Phyllis Allenby (June Lockhart) is set to marry well-to-do barrister Barry Lanfield (Don Porter), but a rash of brutal murders have led her to suspect that she has fallen victim to the legendary Allenby curse of werewolfism. Her aunt Martha (Sara Haden) dismisses these ideas as superstition but all the same asks her to keep this notion a secret from Phyllis’s cousin Carol (Jan Wiley), who is herself betrothed to starving artist Dwight Severn (Martin Koslack). As Phyllis’s wedding approaches, Scotland Yard draws a tighter dragnet until inspectors are knocking on the Allenby front door.
I can’t talk about She-Wolf of London without talking about the ending, so if there’s any part of you that might one day want to watch it unspoiled, thanks for joining us for Monster March, and have a pleasant tomorrow. I’ll note, however, that the twist ending to She-Wolf isn’t exactly hard to deduce; within the 61-minute runtime, a semi-conscious audience member can probably crack it in twenty. For those of you sticking around, you’ve probably made the right choice because this film doesn’t actually belong in Monster March. You see, there is no werewolf in She-Wolf of London. In fact, were it not included in my “Wolf Man” DVD box set, I wouldn’t be reviewing it. I had gently complained throughout See-Thru Thursdays that Universal’s “Invisible Man” franchise was barely a franchise, but She-Wolf goes one step further, actively arguing against being enrolled in the nascent cinematic universe.
I had said a few weeks ago that there might be a very interesting version of The Wolf Man where the werewolf might merely be in Lawrence Talbot’s mind, and it’s as though the makers of She-Wolf heard me – though She-Wolf ends up pushing the other extreme by creating a narrative in which the werewolf is definitively a product of the imagination. The film Gaslight was released two years earlier, and I have a strong suspicion that screenwriters George Bricker and Dwight V. Babcock had seen it. The twist that Phyllis is being gaslit by Aunt Martha is telegraphed pretty early on, especially when Martha explains to her daughter Carol all the misfortune that will befall the family if either of the impending marriages is allowed to transpire. And while the film tries to bait-and-switch you – first that Phyllis is the werewolf, then that Carol might be – Sara Haden plays Aunt Martha like the wicked stepmother in a Disney film. It’s a good thing the film is in black-and-white, because otherwise we’d see the technicolor glow of an enormous neon sign pointing “VILLAIN” at Martha.
It’s not that She-Wolf is badly made. I think, under any other circumstance, I’d have been more forgiving of its wolf-less plot. Certainly June Lockhart fits the bill for terrified protagonist; her wide-eyed pallor and fits of hysteria acquit her very well, especially for a filmgoer who only recognizes her as television moms on Lassie and Lost in Space. Once you notice, though, that the film is lacking in transformation scenes like the ones that let Jack Pierce work his magic on Lon Chaney Jr., you’re not long for solving the mystery. Still, one can’t help but wish Lockhart had gotten a better script, one that explains a bit more about the fabled Allenby curse or even why Phyllis has only just now gotten it into her head. There’s a brief nod toward Phyllis turning an ear to local superstition, though I wish the film had explored that angle less perfunctorily. There’s also some business about whether Aunt Martha is actually an Allenby or not, a matter that clogs up her first scene in the film before the question is brushed aside entirely.
Or perhaps it’s too much to ask that She-Wolf of London has a werewolf in it. I hate to sound like an entitled moviegoer, because I’ll settle for Dracula not meeting the other monsters in a “monster mash.” But after living and breathing monster movies for an entire month, I can’t say that I’m entirely thrilled to be duped into watching a movie without a werewolf, and I’m a little sorry to have wasted your time. But maybe this is a good reminder that, despite what Van Helsing says, there is no such thing as vampires. It’s charming to think there might be, but the real world is terrifying enough without werewolves. Perhaps that’s why She-Wolf of London has me so down – because it denied me the very escapism for which I created Monster March. Like Henry Frankenstein, my creation has grown beyond my control. And like Phyllis Allenby, I’ve been kept up into the long hours of the night, thinking about werewolves and other unreal creatures. They’re not real, and they don’t exist.
Then again, as Ernest Hemingway put it, and as the entire dreamscape of cinema suggests over and over again, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
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