Wed 12 Feb 2025
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[4] Comments
THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF. Hammer Films, UK, 1961. Universal Pictures, US, 1961. Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain, Catherine Feller, Anthony Dawson. Based on the novel The Werewolf of Paris, by Guy Endore. Director: Terence Fisher.
The Curse of the Werewolf was apparently the first werewolf movie filmed in color. Good thing, then, it was a Hammer production, given the studios use of lush color schemes in its set and costume design. The bright colors, along with the overarching Gothic atmosphere, work well in telling the story of Leon Corledo (Oliver Reed), an eighteenth-century Spaniard tragically born as the product of a violent rape. Both the circumstances of his conception and his birth have not worked in his favor. Far from it. He’s been cursed with lycanthropy. In other words, the poor bastard’s a werewolf.
Although it takes a while for the story to get going, The Curse of the Werewolf eventually delivers the goods any good horror connoisseur looks for in a film, including a great special effects man-to-beast transformation. There’s some genuine pathos here too. Reed’s character desperately doesn’t want to be a monster, although he realizes that there is a scant chance in reversing his cursed fate. It’s up to Corledo’s adopted father to eventually put the werewolf down once and for all.
The cast benefits from a solid group of talented actors, some of whom you’ve probably seen in other Hammer films. This includes Clifford Evans (Kiss of the Vampire) and Yvonne Romain (Night Creatures). As far as the score, it’s an unusually captivating one by British composer Benjamin Frankel. Listen here:
Overall, a solidly constructed, very British werewolf film. I give it a hairy thumbs up.
February 13th, 2025 at 6:57 am
CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF screenwriter Anthony Hinds (under the pseudonym “John Elder”) went to the well one further time with 1975’s LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF (this time without crediting Endore’s source novel), directed by Freddy Francis and starring Peter Cushing and Ron Moody. The film was novelized by “Robert Black” (Robert Holdstock — his first novel) in 1976.
February 13th, 2025 at 7:40 am
Not a patch on Endore’s quirky novel, but a decent job on its own terms, with strong performances by Reed, Evans, and a recognisable cast of Hammer regulars–Michael Ripper, Warren Mitchell, Richard Wordsworth. The kid who plays Leon as a child, Justin Walters, looks remarkably like Reed and holds his own with the adults.
February 13th, 2025 at 8:26 am
It does indeed “takes a while for [it] to get going”; Reed’s leisurely backstory takes up the slow first half before we even see him, which is one reason why I’ve never loved this film as much as I wanted to and thought I should.
In his first screenwriting credit, “Elder” transposed Endore’s novel to Spain to utilize sets already built for Hammer’s proposed Spanish Inquisition movie, which had been pre-emptively condemned by the Catholic Church.
A scenarist himself, Endore worked with Tod Browning on Mark of the Vampire and The Devil-Doll…not to mention being cited by me on this very blog for the Nero Wolfe adaptation The League of Frightened Men, and on my own for his contribution to the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers vehicle Carefree! Evidently a man of many parts…
Perhaps worth noting that the 1975 lupine reunion of Hammer vets Elder, Francis, and Cushing was one of only three features produced by Tyburn, the short-lived company co-founded by Freddie’s son, Kevin Francis.
February 14th, 2025 at 11:48 pm
Endore’s novel was more Dumas history than horror and loosely based on actual events, still the film manages to work and Reed is a major bonus bringing the same energy to his character here he did to Bill Sykes in OLIVER. Nothing subtle about the performance, but it is Hammer Horror, and nothing subtle was called for.