So in case you weren't here yesterday, you may not have heard that at the moment I'm dwelling in the land of the Ignoble Frog -- more specifically, in fabulous Paris, France (Excuse: Vacation. Needed rest.)

And so what could be more appropriate than a brief throwaway item in praise of the movie version of the greatest horror novel ever set in The City of Lights?

Answer? Rien, of course.

So allow me to first endorse, in the strongest possible terms, Guy Endore's 1938 bestseller The Werewolf of Paris. A fabulous pastiche of 19th century literary style set against the revolutionary backdrop of the Paris Commune, and a book that, bien sur, is to lycanthropy what Bram Stoker's Dracula is to vampirism -- which is to say, the template for all that followed. And, even better, the first literary treatment of the werewolf legend to explicitly link it to urges involving what my mom used to call X-E-S spelled backwards.

And let me endorse as well, in equally unminced and emphatic terms, the 1961 screen adaptation -- director Terence Fisher's chilling and poetic Hammer horror classic The Curse of the Werewolf . The first film, incidentally, where a lot of people noticed that Oliver Reed, as the titular shape-shifter, was a really interesting actor.

Here's the trailer, to give you a brief taste of the film's furry frissons.

Of course, as you no doubt noticed by now, The Curse of the Werewolf changes the book's milieu to 18th Spain (Hammer had a couple of sets lying around for an Inquisition movie that fell through, which is why they switched it), but it's still pretty cool. And in any case, I'm not going to be in Barcelona any time soon, so cut me some slack.

Incidentally, Werewolf of Paris author Endore was a pretty interesting guy, Your basic left-wing New York Jew intellectual (born Samuel Goldstein), he was tight with Whittaker Chambers, earned an Oscar nomination in 1945 for writing The Story of G.I. Joe, got involved with the controversial drug-rehab community Synanon during the hippie days, and ended his career in 1969 with another horror film, Fear No Evil, which was the first made-for-TV network Movie of the Week.

Surprisingly, WOP is out of print at the moment, but you can get a used copy of Endore's novel here. You can also order a very handsome letterboxed DVD of the film version here. You'll thank me for both of them.

Coming tomorrow: Heavy Cream Sauces in The Movies -- A Critical Overview!