User reviews

Barbara Stanwyck and Errol Flynn are two of the most dynamic screen personalities of their time, so I had to watch this one. And I wasn't disappointed, I was glued to the screen to see if Flynn was really up to no good. I found their chemistry intriguing to say the least. My only complaint about the film was the ending was too rushed. But all in all, I found this to be quite entertaining

"Cry Wolf" isn't the greatest or the worst movie I've ever seen, but overall I enjoyed it. Despite what other viewers have said, I LIKED the ending. It was genuinely surprising, and when I thought it over, it all added up and was satisfying. I enjoyed Barbara Stanwyck's athletic performance -- especially when she pulled herself up and down a dumbwaiter! It was fun,too, to watch Errol Flynn play a sinister gentleman against type. In her debut film, Geraldine Brooks was awful but watchable doing a bad imitation of Ann Blyth in "Mildred Pierce." The talented Richard Basehart was awful, too -- but he later gave some classic performances, and it was fun to compare the difference. There are far worse ways to spend 83 minutes of your life, and I'm glad I watched this sleeper.

"Cry Wolf" came along when Errol Flynn's career was in slight decline. He hadn't had a successful film at the box office for the last few years but the above film is interesting and reasonably intriguing. His character in "Cry Wolf" displays almost nothing of the usual character traits. He is rather austere and emotionally detached. Flynn could quite easily have been cast as a villain. The film is a lot more low key in comparison with other Errol Flynn films. The story mainly revolves around a big house with many acres of land out in the sticks. There aren't the usual lavish production values. The plot doesn't allow for any of the usual camaraderie or any shenanigans that the fans had come to expect from Flynn. The tone of the film is a lot more serious, perhaps a bit grim but still very watchable. As the female lead, Barbara Stanwyck plays a character who attends the reading of a will after learning that her husband has died. Her husband was the nephew of Errol Flynn, who is quick to question if Stanwyck is the genuine article after the family has never heard of her. Whilst her background is being investigated, Stanwyck stays at the family estate where not all is what it seems..... There is a bit of mystery about "Cry Wolf" until about the last 15 minutes when all is explained. The two leads engage upon a series of verbal assaults upon each other and with both giving their all. Worth watching.

Sandra (the incredible Barbara Stanwyck, post Double Indemnity) appears at the home of Mark Caldwell (the manly Errol Flynn). they were both related to Jim, now deceased. although the Caldwell family doesn't believe that Sandra was married to Jim. and they say no will has been found. Mystery and intrigue. we meet Julie, the sister, and she tells us about Mark, and how controlling he is. he seems to interfere in everybody's doings. Julie and Sandra hit it off, but will that friendship be enough for Sandra to get to the truth? Brother Mark seems to dark and evil, but is he still hiding something? Sandra uncovers the truth, but will she be able to tell people what actually happened? it's pretty good. lots of build up to what could be going on in Mark's lab, but really, no big deal. low key thriller... ten years later, vincent price or someone would be doing Flynn's role, in color. I like the fact that this one is done in black and white.. it adds to the darkness and mystery. good stuff; a rarely shown Stanwyck.

Recently viewed this on TCM and was captivated. What was going to happen? Why was Barbara Stanwyck sneaking about? Where was her husband? What had happened??

Errol Flynn also stars, and he was good. Don't usually see him in many suspense films that I remember.

Barbara S. was amazing as usual. Believable - and wouldn't want to mess with her - but she's met her match with Flynn.

I thought a very good plot from which I have seen picked up in several other more recent movies. A solid "8" from this reviewer. I think you'll be entertained.

This is a great movie about trust, and how suspicion, cynicism, and paranoia can influence our impressions of people. From the start, the characters played by Stanwyck and Flynn (both giving remarkable, nuanced performances) have an essential distrust of each other. Stanwyck is investigating the death of her husband, who she freely admits she did not love, in order to collect a large inheritance. Thus, Flynn's impression of her character is not very high. Stanwyck, on the other hand, begins to suspect Flynn as having a role in her husband's death (or is he still alive, lurking around in the mansion late at night?).

