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When Monique (Madeleine Sologne) enters her services as nanny at the
Malveneur estate, she is met by rather grim circumstances: Reginald
Malveneur (Pierre Renoir), a scientist dabbling in cell rejuvination, has
disappeared a couple of weeks ago, his wife Estelle (Marie Olinska) is in
poor health, his bossy sister Magda (Gabrielle Dorziat) is eccentric and
in love with her family heritage to the point of becoming dangerous, and
their deafmute maid (Marcelle Géniat) seems to have an agenda of her own.
Plus there is this legend that the respective family head of the
Malveneurs turns into a wolf every night, which is why the Malveneurs are
shunned in the nearby town. Oh, and why is it that Magda spends all of her
nights outside? She claims it's because the gamekeeper has disappeared
together with Reginald, but ... The only people that bring Monique
joy are Geneviève (Bijou), Reginald and Estelle's daughter, and Philippe
(Michel Marsay), a young, apparently talentless painter she meets from
time to time. Then Estelle dies, and while everybody says it was from a
weak heart, she suspects it was something more sinister, and confides in
Philippe. He encourages her to investigate further and try to uncover the
secret of the basement lab. She doesn't find out anything much though, but
is caught by Magda. Later, Monique and Philippe find a dead body in a
mill, a body that is totally mutilated, but Magda identifies it as her
dead brother Reginald. Philippe encourages Monique to continue her
investigations of the basement lab, and this time, she is more successful
and bumps into ... Reginald! Reginald has gone totally bonkers but is
still working on his cell rejuvination experiments, and he considers
Monique as his next human guinea pig. When he's about to strap her to his
operating table though, Philippe comes to her rescue, and he shuts
Reginald into his lab, then confronts Magda what he, who now reveals
himself to be an undercover policeman, has found out: Reginald has never
died nor disappeared, he has just gone insane, which is why his sister
locked him into the basement. Reginald killed the gamekeeper, who later
posed as his body thanks to Magda's help, and he killed Estelle, because
Magda allowed him to continue his experiments. And why did Magda do all of
this, help an insane person? To protect the family name. Then it's said
that Reginald has escaped from the basement, and a whole lynchmob hunts
him down - but in the end, they only shoot a wolf ... could Reginald have
turned according to family legend? No, Reginald has never left his lab
but set fire to it and has died in the flames ... Made during
the German occupation of France, this film though is totally uninterested
in politics, and also shows no political undercurrents. Instead it is an
escapist murder mystery in the gothic tradition set ina netherworld
between legend and moderinity. As for the film itself, it's well made
and heavy on atmosphere, but for the most part it's not in the least
innovative or at least overly creative, it just uses the usual techniques,
just like the story follows all the usual plottwists and trappings, to the
point of being rather predictable. And unfortunately, in the finale Pierre
Renoir overdoes his role as the crazyman quite a bit. In all, The
Wolf of the Malveneurs is by no means a bad film - it's just not all
that special, either.
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