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Simply Perfect

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Actually, here the werewolf actually looks like a wolf, not the hairy beast of the still excellent Universal horror classic. The creature is actually a she-wolf, the Gypsy princess Nina Foch who seeks vengeance in the most sinister way. Like some of the Val Lewton classics, this has a very mystical feeling to it and the horror is a combination of psychological torment and subtle chills that wouldn't have the same effect had they been so blatantly gory. Foch, a soft looking actress, uses that quality to make her character all the more mysterious and deadly, while Osa Massen (who usually played more sinister characters) is quite lovely as the heroine who is the target of Foch's vendetta.Another superb performance is by John Abbott as the museum tour guide who first discovers the horror while searching for a scared cat. His constant repeat of "Here kitty kitty" gave me chills, reminding me of Boris Karloff's claim in "The Body Snatcher" that "You'll never be rid of me". Barton MacLane is commanding as the police lieutenant investigating the mysterious goings on, set in New Orleans which gives an even more Gothic feeling to the proceedings. When Foch tells one of her people, "You will lie with your ancestors in the ground selected by my mother", even more chills are felt as he realizes the outcome of that prediction and a wolf howls in the background.Blanche Yurka, who was so memorable in vengeful roles, plays a more thoughtful character here, a gypsy elder who is Foch's companion and aware of the secrets of the past which she is afraid will be repeated over and over. She still has a commanding presence that made her the most memorable Madame DeFarge on film, and is quite subtle after some major theatrics in other films such as "Lady For a Night" and "The Furies". Her Hungarian background makes her perfect casting to play a gypsy. While certainly not a masterpiece, this is a must see among the stylish horror films of the 1940's and will leave you feeling truly haunted.

Apart from Universal's "Larry Talbot" series, it seems that most of the early werewolf films are fairly maligned nowadays; this one, emanating from Columbia, is another of them: ironically, that studio had inserted a talking(!) lycanthrope in their bloodsucking flick THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1944) but, when it came time to make a standalone entry into the subgenre, they opted to use a normal wolf (amusingly shown 'munching' all through the opening credits)!! To be honest, the film under review has much more to do with RKO's CAT PEOPLE (1942) than THE WOLF MAN (1941) – actually the principal inspiration behind the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur classic itself: not only is the monster of the female variety but, towards the end, she is likewise shown terrorizing the heroine (though these scenes have none of the impact of the panther's celebrated late-night stalkings!). Still, all things considered, I have to say that I enjoyed this 63-minute film: the obligatory concocted folklore may not have added up to much this time around, but the atmosphere is fairly nice throughout; Nina Foch (THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE's heroine here graduating to the monster role) and Osa Massen fill the central roles quite adequately, too (their authentic foreign origins helping more than their acting talent in this regard), and even the combined police detection and comic relief (usually redundant elements in this type of movie) prove tolerable under the circumstances.

Scenes featuring three magnetic actresses lift The Cry of the Werewolf to a brief but intriguing glimpse of an occult matriarchy and sisterhood who renounce men for lycanthropy. A short running time and shorter budget prevent these themes' development, but the film delivers one loopy turn after another: *Despite being set in New Orleans, where water levels preclude underground construction, the film features two extended scenes in basements of surprising dimensions.*Granted, New Orleans is a multicultural city, but who suspected it was teeming with immigrants from Transylvania, among them a sizeable encampment of Gypsy or Roma folk in traditional covered wagons?*Several scenes hinge on a quadruped other than a wolf: Minnie the cat's yowls at wolves or gypsies earn her surprising screen time as well as solicitude from employees at the Marie La Tour Museum. Three scenes are punctuated by characters acting on Minnie's behalf.*Those wandering Gypsies / Roma converge in New Orleans one month a year for ethnic courtship and to bury their dead. Just when you're asking yourself, "What do they do with their dead those 11 other months?", another eccentric scene answers the question. . . .*"Adamson and Sons Undertakers" is, in its front rooms, a facsimile of a mid-20th-century funeral parlor, complete with drab furniture, cheap drapes, and recorded organ music playing in the background. Hurrying to turn it off is the last of the Adamsons, played by Milton Parsons (also uncredited), whose bald noggin and solicitous manner would lead to film and TV appearances through the 70s as a clerk, clergyman, professor, choirmaster, or coroner (thanks, IMDb).*"Refrigerated vaults" keep the Gypsy dead "on ice" at Adamson and Sons. A quick tour leads to a basement as extensive as a hospital wing. There a four-legged werewolf stalks Dr. Robert Morris, the movie's insipid leading man played by Stephen Crane—no kin to The Red Badge of Courage author but doing his gosh-darnedest to imitate Jimmy Stewart.*The other basement, back in the Marie La Tour Museum but unseen till late in the movie, is entered through a mantelpiece by a secret passage whose operations everyone seems to know. Murders are overheard occurring somewhere beneath the fireplace. For most of the movie, though, viewers aren't granted a view of this secret chamber of blood. Near the end, though, Dr. Morris and Ilsa (Osa Massun), his Translylvanian foster-sister-turned-fiancée, explore the space. An altar designed like a Murphy bed drops out of the wall, bearing a large stuffed wolf, a human skull, and a goblet.These surprises aren't consistent enough to build on each other, but the film's a fast 66 minutes, so take a chance if only for the sake of its uncanny climax. That occurs in the covered wagon of Nina Foch's Gypsy Queen, named Marie La Tour after her mother—-herself named perhaps to evoke the historical Marie Laveau (1801-81), a Voodoo queen of New Orleans who shared the name of her similarly talented mother.Under the guiding eye of Blanche Yurka as Bianca the "old woman," Queen Marie recruits her look-alike Ilsa, a non-Gypsy Transylvanian-American, to join her as a "sister" in the werewolf matriarchy founded by her mother, the previous werewolf-queen. No men! Ilsa's eyes grow and glow, but the moment is so overloaded with feminine beauty, lycanthropy, and alternative sexuality that the only exit available to her is a dead faint. When Ilsa is rescued by the regrettable Dr. Morris, the revelatory allure of that occult alternative shines a little brighter.

In the 1940s, Columbia Pictures decided to try to cash in on Universal's horror films by creating a few of their own (such as RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE and this film)--with generally poor results. The biggest reason was that although the atmosphere and acting were pretty good in these films, the adherence to the lore surrounding the monsters was mostly ignored--leaving the audiences confused and irritated--especially in the case of CRY OF THE WEREWOLF.Here is just a partial list of the inconsistencies that completely violated accepted notions of werewolf films. First, no one actually becomes a part-person/part-wolf in this film. The leading lady is either a lady or a wolf--nothing in between. Also, there's NOTHING about a full moon and instead the lady can change herself at will. And this wolf is easy to kill as would be the lady--just shoot it with ordinary bullets! And finally, instead of the nice and kind gypsy played by Maria Ouspenskaya and her tortured son played by Bela Lugosi in the original WOLF MAN (1941), here the gypsies are evil Devil-cult members!! Now if you ignore the fact that this film bears NO RESEMBLANCE to prior wolf-man films like WEREWOLF OF London (1935) and WOLF MAN (1941), then perhaps you'll find this film enjoyable. But, since I am a rabid fan (get it?) of the films, I felt this one had contempt for the audience and wonder if any of the writers had even seen a werewolf film before writing this silly film.