Nina Foch is quite efficient in this run-of-the-mill drama. She is a gypsy princess "Celeste", whom, we learn quite early on, has an interestingly carnivorous diet! Now I suppose what lets this down is that, from a creative perspective, the use of an actual beastie rather than a costume-clad person robs it of something. I could imagine someone like Rudd Weatherwax just out of shot calling the realver mais...

Columbia Pictures did not really embrace the horror genre in the 1940s in the way that Universal, and to a lesser extent, RKO did. They did produce Return of the Vampire (1943) which proved a good showcase for Bela Lugosi in one of his few on-screen vampire roles and a had a couple of eerie scenes as well as a very talkative tormented werewolf. Cry of the Werewolf is one of the very few othever mais...