Rating: B-
Dir: George King
Star: Tod Slaughter, John Warwick, Marjorie Taylor, Aubrey Mallalieu
This melodramatic thriller gallops along, cramming a lot into its running-time, of barely more than an hour. It takes place in Paris, in the year 1880, when a killer is terrorising the city. Wolf-like howls precede the murders, generating wild rumours as to their provenance. The latest victim is the night watchman at a bank owned by Monsieur de Brisson (Mallalieu). The gold taken has sent the financial repository to the edge of insolvency. Fortunately, a lifeline appears in the shape of the aristocratic Chevalier del Gardo (Slaughter). His deposit will secure the bank’s reputation and stabilize its operations. All the Chevalier wants in exchange is the hand of de Brisson’s daughter, Cecile (Taylor).
In line with what feels increasingly like standard Slaughter protocol, the heroine is almost half his age, and already has a fiancé. He’s the poor but honest bank clerk, Lucien Cortier (Warwick), and so she spurns del Gardo’s advances. Undaunted, he decides to clear the playing-field by framing Cortier for the murder-robbery, hiding some pieces of gold in the clerk’s desk. Cortier begs his employer for a chance to clear his name before the police are called. But that will involve finding the real culprit behind the crime. No prizes for guessing who it might be, though it ends up being both more and less complicated than I expected. It nods somewhat to the tropes of werewolf movies, though the play on which it was based dates back to 1897, and the lupine angle never proves crucial.
What does prove critical, is the mad science of Cortier’s scientist friend, using galvinism to energize corpses. Which comes in particularly handy, after one victim dies right in the middle of writing the killer’s identity. Maybe if he had just gone with that, not bothering to prefix it with, “The name of the Wolf is…”, he might have got further than three characters in, before ceasing to be. Just a thought. There are certainly other elements here which likely would not stand up to close scrutiny. The good news is, you won’t have time to dwell on them, because the script is already tapping its watch and charging on to the next element. Perhaps the original Victorian play ran longer, and could take a more leisurely approach?
It had been filmed three times previously, though nobody particularly remembers the other versions. There’s an opening caption here, which should set your expectations adequately. It promises a “melodrama of the old school – dear to the hearts of all who enjoy either a shudder or a laugh at the heights of villainy”. It’s hard to argue the film delivers exactly that, with Slaughter at the core of proceedings, delivering both the shudders and laughs – occasionally at the same time. Few other actors can deliver a simple line like, “Oh, I shall be there. Punctually,” and instill it with menace befitting a Hannibal Lecter monologue. Truly the heights of villainy, indeed.