Made Hairy By Science

THE WEREWOLF-1956-An amnesic man turns into a werewolf when he gets excited. He terrorizes a small town where actor/stuntman Don Megowan is the sheriff. Unlike most "wolf man" movies the monster is actually a product of science rather than a curse or legend. Two nutty scientists (S. John Launer and George Lynn) were working with radioactive wolf's blood and used the guy as a guinea pig after he was in an automobile accident. The experiment had to do with some kind of vaccine that would help them survive a nuclear war (well something like that...Hey! This was the '50's. That's all they thought about back then!).

This poses a problem for the sheriff who gets caught between trying to catch a killer and helping an innocent victim. The werewolf make-up is pretty effective when shown in the night time scenes, less so in the day. Considering Sam Katzman was the producer the production values aren't bad either. Steve Ritch the actor who portrays the doomed wolfman is very good. Joyce Holdren (later in THE TERROR FROM 5000 AD) is on hand as Megowan's kind of girlfriend and TV character actor Harry Lauter is his deputy. Gerald Mohr is the uncredited narrator. Unfortunately there's lots of talk but it moves along quickly thanks to the workman-like direction of Fred Sears.

Director Sears was a kind of '50's dynamo turning out 8 other movies (most of them also for Katzman) in 1956 including the far superior EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS and ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK. He also found time to act in over 50 movies! The same year he was hunting hirsute killers Don Megowan also played "The Gill Man" (only on land) in THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US. He appeared in around 40 films (and on TV) and was later in the very strange CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS!


"Whoever cares to learn will always find a teacher"…German proverb

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