Monster of the Day #686

Oddly, I couldn’t find a good color still of this. This seems like the old Sam Arkoff sort of thing, where they thought of a title and then made the movie around it. For all that, it’s pretty good. It really is a very traditional wolf man movie, with the guy (Kerwin Matthews, Harryhausen’s original Sinbad) being a pretty good fellow who ends up cursed through no fault of his own.

This tragic aspect is really worked; aside from the added desperation of the kid, who knows his dad is a werewolf but also doesn’t want to see him get hurt, there’s a scene where some hippie mystics quite nearly cure the guy, only to have him walk away before they can finish.

The killings are fairly brutal in a PG sort of way. All is all, a fairly rare example of a movie that you’d see in the drive-in and which pays off as well as you could reasonably hope. The film was directed by veteran helmer Nathan Juran. Juran directed Matthews in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and also directed Deadly Mantis, 20 Million Miles to Earth and First Men on the Moon. Under his alias Nathan Hertz, meanwhile, he directed the far crappier *(if still beloved) Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman and The Brain from Planet Arous. He fittingly used the Juran moniker here.

This was Mr. Juran’s last picture.

  • Flangepart

    I’m kinda thinkin’ CHEWBACCA:THe Collage Years!

  • Gamera977

    Yes, it’s time for you flea bath dad, why do you always have to be so stubborn?

  • sandra

    He looks more like a weredoggy.

  • bgbear_rogerh

    It’s Doggie Daddy! Augie, my son, my son

  • THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF may also have been one of the earliest ‘long-snout’ werewolf designs that I can think of. When the film came out, that was a novel approach, long before the look became so sickeningly familiar that guys like me would pray to see a more traditional wolf-man.

    Has there yet been an official release of the film?

  • Ken_Begg

    Sadly, no. I’m assuming there are rights issues. Certainly far worse movies have gotten releases.

    I’m sure there are DVD-R copies ripped from an old VHS release (or from a TV airing) on iOffer and the like.

  • Yeah, Pop has a copy that was swiped from AMC. It’s watchable, I suppose, but I would sure like to have a ‘real’ copy myself!

    (Weirdly, the broadcast that provided the master for the DVD-R was one I remember, and one where I tried to tape the film myself, but my machine was acting up and I was unable to.)

  • GalaxyJane

    This did turn up on Svengoolie within the last year. I keep thinking I am going to have to get a DV-R just so I can start recording that show. Not just for the movies, but for the great film history/trivia segments.
    It is a surprisingly dark and depressing little flick. I was fairly bummed out by the time it ended.

  • Let me amend my comment about this being the first ‘long-snout’ werewolf. Upon reflection, that may have been first seen in THE MALTESE BIPPY.

  • zombiewhacker

    The Seventh Voyage of Fleabag.