There is a great scene in which Flynn kisses Stanwyck, which she accepts eagerly in spite of the negativity between them. "Why did you do that?" Stanwyck asks. "It was the scientist in me," he said, "I wanted to test if my first impression of you was correct." Zing! Of course that is followed by an iconic Stanwyck slap.

One of Stanwyck's first lines is, "I am not a placid woman," and throughout the film the behavior of her character proves that stubbornness her downfall. Her curiosity leads her to ever more risky explorations of Flynn's lab, as well as sneaking around and learning whatever she can about what goes on behind closed doors. This creates the suspense, and it's a role that seems tailor-made to Stanwyck's independent personality.

Flynn is equally impressive in a role that calls for ambiguity. The viewer is left to guess whether Flynn, who seems rigid and controlling, is the villain. Flynn succeeds in providing the character with a sufficient amount of depth and stability to have the viewer, and Stanwyck, questioning his intentions.

The production is first-rate. Of particular interest is the fine score and cinematography. The ending ties up all the loose ends in memorable and satisfying fashion. The last line, "I didn't trust you, either," seems to describe the wall of doubt and distrust that can be forged between two people when the worst of human nature is assumed.

Cry Wolf is directed by Peter Godfrey and adapted to screenplay by Catherine Turney from the novel of the same name written by Marjorie Carleton. It stars Errol Flynn, Barbara Stanwyck, Geraldine Brooks and Richard Baseheart. Music is by Franz Waxman and cinematography by Carl E. Guthrie.

Effective old dark house mystery picture boasting star appeal and class from Guthrie and Waxman, Cry Wolf is an enjoyable failure. The story finds Babs Stanwyck as Sandra Marshall, who turns up at a creaky old mansion investigating the death of her husband. Met with a frosty reception by the lord of the manor, Mark Caldwell (Flynn), it's not long before Sandra is neck deep in intrigue and suspicious behaviours.

Flynn and Stanwyck aren't asked to stretch themselves for this plot, in fact Flynn garnered unfair criticism for his portrayal of the shifty Mark Caldwell (wooden/miscast etc). Unfair because the character is meant to be restrained and sombre, keeping his cards close to his chest, you can certainly see why Flynn took the part, it was a chance to tackle something away from the flamboyant roles he was so iconically known for.

As the main characters move through the standard plotting of such fare; what's the secrets of the house, what is going on in the locked room? And etc, the house is the major player. Again it's standard stuff, a place of creaky doors, shadowy rooms, ominous clock chimes and things that go bump in the night. Guthrie (Backfire/Caged/Highway 301) brings his awareness of film noir visual conventions to the piece, where all the night time sequences carry atmospheric punch. While Waxman at times scores it like a Universal Studios creature feature, which is just dandy, the string arrangements delightfully menacing.

Some back projection work is poor, and although the twisty finale worked for me, I personally can understand it being a disappointment to others, while there's definitely the feeling of wasting the stars hanging over proceedings. Yet there's a nice old fashioned feel to the movie that charms, even if the stars and technical purveyors are bigger than the material handed to them. An enjoyable failure, indeed. 6/10

Just saw this last night for the first time. Must say that I loved Stanwyck running, leaping, jumping, being thrown by a horse, springing up again only to leap from an eight foot fence to the ground...This was clearly no stunt double. The gal was fleet of foot, and tenacious. She loved playing tough cookies, and that's what she served up here, a tough cookie who was really heroic and unafraid. She, as opposed to Flynn, does all the swashbuckling in this movie, and it's worth seeing just for that reason alone.

And it was suspenseful...I was really quite frightened of what she would find in the lab, in the lodge, in the dumb waiter...what's that about the cold cream??? I was so edgy after she scaled the fence into the lodge compound and got lost, that I had to turn off the volume so as not to hear the scary music. So the score really REALLY adds to the suspense.

I loved Errol Flynn in his early swashbucklers, and I really liked the character turns he took in Too Much Too Soon, and The Sun Also Rises and That Forsythe Woman. But here, he's just uneven..sometimes even blank, and then other times he's okay. Clearly the writers were trying to create a Max de Winter or Edward Rochester-type character ...is he good, or bad, sincere or lying? But the execution of the idea doesn't gel enough to satisfy.

