cult film freak: STEVEN RITCH MAKES A MELANCHOLY CREATURE IN 'THE WEREWOLF'

Steven Ritch as THE WEREWOLF Year: 1956 Rating: ****

Lon Chaney Jr. was the most famous movie werewolf, David Naughton the best, and Steven Ritch makes the most sympathetic... as a stranger who stumbles into a mountainous town (actually filmed in Big Bear) and can't remember his name, or his problem, that quickly kicks into gear while he's mugged... turning into THE WEREWOLF and eventually hunted by gentle giant sheriff Don Megowan (with deputy Harry Lauter) who's hen-pecked by fiance Joyce Holden and her pacifist doctor uncle to take him alive...

But the villains want only death, and are two mad scientists that add "Sci-Fi" to the "Horror" who, learned through exposition dialogue, had injected Ritch's Duncan Marsh with a serum as protection for nuclear fallout...

Steven Ritch gets credit as THE WEREWOLF

Until then, poor Mr. Marsh has to run amok through the freezing wilderness, without shoes. And yet his lycanthrope status is sporadic, providing a desperate, vulnerable performance for the mostly unknown Steven Ritch, who, with dark heavy brows and a rugged, swarthy exterior, always looks wolfish...

So whether he transforms into what now seems dated but looks freakier and scarier than the classic Universal WOLF MAN (using the same dissolve-effect), Ritch is always in character... and it's his character that the picture is not only named after but he's both the antagonist (extremely fierce and energetic when changed) and protagonist alike.