Moon of the Wolf
Director: Daniel Petrie
Year: 1972
Rating: 5.0
David Janssen is a small-town sheriff down in
the Bayou whose southern accent comes and goes like a leaky faucet. These
are good old boys with their guns, God and griddles. The Sheriff looks to
be the only one in town who isn't married to his cousin. Southern living.
A father and son out hunting for possum come across the body of a dead girl.
Torn up. But not by dogs. Her brother (Geoffrey Lewis) seems awfully fond
of her and is ready to kill someone, anyone. The autopsy reveals that she
was pregnant but surprisingly not by the brother or her father. The father
is stricken in bed mumbling something in Louisiana French that nobody understands
till later. By then more people are dead.
On top of the hill sits the mansion of the
Rodanthe family. They own everything worth owning. Which isn't much. The
brother is played by Bradford Dillman and the sister who has just moved back
from NYC is played by Barbara Rush. The Sheriff spends more time chatting
up the sister than looking into the case - because he has lots of suspects
but none of them can tear the bars off of a jail cell. They finally figure
out what the old man is saying. Loup Garou, Loup Garou. Oh hell. Were-wolf.
An ok TV movie for a Friday night at home and if you heard scratching at
the door, you might feel a wee bit jittery.
This is based on a 1967 novel by Les Whitten,
but from reading about the book it seems the film really neutered it. In
the book, the story takes place in the 1930's and race and superstition play
a big part of it. The girl who is murdered is black and studying to be a
nurse. One commentator wrote that she could not finish it because of the
racism. The film decides to avoid anything that could be controversial and
even shies away from showing the attacks. Family fodder. Whitten by the way
was an investigative reporter who worked with Jack Anderson the muckraking
reporter, if anyone remembers who he was.