So, the writing's choppy and shallow (especially the last 2 lines of dialogue and resolution), and there's not a TON of chemistry between Flynn and Stanwyck. And yes, the other roles are either over, or under written, so you end up with shadows or stereotypes. But still, I found it fun, and there's no reason why NOT to watch this movie, unless Rebecca or Jane Eyre or Pat & Mike is playing on another channel.

Cry Wolf was one of three films in which Warner Brothers tried in the immediate post World War II years to vary Errol Flynn's screen image, the other two were Never Say Goodbye and Escape Me Never. None of them really succeeded and Flynn had mediocre results at best.

In a biography of Barbara Stanwyck I read, the author tells us that Barbara felt Flynn had very little interest in the project, he gave a pedestrian performance. At the time he was very concerned with an oceanographic expedition his father was embarking on as a tax write off. Even then Errol's troubles with the IRS were getting started.

Though Barbara Stanwyck is two years older than Flynn, he's cast as the uncle of a recently deceased husband of Stanwyck's. When she arrives, the family is somewhat jolted as no one knew of her marriage, not Flynn who is a research scientist nor did Jerome Cowan a United States Senator up for a big appointment. One who does welcome her is her sister-in-law Geraldine Brooks who was the sister of her late husband Richard Basehart.

Cowan's not on the scene much, he leaves and it looks like he's leaving to give himself deniability as it would be spun today. Flynn carries himself with a sinister air about him and the sudden appearance of a woman claiming to be his nephew's wife has taken him aback. Flynn certainly does not like the questions Stanwyck is raising about her alleged husband's death.

This was interesting casting for Errol Flynn and I think with some better material Flynn might have carried off the part. As it was by what I see and according to Stanwyck he lost interest in the project.

Still fans of Flynn and Stanwyck might like to see the only film these two ever did together.

I disagree with all the reviewers who disagree with me. This was a tense, suspenseful melodrama which I feel has gotten a bad rap since it came out. The mood of the film is ominous and unsettling throughout and benefits from excellent acting jobs from the two stars. Barbara Stanwyck almost never gives a bad performance and does not disappoint, but the big surprise here is Errol Flynn. In "Cry Wolf" he shows unexpected depth and nuance - this from an actor known for one-dimensional action/ swashbuckling roles, in addition to his off-screen antics as a swordsman. Who knew he was capable of such acting?

More disagreement. I thought the script was intelligent and that the pacing was good and that the ending was not a lame copout. It did not rely on its star performances and it kept you guessing right up to the end. I never took a movie course but I know what I like, to coin a borrowed phrase, and this was a good picture. I will have to say I was going to award Geraldine Brooks the Hand-Painted Mustache Cup as Hambone Actress of 1947, but I passed because it was her screen debut.

But don't take my word. Decide for yourself if it's a quick, exciting 83 minutes. That's what makes horse racing.

Let's get the awkward elephant out into the open: Barbara Stanwyck looks much older than Errol Flynn in Cry Wolf, yet she's supposed to be young enough to have married his nephew. Honestly, that's the biggest problem with the movie, so if that won't bother you, go ahead and rent it.

Cry Wolf is a very Hitchcockian film, rife with mystery, double crosses, and secrecy. While Errol Flynn and his brother Jerome Cowan are preparing to bury their young relative, Barbara Stanwyck shows up claiming to be his widow. Errol doesn't believe her-and Jerome disappears for the rest of the film-but allows her to stay in his house while he investigates. She bonds with Errol's young niece, a Judy Garland look-a-like, Geraldine Brooks, and starts to think something strange is happening around the house.

There are several scenes full of tension that will keep you on the edge of your seat, but even more impressive than them are the scenes that feature Barbara Stanwyck's stunt work. She's a master horsewoman, and also runs, climbs, and raises herself in a dumbwaiter. In one scene, she scales a chain fence, stands at the top, and jumps to the ground, with no cuts or closeups to hide her physicality. If you think she's a strong role model, rent this movie for reinforcements. She definitely lives up to her reputation in it.

