The Day of the Wolves (1971)

Just perfect...

i must have seen a different film!!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

"The Day of the Wolves" has attracted a small cult among die-hard aficionados of the crime syndicate genre, yet the central concept of a large-scale robbery pulled off by an anonymous boss (and his specifically-invited cohorts, who don't know their leader nor each other) isn't too original--it reminds one right away of "The Thomas Crown Affair", and probably a few other titles besides. The low-budget yarn begins with one man killing a restaurant manager, another robbing a bank while disguised as a postman (!), and still another robbing a hilltop residence; these three crooks, as well as three other men, are then brought to a secret hideout where their new leader (Jan Murray, playing "No.1") lays out his plan: to overtake a small town after knocking out the phones and electricity, each man standing to gain $50,000 G's. Richard Egan plays the chief of police--recently dismissed by his own city council!--who is the only town resident brave enough to take on the bad guys. "Wolves" must have been more fun to make than it is to watch. Apparently, the population of Lake Havasu City got involved in the production, and the results have that stilted, tentative feel of an amateur project wherein everybody pitches in without actually possessing noticeable film-making talent. Egan, though looking weathered, does his best without embarrassing himself; as his child-hugging spouse, Martha Hyer isn't as fortunate. Surprisingly, Murray really delivers the goods as the brains of the outfit, and there's a nifty ending with him on TV. Sean Bonniwell's score, which sounds like stoned-out jazz, dates the picture more than anything else, though the opening theme song is a gone gasser. "Nameless men have heard the cry of silent, pounding hoofs," we're told, "While nameless men like you and I will never hear the wolves!" Huh?? ** from ****

I couldn't help thinking that with a better script, bigger budget and a celebrity cast, the story in "The Day of the Wolves" has some potential as a modern day blockbuster. You know, somewhere on the order of the 'Ocean' films (they used numbers too). Instead, you have a quickie flick from Balut Productions made on the cheap, as in less than two hundred grand. So with all that, it's not a bad little programmer that surprisingly holds your interest even as Jan Murray puts together a gang of criminals with the worst set of fake beards in movie history.You know, I remember Jan Murray from watching TV as a kid and recall seeing him many times, yet when I check his credits here on the IMDb, most of his appearances in the Fifties and Sixties were as TV guest spots, so something doesn't compute. As a comedian he seemed to have been all over the place, so maybe it was on a bunch of game shows and variety hours. I don't think I ever saw him as a clown.In an earlier time, I think a group of criminals using this modus operandi might have actually gotten away with it. A few of them in the picture actually did, which kind of surprised me, but this was after the Production Code lost influence. When it clicked with Number #4 (Rick Jason) in his hospital bed that Uncle Willie was Number #1, I almost thought the picture would smoke out the rest of the outlaws. However the picture was already hitting the ninety minute mark and I knew this shoestring budget could only go so far.Here's a suggestion for the folks at Mill Creek Entertainment - take this one out of your Westerns box set and trade it out for "Drums in the Deep South" that's found in the Mystery/Crime compilation. Both moves would make a lot more sense.

Quentin Tarantino may have seen ALSO this one : the gang boss does not want his men can identify themselves, and he wants them to choose (or he chooses for them : memory is not sure about that) names of numbers or colors or anything else. Remind you something ? It is clearly one source of one of the good ideas of Tarantino in RESERVOIR DOGS. Tarantino has seen many movies : he makes homage to the famous first dialogue line of DEATH TRAP / EATEN ALIVE / STARLIGHT SLAUGTHER (USA 1976) directed by Tobe Hooper in KILL BILL, and to many others movies he has seen in his own movies. He liked what we liked in the 60's & the 70's. And because of his "history of movies" memories, we can even re-discover such movies as this quite funny DAY OF THE WOLVES ! As Latin proverb says : NIHIL NOVI SUB SOLE (Nothing new under the sun) !

Once you get past the $1.98 production values, this one is a true treat for the mind. The gang's plot and execution are mind-boggling, and Jan Murray plays one of the most vicious criminal masterminds ever. The desert is used to good advantage, and Richard Egan's poor-man's Will Kane is well executed. See it.