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rob_colling
Reviews
She-Wolf of London (1946)
She-Wolf of where, exactly?
Much has been said elsewhere in these comments about the silliness of this film, the campy dialogue and the distinct lack of werewolves. And for that matter of plot. All this is true - She-Wolf of London is so ridiculous it's quite entertaining, the cast and atmosphere are very good, but there isn't much else to recommend it.
The one aspect that hasn't been commented on yet is the movie's utter lack of authenticity. Presumably this just wasn't a priority for the filmmakers (or maybe for the audiences) of the time, but boy, does it look outrageous today! It's very clear, for a start, that nobody involved in this film had ever been near London. The sets and locations, while reasonably impressive, look patently American and not at all like a British city. It's about as convincing as filming in Jamaica and calling it New York. Then the dialogue contains words that just don't exist in British English, and phrases that no English person would ever have used at that time. Virtually none of the dialogue sounds even close to convincing. With the exception of Hoey's, all the accents are Dick Van Dyke awful, in those few places they are even attempted. The props and sets are clearly made of 1940s materials rather than 19th-century ones - things like teapots and door knockers are very obviously the wrong weight, being made of cheap mazak or whatever. And best of all there are bizarre anachronisms - the police routinely travelling in what seems to be a very wealthy person's carriage, the heroine constantly leaving her window wide open despite the foggy, cold night (hello? ever been to the UK? Er, it's cold here, folks!), the police constantly wearing soaking wet raincoats although everyone else is wearing a perfectly dry lounge suit with no coat... I could go on and on. Suffice to say the movie never runs for more than 20 seconds at a time without letting out some clattering great inauthenticity that makes it impossible to take seriously. Whether that makes it fun or terrible, I'll leave for you to decide.