Nothing the rest of you haven't already said. Sorry for being late, it was an off week.
The Werewolf
On a cruise liner full of party animals on the prowl, one passenger truly is your boogieman.
It's Winter, and one lucky editor is getting away on a cruise line for swinging singles. That Tony Vincenzo, what a stud! Alas, the office Christmas party gifts him with a lump of coal in the form of auditors. Updyke won't take the ticket, he'd be happier being miserable with his imaginary cold. Reluctantly, then, the cherished getaway goes to kolchak - and Vincenzo's damn well not gonna let him enjoy it! This is a working trip, boyo, Tony wants an expose of the Love Boat.
Once aboard, Kolchak is surrounded by great stories. An ocean liner, formerly a majestic icon of grace, about to be decommissioned as obsolete in the jet age playing host to a crowd of '70s-modern, sexually jaded passengers rejecting old mores...a divinity school flunky on the make and a purser on the take...a couple who were married and found the institution didn't suit them, and are now are happily divorced swingers together. it's rich pickings, but Kolchak is more fascinated by the four freshly mangled corpses in the ship's swimming pool.
All hell breaks loose that first night of the cruise. Something wild is killing passengers on deck, and the crew is running around in pandemonium trying to figure out what it is they're looking for. Kolchak can't help but notice. As a ship's crew will, it's 'nothing to see here' to everyone not wearing a uniform. Captain's a busy man, no time for questions. They all come face to face with the killer that night: a nattily dressed wildman with a face full of hair. The men are tossed around, and Kolchak is knocked unconscious.
He awakens later in the infirmary to the sound of a fellow passenger upset over horrible nightmares and a wound that hasn't healed for weeks, and is irate at not being given sedatives. His name is Bernard Steiglitz, he's an officer with NATO, he has anger management issues.
And is hair is perfect.
Steiglitz is a good move for K:TNS, the first monster featured to be given any kind of character depth at all. Not much, and it's pretty standard for a werewolf portrayal - the guy knows what he is and is distraught over an inability to keep from transforming and killing innocents...but it's more than the series has offered us before in their gallery of creatures. Steiglitz is played with intensity by Eric Braeden, of The Forbin Project and Escape From the Planet of the Apes. Braeden is an actor of dark, quiet intensity who holds your attention just standing still. As Braeden, his intensity is giving way to anger. Braeden is a little too cold to feel sorry for, but it's enough to understand the tragedy of his circumstance. He's not a willing monster, but he's killing all the same.
Leavening that is a strong streak of humor. Humor has been a part of the Kolchak formula from the first film but it has ramped up considerably since even The Ripper. First is the fun had at the expense of put-upon Vincenzo and the nebbishy Updyke who does not have the Winter flu but is certain the supplements he is taking are making him ill. This time TNS goes over the line into broader humor with one character suggesting a "drinkie-winkie" and comic actor Dick Gautier (RIP) as movable mouth Mel Tarter, half of the happily-divorced-and-still-dating couple. Gautier is known for Hymie on Get Smart, but to me he'll always be Robin Hood on When Things Were Rotten. He's a Love Boat, Love American Style stereotype strictly for laughs, none too bright but always lit, we suspect, friendly and tacky.
Mel's polar opposite is found in Captain Wells (Henry Jones), as sturdy as his ship and twice as icy as the waters it's in. Again for TNS it's casting to type making use of Jones' air of long-suffering exposure to fools. Wells can quote every line of sea law that will see Kolchak introduced to irons while the reporter himself cannot fast-talk his way past a single one of Well's men.
Wells: "Article 22, Revised Maritime Code, should any passenger or passengers exhibit, in the captain's opinion, an unbalanced state of mind the captain may order such passenger be put-"
Kolchak: "- to sleep, yes, I know."
Kolchak is fast but the crew is faster, and potential romantic hookup Paula (Nita Talbot) is the fastest of them all. She's intelligent, which might be why she continues to find Carl fascinating even after he proves oblivious to sexual overtures. Too bad, as they have a pretty good chemistry.
Kolchak's seeming asexuality is curious though nothing is made of it, but then the episode is full of incongruous moments that might be funnier than the more overt jokes. For instance, for a ship full of people who presumably can't wait to party all night, Kolchak is the only person alarmed by the sight of the crew rushing all over the ship in a panic. "I don't know what's gotten into everyone!" Paula says. "Claws and fangs", he quips. Or there's the usual trope of Kolchak's delving into resources to understand what he's up against. Being aboard ship, he has to rely on Paula's extensive store of movie lore to learn about lycanthropy. What better source for a horror show to lean on than Hollywood! We have silver dress uniform buttons melted to make silver shotgun shells - and exactly what is a shotgun doing aboard a ship? Is hunting on the list of approved amenities? I know gun laws were looser then, but really!
What sets The Werewolf apart is the setting. The Werewolf was filmed aboard the RMS Queen Mary to give it an air of authenticity, and it's well used. The beast is every bit as trapped aboard as his fellow passengers and likely prey, and so is Kolchak. In this setting, all anyone can do is stalk, run in panic, or hide behind locked doors. Everything leads back to itself, a closed circuit maze of corridors and ladders. There's something about ships that make them particularly affecting as a horror setting. Echoes of the Marie Celeste and the Titanic lurked under my thoughts while watching.
I have to wonder shy a man who knows he's a werewolf books a cruise during a full moon.
Pace is brisk, including the choppy editing technique that has come to mark the show. that helps, because the werewolf makeup is nothing inspired. The one look we get, a blurred freeze-and-zoom, is still too clear to be helpful. Nor does it help that what we are told is bodies "torn limb from limb" can't be shown on television of the era. I expect a werewolf to tear someone up, not throw him over a railing.
On balance, I think I have to give it 8 improvised leg irons.
Asides:
Ruth McDevitt returns to the cast as INS contributor Edith Cowles, a creator of puzzles. McDevitt was first seen as the self-described "weirdo" writing to Miss Emily about her creepy neighbor. She must have impressed the producers.
Once Kolchak is no longer in his presence, Captain Wells admits that he believe Kolchak may be right. That's a welcome change and marks him as a smart man.
Kolchak is a writer but he doesn't know what a polemic is?
Wolves do attack humans, but rarely and not for sport but for food or territorial trespass. They are reputed to be shy of confrontation. For sheer viciousness, wolves have nothing on mankind. That should mean that werewolves are at their most dangerous whenever the moon is not full.
One week it's October, the next Spring, then Winter. Never mind the weather, Chicagoans need forecasters to tell them what time of year it's gonna be tomorrow.
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