She-Wolf of London Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

She-Wolf of London Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson December 16, 2016

She-Wolf of London is being released as part of The Wolf Man: Complete Legacy Collection.

As its title implies, She-Wolf of London is about a female werewolf who lurks and stalks unsuspecting victims amidst the London fog. Its story is set in the early twentieth century at a handsome mansion on the outskirts of London. Phyllis Allenby (June Lockhart) is the young heiress to the Allenby estate where she lives with her sister, Carol Winthrop (Jan Wiley), and her domineering aunt, the housekeeper Martha Winthrop (Sara Haden). Phyllis has big plans in her near future. She is engaged to a well to-do gentleman, the barrister Barry Lanfield (Don Porter), whom she rides along side of on horseback. On the other hand, Carol wishes to marry the working-class Dwight Severn (Martin Kosleck), who Martha looks down upon crassly as not a worthy suitor to her daughter. George Bricker's screenplay deftly handles these family and class dynamics all the while murders are being committed in a nearby marsh.

Is this the mysterious "She-Wolf" about to slash her next victim?

Phyllis may be vivacious but she is also naïve and unsophisticated to most things happening around her. She hears howling dogs and awakes from nightmares about werewolves, only to discover blood on her clothes and mud on the bottom of her shoes. Is Phyllis part of the "Allenby Curse" in which an Allenby transforms into a werewolf and commits heinous acts? The film is kind of a Freudian case study of Phyllis's unconscious, wrestling with her psychosis. She-Wolf of London is certainly aware of the tropes inherent in the Wolf Man films as it plays with its audience's expectations. It is also a murder mystery that contains a scenic homage to Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) with a twist. The sets, costumes, and cinematography are all first-rate. My main quibble is that the mise-en-scène tips off viewers a little conspicuously to the identity of the murderess. If viewers study one of the kill sequences closely, they will see what I mean. Watching She-Wolf of London a second time I gained a better sense of the She-Wolf's motives. Despite these drawbacks, the film is a pleasant surprise and a small gem.

She-Wolf of London Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Universal presents She-Wolf of London in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.37:1 on this AVC-encoded BD-50 that it shares with Werewolf of London. The film looks reasonably good in high-definition but is beset by several film artifacts that occasionally percolate the frame. There are some small scratches and thin vertical lines that come across the image. The movie's attractive sets and moody nighttime photography look pretty good here but Universal could have cleaned up some of these deficiencies. My score is 2.75.

She-Wolf of London Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal provides an above-average DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. There is noticeable hiss but dialogue is consistently intelligible and William Lava's score sounds relatively crisp. Source distortions are not as noticeable as some of the other titles in this collection.

Universal has provided optional English SDH, French subtitles, and Spanish subtitles. Tthe white English subs are either centered in the middle of the screen or placed on the speaking character.

She-Wolf of London Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1:22, 480i) - an unrestored, entirely pillarboxed trailer that is in mediocre shape. It appears to be the original trailer that Universal initially ran.

She-Wolf of London Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

She-Wolf of London is the last film on the fourth disc included in The Wolf Man: Complete Legacy Collection. (The reverse sleeve has film credits for each title. See image #8). Jean Yarbrough's 1946 picture is one of my personal favorites included in the set. The video is average and the audio serviceable. RECOMMENDED.