Oliver Reed
THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, 1961, Hammer Films.
I've always loved this version. The werewolf looks like a tough brute not to be reckoned with and the story line is a good one. It takes place in 18th century Spain. The evil, Marques throws a beggar in a dungeon. 15 years pass, and the Marques has the jailer's (mute) daughter thrown in the same dungeon with the beggar because she shunned the Marques' sexual advances. The wild/unattended beggar rapes the mute daughter. Upon her release, she manages to kill the Marques with a knife. She flees into the forest where she is found, in rough shape, by a sympathetic bachelor and his maid. The jailer's daughter gives birth to her illegitimate, beggar baby on Christmas day, which is considered an insult to God. Great stuff happens on the day of birth: the sky darkens, the mute mother dies, there's severe thunder storms and bubbling water. Some years later, the boy (Leon) goes hunting with his pepe and shoots a squirrel. Young Leon feels saddened and tries to comfort the dead squirrel by kissing it. As you might guess, Leon ends up enjoying the taste of the sweet, warm blood. Sheep begin to die and a priest tells Leon's bachelor guardian that Leon is a werewolf. The bachelor guardian has bars put on Leon's windows. Of course Leon matures into a handsome/brooding adult, carries on, kills a bunch of village people (not them!) and, in front of an angered mob, ends up getting shot dead from the bell tower by the same silver bullet that was meted down from his dead, mute mother's crucifix. You're not weeping?
RL
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