Barbara Stanwyck smells something rotten in her husband's family home in "Cry Wolf," a 1947 movie starring a very famous wolf off screen, Errol Flynn, as well as Jerome Cowan, Richard Basehart, and Geraldine Brooks.

Stanwyck plays Sandra, the widow of James Demarest, and arrives to consult with his uncle (Flynn) about James' estate. James believed that his uncle was trying to take his money from him.

Sandra gets a cool reception from everyone except James' sister (Brooks). Hearing noises coming from the uncle's lab, Sandra becomes convinced that James is still alive, and she is determined to gain access to the laboratory.

This is the kind of film you can't wait to see - two fabulous stars, a mystery, atmosphere - but though "Cry Wolf" screams "Cry Hit Movie" - it falls flat.

If Flynn is supposed to be the Max de Winter or Mr. Rochester of the piece, he doesn't cut it. It's not his fault. The role does not play to his strengths at all. Incredibly handsome, charming, energetic, and debonair, Flynn was one of the greatest stars of the golden era.

It's understandable that he became bored with the kind of roles with which he is associated, and there's no doubt he could have pulled this off, but the script and direction let him down. Instead, his performance seems one note, uninteresting, and lazy.

At 38, given his lifestyle, he looked bloated in certain scenes. It would seem like a wonderful idea to cast him with Stanwyck, but there's no there there.

Stanwyck's role, on the other hand, does play to her strengths. She's tough, determined, and called upon to do some amazing physical stunts as she rides up and down in a dumbwaiter, rides horses, falls off of one, takes one over a tall fence - she's just great.

Given the lethargy of Flynn's performance and the quiet steel of Stanwyck's, Geraldine Brooks by contrast seems like she's chewing the scenery. Basehart is so young he's almost unrecognizable in a small but good role.

The film ends very abruptly with most of the plot telegraphed from the beginning of the film. However, there are some wonderfully suspenseful moments - Stanwyck hiding outside the lab as Flynn exits, the horse careening through the woods, and several others.

Enjoyable, disappointing, but well worth seeing for the stars and the atmosphere.

I think this movie is highly underrated. Errol Flynn and Barbara Stanwyck have great chemistry and both turned in superb performances. It's too bad they didn't make more movies together. I'm not sure why so many people think this an average movie at best, unless they can't see Errol Flynn as anything but a swashbuckler. I feel he had tremendous range as an actor. Even Bette Davis who had bashed Errol Flynn's acting abilities for decades admitted later in her life that Errol was "damn good!!" I recommend this to anyone who enjoys classic old movies, especially those who enjoy scary movies. One last note of interest is that I believe this may have been the last movie where Barbara Stanwyck's hair length goes past her shoulders.

I think it is generally acknowledged that Errol Flynn's best film work was in those films that combined his charm and his athletic abilities, be they swashbucklers, boxing films, or westerns. But as he got older Flynn was determined to prove his acting abilities. He could act when he was generally interested in the film he appeared in, but he was frequently willing to try to do a film that was unusual. This did not always work too well. He made such interesting failures as THE SISTERS with Bette Davis, where he was a newspaper reporter in turn of the century San Francisco, who had a wanderjahr that interfered with his marriage. The film wasn't bad, but his part was weak - the antithesis of the type he usually played so well. In the late 1940s to 1950 he tried three films to broaden his scope of acting: CRY WOLF, THAT FORSYTE WOMAN, and SILVER RIVER. Only the last one, a western where he played a man who was carried away by ambitious and greed so that he becomes relatively unsympathetic, was successful. THAT FORSYTE WOMAN (with Greer Garson and Walter Pigeon) was interesting (Flynn as Soames Forsythe was interesting casting, but he was too stiff - Eric Porter's memorable Soames in the first BBC version of the Galsworthy stories in the 1960s was far more human). CRY WOLF, the present film, was Flynn's only real attempt at the noir style of movie. As such it begins well, but collapses due to a poor script.

