Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Producer: Henry Blanke. A Thomson Production. A Warner Bros - First National Picture. Executive producer: Jack L. Warner. Copyright 16 August 1947 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Strand: 18 July 1947. U.S. release: 16 August 1947. U.K. release: 15 March 1948. Australian release: 13 May 1948. 7,605 feet. 84½ minutes.SYNOPSIS: Mysterious happenings in an old house involve a young widow, a neurotic girl and a suspicious "scientist".COMMENT: When I tell people I admire the work of Peter Godfrey, they usually look at me with pity. After a great deal of argument, they will usually admit that The Woman in White has some virtue, but they are reluctant to see the supreme joys of Hotel Berlin and The Two Mrs Carrolls, let alone the admittedly minor pleasures of He's a Cockeyed Wonder.Cry Wolf is Godfrey's masterpiece. A most unusual vehicle for Flynn (who seems to be the heavy), it is a taut thriller, atmospherically directed with lots of tingling camera movement and suspenseful lighting. Godfrey's pacing is crisp, never letting attention sag or wander, his choice of camera angles is consistently dramatic and he has drawn tight, convincing performances from his players.Barbara Stanwyck in a well-tailored role as the resourceful heroine excites plenty of audience sympathy. Also ideally cast are Richard Basehart and Geraldine Brooks in typically edgy impersonations, while Errol Flynn manages to surround his less typed part with a nice edge of menace. The character players have less to do, though Jerome Cowan scores with agreeable force as Senator Caldwell.Photography, sets and music join with the direction in making the most of the thrills the script so abundantly provides. Marjorie Carleton's novel is not known to me. Certainly it has all the ingredients of the popular Gothic romance. Although these ingredients may have been dulled by familiarity and constant over-use, they are given fresh, nervy life on the screen. It's impossible not to enjoy the film, to be completely "taken in" by its story, atmosphere and effects. The headlong pace, persuasive performances and bravura direction all see to that. And though the resolution to the mystery has been criticized in some quarters, I found it thoroughly convincing.

Cry Wolf is directed by Peter Godfrey and adapted to screenplay by Catherine Turney from the novel of the same name written by Marjorie Carleton. It stars Errol Flynn, Barbara Stanwyck, Geraldine Brooks and Richard Baseheart. Music is by Franz Waxman and cinematography by Carl E. Guthrie. Effective old dark house mystery picture boasting star appeal and class from Guthrie and Waxman, Cry Wolf is an enjoyable failure. The story finds Babs Stanwyck as Sandra Marshall, who turns up at a creaky old mansion investigating the death of her husband. Met with a frosty reception by the lord of the manor, Mark Caldwell (Flynn), it's not long before Sandra is neck deep in intrigue and suspicious behaviours. Flynn and Stanwyck aren't asked to stretch themselves for this plot, in fact Flynn garnered unfair criticism for his portrayal of the shifty Mark Caldwell (wooden/miscast etc). Unfair because the character is meant to be restrained and sombre, keeping his cards close to his chest, you can certainly see why Flynn took the part, it was a chance to tackle something away from the flamboyant roles he was so iconically known for. As the main characters move through the standard plotting of such fare; what's the secrets of the house, what is going on in the locked room? And etc, the house is the major player. Again it's standard stuff, a place of creaky doors, shadowy rooms, ominous clock chimes and things that go bump in the night. Guthrie (Backfire/Caged/Highway 301) brings his awareness of film noir visual conventions to the piece, where all the night time sequences carry atmospheric punch. While Waxman at times scores it like a Universal Studios creature feature, which is just dandy, the string arrangements delightfully menacing. Some back projection work is poor, and although the twisty finale worked for me, I personally can understand it being a disappointment to others, while there's definitely the feeling of wasting the stars hanging over proceedings. Yet there's a nice old fashioned feel to the movie that charms, even if the stars and technical purveyors are bigger than the material handed to them. An enjoyable failure, indeed. 6/10

Cry Wolf was one of three films in which Warner Brothers tried in the immediate post World War II years to vary Errol Flynn's screen image, the other two were Never Say Goodbye and Escape Me Never. None of them really succeeded and Flynn had mediocre results at best.In a biography of Barbara Stanwyck I read, the author tells us that Barbara felt Flynn had very little interest in the project, he gave a pedestrian performance. At the time he was very concerned with an oceanographic expedition his father was embarking on as a tax write off. Even then Errol's troubles with the IRS were getting started.Though Barbara Stanwyck is two years older than Flynn, he's cast as the uncle of a recently deceased husband of Stanwyck's. When she arrives, the family is somewhat jolted as no one knew of her marriage, not Flynn who is a research scientist nor did Jerome Cowan a United States Senator up for a big appointment. One who does welcome her is her sister-in-law Geraldine Brooks who was the sister of her late husband Richard Basehart.Cowan's not on the scene much, he leaves and it looks like he's leaving to give himself deniability as it would be spun today. Flynn carries himself with a sinister air about him and the sudden appearance of a woman claiming to be his nephew's wife has taken him aback. Flynn certainly does not like the questions Stanwyck is raising about her alleged husband's death.This was interesting casting for Errol Flynn and I think with some better material Flynn might have carried off the part. As it was by what I see and according to Stanwyck he lost interest in the project.Still fans of Flynn and Stanwyck might like to see the only film these two ever did together.

Just saw this last night for the first time. Must say that I loved Stanwyck running, leaping, jumping, being thrown by a horse, springing up again only to leap from an eight foot fence to the ground...This was clearly no stunt double. The gal was fleet of foot, and tenacious. She loved playing tough cookies, and that's what she served up here, a tough cookie who was really heroic and unafraid. She, as opposed to Flynn, does all the swashbuckling in this movie, and it's worth seeing just for that reason alone.And it was suspenseful...I was really quite frightened of what she would find in the lab, in the lodge, in the dumb waiter...what's that about the cold cream??? I was so edgy after she scaled the fence into the lodge compound and got lost, that I had to turn off the volume so as not to hear the scary music. So the score really REALLY adds to the suspense.I loved Errol Flynn in his early swashbucklers, and I really liked the character turns he took in Too Much Too Soon, and The Sun Also Rises and That Forsythe Woman. But here, he's just uneven..sometimes even blank, and then other times he's okay. Clearly the writers were trying to create a Max de Winter or Edward Rochester-type character ...is he good, or bad, sincere or lying? But the execution of the idea doesn't gel enough to satisfy.So, the writing's choppy and shallow (especially the last 2 lines of dialogue and resolution), and there's not a TON of chemistry between Flynn and Stanwyck. And yes, the other roles are either over, or under written, so you end up with shadows or stereotypes. But still, I found it fun, and there's no reason why NOT to watch this movie, unless Rebecca or Jane Eyre or Pat & Mike is playing on another channel.