lots of firepower but not much bloodshed, and no money left to polish the final production up with afterward.
From an interview with you online at
http://www.realpoliticalfacetalk.com/interviews/dayofthewolvesgregquinn.html
“So it was made to be a TV movie, at least in the US. In practice it was heavily shown as an in flight movie as well as on local TV stations, but was never shown theatrically in the US except for a few limited runs; for example, it was shown in the local theater in Lake Havasu in 1971/1972.”
For the benefit of everyone else reading this, I found the trailer for your film here:
http://returntolakehavasu.com/index_low.html
and as honest as I was in stating the deficiencies of the movie, I went back to see what I said in a more positive vein. I’m happy to say that I used the word “entertaining,” because I meant it.
Maybe you can stop by again when the documentary’s available. I’d love to see it!
— Steve
March 16th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Yes Steve, true – my understanding was that every nickel pretty much went into the production with little money for post production beyond what was required to release funds from GoldKey Entertainment to pay for the film.
I’ll let you know when the doc is completed…
Cheers
Greg