Barbara Stanwyck has married Richard Basehart, the nephew of Flynn, before the movie began. Flynn, Basehart, Jerome Cowan, and Geraldine Brooks are the scions of a "Kennedy" style family, with money and political power (Cowan is a U.S. Senator). But Basehart has vanished, and Stanwyck, besides trying to prove her marriage, is determined to find her husband. And here she keeps running into Flynn's suspicious behavior. He seems very unsympathetic to her wishes, and quite cold most of the time. As for helping her locate Basehart, he keeps on throwing up roadblocks.

The problem is that having set a good stage for a film which would have been confronting Stanwyck's heroine with Flynn's villain, the script fell apart. It turns out Flynn is interested in protecting the family's name and it's members from outside scrutiny. In particular Basehart and Brooks, who are somewhat strange. This change in the script was meant to enable Stanwick and Flynn to gradually fall in love and end up together, but it smashed the suspense that such a film should generate, and it ruined Flynn from having a potentially interesting negative part. Actually his performance in SILVER RIVER was far more consistent, and even his Soames retains the audience's lack of sympathy to the end. In CRY WOLF the audience gets confused - should we hiss Flynn or cheer him on? It would have been better all around if the screenplay writers had let us hiss him to the end.

The movie's start was confusing as to what was happening and took at least 5 minutes for any sense to be made of what was going on. After that time, the intensity and interest picked up rapidly. The movie's end was a big twist and is definitely worth watching.

I just barely liked this, and I felt I would love it, since I adore film noir, and the work of both of the leads. To me, both Errol Flynn and Barbara Stanwyck are very charismatic people--they should have had, regardless of which side they were acting (good or bad), smouldering chemistry if on the same side, or been extremely volatile if opposing each other. Conversely, here they were very muted, as if sleepwalking--and the fault must lie in both the direction in the script. Thus I can only give it the very faintest of recommendation. The film has harnessed the worst performance of either star that I have ever seen. The fact that it was released on my birthday (August 19th, though not the year) makes it a further insult to my cinematic sensibility.

There is always at least one reason for me to see any film. In this case, the main reason was Barbara Stanwyck. To me, she was one of the best actresses at the time and she excelled in these type of roles, even when the film wasn't as good. Was also interested to see Errol Flynn against type, the more sinister kind this time, but did worry that the role wouldn't suit him. The story sounded very suspenseful and it is my kind of film, being someone that loves suspense and mystery.

'Cry Wolf' was however a disappointment. It is definitely worth a one time watch at least, it takes a lot for me to call anything less than that, but there is not enough to it for me to recommend it. Have nothing to fault Stanwyck for and there are good moments and things, but Flynn has been much better served elsewhere (as has Richard Basehart) and at the end of the day 'Cry Wolf' came over as inconsistent and under-cooked. The major potential was there, the execution wasn't (or at least enough).

Am going to start with the good. Stanwyck is great here, she did steely and vulnerable so well and it was amazing too at how athletic she is here. The production values are glossy, without being overly so, and extremely atmospheric, the house like an ominous character of its own. Franz Waxman's score is lush and haunting.

It starts off quite well, with a very nifty atmosphere, and there is some genuine suspense that makes the film genuinely creepy at times. Like in the lab.

Flynn however disappoints, really do appreciate that he tried to do a different role and it is his darkest and most sinister sounding role. Sadly it is sketchily and inconsistently written and Flynn as a result is uneven, sometimes nuanced and coolly menacing and then at other times he looks as if he is sleepwalking and he could have done more with menace. He and Stanwyck's chemistry never ignites. Geraldine Brooks tries too hard in the only supporting role that 'Cry Wolf' attempts to flesh out and while Basehart tries his best he is wasted as a character that is woefully underwritten.

Did find too much of the dialogue on the melodramatic and corny side and the story too often has a pedestrian pace, especially when the story starts to thin out rather than gain momentum later. Suspense could have come more consistently, the chills factor isn't there enough and the psychological aspect never registers properly because the character writing is too sketchy. The characters are mostly ciphers with underdeveloped motivations, only Stanwyck and Brooks' characters have any shreds of development and even they don't have enough meat. Godfrey's direction has moments, especially stylistically, but mostly it's fairly undistinguished. Do agree that the ending is contrived, too hasty and anti-climactic, despite finding it a surprise.

On the whole, really wanted to like this much more. 5/10.