The Werewolf of Washington

Dean Stockwell plays a White House Press secretary on assignment in Hungary when he finds himself bitten by a wolfman(werewolf - whichever you prefer)and then is asked to leave quite quickly with no investigation from the Hungarian police for the crime of murder that Stockwell claims to have performed on his assailant. Whew! Anyway, Stockwell returns to Washington and soon sees those nasty little signs that something is going horribly wrong. You know those signs - heavy hair growing on your hands, seeing a five-sided star on the hands of women with whom he will soon have a killer relationship with, and not remembering large chunks of evenings when the moon is full. The story for this film is surprisingly faithful to that of the original The Wolfman in terms of story but lacks that film's sophistication and budget. This is a cheaply-made film, a poorly directed film, an incredibly drearily written film, and, finally, acted with no real sense of purpose. The final product, though for sure going for some intended laughs at times, ends of being rather funny in spite of its ineptitude. There are some stand out scenes for this perverse pleasure of watching a cinematic car wreck. How about the phone booth scene - a real hoot and oh so terrifying! Watching the president of the United States in a cheap looking bowling alley or in a bathroom with a page or something. In fact any scenes with Biff McGuire as the president are gold. He appears so incompetent and yet conveys some realism to that role in a certain way - scary. Dean Stockwell can get worked up real good too in his scenes and the transformation scenes, when we finally get to see them, are bad. Bad. Bad. And what about the lilliputian Michael Dunn as Dr. Kiss? What was all that about? Just bizarre and ludicrous. The Werewolf of Washington is a bad picture on so many levels but is also highly enjoyable if you are a fan of le bad cinema - as I am - especially of the best decade for le bad cinema - the 1970s. You couldn't make this stuff up if you sat down right now and tried. Believe me. To even further enhance your viewing pleasure, check out the version with bosomy seductress Elvira chiming in periodically. She can be quite clever and amusing and always abreast of what is going on in the film.

This thing is all tongue in cheek. And in some ways it's a bit charming. The president and all his people are a bunch of clueless idiots. If it weren't for six years ago, I would have said this was impossible. Of course, it was 1973 and the country was reeling from Watergate. There was racial tension and distrust. Now we have Dean Stockwell whose career has been dotted with psychos and weirdos. He finds himself at the end of the werewolf chain, having been bitten in Hungary. He serves as press secretary with the mild inconvenience of turning into a werewolf when the moon is full. He kills a little, bowls a little, terrorizes people in telephone booths. He suspects what has happened to him but, of course. no one will buy it. To the bitter end, the President of the United States is insincere and manipulative (and stupid). The film is pretty predictable, but its comic moments are the best. Don't expect to take this seriously. Maybe a scholar will look at it and see it as pure satire. Unfortunately, it's not that good.

Here's an oddity. It's a werewolf movie which operates as a comedy about a Whitehouse press secretary who is bitten by a lycanthrope while stationed in Hungary. He is recalled to Washington and winds up killing a bunch of people connected to the President. This came out during the Watergate scandal and the main character does stay in that famous hotel but I think it would be a stretch to push this one too far as a satire, as the material is a bit thin for that; after all, one of the best gags has our hero getting his fingers jammed in a ball while bowling pre-full moon. Its still kind of hard to dislike though, and I am always a sucker for werewolf make-up. The transformation scenes were actually not bad and Dean Stockwell is pretty committed in the main role - he looked wired to be perfectly honest. Overall, a fun 90 mins for werewolf fans.

As you can probably guess from the title alone, "Werewolf of Washington" is basically a direct take on "The Wolf Man" story, shaped into a kind of political satire.

We join press secretary Jack Whittier on assignment in Hungary, where his girlfriend buys him a silver cane with a wolf's head handle. When his car breaks down he encounters some strange gypsies, and is attacked by a wolf which he beats to death with his cane. After the wolf is dead it changes back into human form, but the police don't even arrest him for murder. Jack is convinced that there is some kind of a government cover-up going on, but a gypsy woman tells him that he has become a werewolf, cursed with the sign of the pentagram ("Oh, so the pentagon's involved?"). He then returns to Washington, and finds that a series of people he meets are murdered in animal-like attacks ...

This movie does have a lot of very funny and memorable moments. The "phone booth" attack and most of the scenes with the president (particularly the bowling alley sequence) rank particularly highly, and this is certainly a film you won't forget in a hurry. It's one of the most original werewolf movies I've seen in a long time. The acting is surprisingly good considering how incompetent some aspects of the film appear to be, and that's where a lot of the comedy comes from. Dean Stockwell gives an excellent, nervous performance reminiscent of Lon Chaney Jr, and Biff McGuire as the president is just great.

However, it isn't all good news ... it was directed by Milton Moses Ginsberg, who seems primarily to have worked as an editor but has directed several obscure movies (his first movie "Coming Apart" actually appears quite popular critically). The film-making isn't terrible, but it's not really of professional quality -- in some scenes you can even catch that elusive shadow of the cameraman. Considering it was made by an editor, the movie is slow-moving and doesn't flow as well as it should, and some of the cuts just don't work at all. The dialogue is pretty clunky most of the time, although there are some clever plays on words. It's a political satire made at a time when it was fashionable to attack the administration, so of course there's plenty of topical humour going on.

Yes, it's silly and it's cheap and it's pretty incompetent, but it's also a lot of fun. I'm even tempted to give it a higher rating, but I might not live that down. Just see it if you want some quick laughs.

Werewolf of Washington, The (1973)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Washington Press Secretary (Dean Stockwell) is banging the President's daughter when he is sent to Transylvania where he is bitten by a werewolf. He returns to Washington and starts killing off various members of congress. This could certainly benefit from the "so bad it's good" thing because this turkey is all over the map. The director doesn't seem to know if he wants to make a political satire, a horror spoof or an actual horror film. The werewolf makeup is rather pathetic but there are a few funny spoofs including the wolf constantly acting like a dog. One scene has the werewolf licking up a dwarf, which must be a first for werewolf films.