The Mark of the Wolfman (1968)

Director: Enrique López Eguiluz                       Writer: Paul Naschy
Film Score: Ángel Arteaga                              Cinematography: Emilio Foriscot
Starring: Paul Naschy, Dyanik Zurakowska, Manuel Manzaneque and Julián Ugarte

In 1943, after the success of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man but lackluster reviews for their Technicolor remake of The Phantom of the Opera, Universal commissioned a script for a new Technicolor film, this time featuring the monsters that the public obviously loved. It was to be called The Wolf Man vs. Dracula, starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and Bela Lugosi. Wartime belt tightening caused the studio to scrap the production, but the idea lived on and appeared twenty five years later in this Spanish film. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with a foreign film that’s had its title butchered beyond recognition. The Spanish title is La marca del Hombre-lobo, which I have translated above. The title that it was released under in the U.S., however, is the utterly incongruous Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, because the distributor had promised a Frankenstein film to his exhibitors.

The story is set in Germany and begins at a costume ball at the estate of Dyanik Zurakowska’s father. It’s clear that he and Manuel Manzaneque’s father want them to marry. However, Paul Naschy dances with Zurakowska and the two soon fall in love. Meanwhile, a Gypsy couple make their way to the abandoned castle of the Wolfstein’s and while grave robbing in the vault, unwittingly remove the silver dagger from a werewolf and unleash him on the countryside. A search for the “wolf” involving all the men winds up pairing Naschy and Manzaneque together. When the later is attacked by the werewolf Naschy kills the werewolf with the silver dagger but winds up being bitten himself. In searching for a way to cure him, they unwittingly send for “Dr. Mikhelov,” who turns out to be a vampire.

This is the first film by the famous Spanish screenwriter and actor Paul Naschy, who is the only other actor to appear in a series of werewolf films since Chaney, Jr. for Universal. Unfortunately, the films aren’t very good. In the first place, Naschy’s script brings nothing new to the table. The werewolf legend is kept in tack, as it should be, but other than the interaction with the vampires--which of course had already been done in Universal’s monster rally House movies--there is nothing here we haven’t seen before. His performance as the werewolf is also rather curious. In addition to the snarling and bared fangs he does a lot of jumping around and waving his arms, and this gives his creature more of an ape-like attitude rather than suggesting a wolf.

By far, however, the biggest cinematic problem with the film is that there are absolutely no transitions to indicate the passage of time. The film simply jump-cuts ahead hours, sometimes days, without letting the audience know and it has an incredibly jarring effect until we realize what has happened. One example: Naschy, Zurakowska and Manzaneque are in the library of the castle, looking through books to find a possible cure for Naschy. The next cut shows Zurakowska tip-toeing in a library and her father spies her. Is he in the castle too? And why? But then he chastises her for being out so late and we realize she must have gone home that night. The very next cut, however, has the original three still back in the library. Was the previous edit a mistake? No, through the dialogue we realize it’s the next night. And the entire film is like that, jolting from one scene to the next and relying solely on dialogue to orient us. It’s a challenge to watch, and a good film shouldn’t be.

The dubbing isn’t bad and, like most films of the period, even the original Spanish soundtrack would have been dubbed, so there’s nothing really missing from the lack of subtitles. There are a few nice set-ups by director Enrique López Eguiluz, and occasionally some nice direction of the actors, but not enough to save the picture. The production design is good for the period, not quite as artificial as Hammer’s product during the same period. There are also a few chilling moments that are very powerful, but again, these are just a few bright spots in a film that doesn’t have much else to offer. In the end, The Mark of the Wolfman is an interesting curiosity, but little more.