... and a second opinion by Mike Haberfelner ...
Paris 1880: A serialkiller dubbed The Wolf is
haunting the city, and his latest victim is the cashier of the bank the
Wolf is subsequently emptying. Suspicion falls on the only other man in
the building, Lucien (John Warwick), but since he has been with the bank
for many years, his father was a friend of the bank's owner de Brisson
(Aubrey Mallalieu), and he's romantically linked to the owner's daughter
Cecile (Marjorie Taylor), suspicion is quickly dropped. Enter Chevalier
del Gardo (Tod Slaughter), who wants to set up business relations with de
Brisson and has his eyes set on Cecile ... and for him, Lucien is nothing
but competition that needs to be eliminated. Above that, he is also the
Wolf - and so he plants part of the loot on Lucien and arranges for de
Brisson to find it, trusting the man will quickly hand Lucien over to the
police - which de Brisson doesn't because of the loyalty Lucien and his
father have always shown him. When del Gardo urges him to go to the police
with his findings, de Brisson notices the loot found on Lucien was in an
envelope carrying the seal of the Chevalier. Unfortunately though, the
Chevalier grows wise to de Brisson's suspicion and murders him - and he
sees to it that the suspicion once again falls on Lucien.
Even though
Lucien is on the run from the police, he challenges the Chevalier to a
duel, which the Chevalier wins by heavy cheating, and he has Lucien's tied
up body thrown into the Seine to die, but Lucien is saved, and in
disguise, he visits the whorehouse del Gardo is frequenting and also
keeping Cecile whom he has abducted. The police track down Lucien to the
whorehouse, but he manages to not only give them the slip but also free
Cecile, even if it means to burn down the whole place.
Lucien still has
one chance to prove his innocence: A machine his mad scientist friend
LeBlanc (Wallace Evennett) has developed that will reanimate the dead for
a few seconds, and if de Brisson is reanimated, Lucien figures he might
name his murderer. Lucien sends Cecile to teh police to invite inspector
Gouffert (Robert Adair) and del Gardo to a reanimation experiment this
evening, but the Chevalier figures it might be a good idea to kill the
professor before that, just to make sure, which would put an end to
Lucien's plans ... and it nearly does, but then Lucien uses - or rather
pretends to use - the professor's apparatus on the dead professor, and
this way, he tricks del Gardo into unmasking himself. The Chevalier gets
away, but can be tracked down to his secret hideout, where he keeps his
malformed brother (Harry Terry), the other part of the Wolf-tagteam,
locked away in a cage. He tries to kill him for no apparent reason, but
ultimately they both die falling into the Seine.
A weird and
not totally conclusive murder mystery with strong horror undercurrents,
this is not a film to be taken seriously, but it's fun to watch exactly
for its many narrative inconsistencies and its amazing number of pulp
mainstays, coupled with a wonderful over-the-top performance by Tod
Slaughter. Of course, it was made on the cheap, and it's directorial
effort alternates between bland and stagey, but even that doesn't detract
from the film's fun-factor.
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