Kolchak: The Night Stalker/The Werewolf

The Werewolf
Season 1, Episode 5
Airdate	November 1, 1974
Written by	David Chase & Paul Playdon
Directed by	Allen Baron
Produced by	Cy Chermak
Stream
← 1x04 The Vampire	1x06 → Fire Fall
Kolchak: The Night Stalker — Season One

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The Werewolf is the fifth episode of the first season of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Starring: Darren McGavin (Carl Kolchak)

Also Starring: Simon Oakland (Tony Vincenzo)

Guest Stars: Dick Gautier (Mel Tarter), Henry Jones (Captain Julian Wells)

Special Guest Stars: Nita Talbot (Paula Griffin)

and Eric Braeden (Bernhardt Stieglitz)

Co-Starring: Jack Grinnage (Ron Updyke), Ruth McDevitt (Edith Cowels), Jackie Russell (Wendy), Lewis Charles (George Levitt), Bob Hastings (Hallem)

with Barry Cahill (Dr. Alan Rose), Dort Clark (Gribbs), Heath Jobes (Radioman)

and Jim Hawkins (Jay Remy)

Co-Starring:

Plot Overview

There is snow on the streets of Chicago. Emily Cowles, office mother and Kolchak's favorite riddle columnist, has organized a Christmas party at the INS offices: a party that is also a send-off for Tony Vincenzo.

Tony is looking forward to a well deserved vacation aboard the cruise ship Hannover. He hasn't had one in five years. During the Christmas party, he gets a telephone call from head office in New York: the accountants are coming to audit his books. Now there is no way he can take the cruise, so he grumpily gives the tickets to Carl.

Aboard ship at 10:18 PM, just as the full moon has risen, Mrs. Lois Preisalk becomes the first victim of a werewolf. When the werewolf attacks the bridge, killing all officers on duty, the crew begin a cover up. After the werewolf attacks two couples from Wayne, Indiana, the crew turn the ship back toward Los Angeles. Kolchak is injured while investigating the attack, but he gets pictures of the werewolf.

In the infirmary, Kolchak discovers that the crew confiscated his pictures. The captain threatens to lock him up if he doesn't stop investigating the deaths. The captain is also quite irritated that Kolchak has been impersonating his son! After Kolchak leaves, the captain looks at Kolchak's pictures. Now they know it's a werewolf too.

Kolchak bribes George the steward to bring him silver, but George can only find silver-plated utensils. The only actual silver aboard is the silver in the buttons on the captain's dress uniform. George flatly refuses to take the captain's buttons, so Kolchak sneaks into the captain's quarters and gets them himself. He is caught just as he is about to leave.

With the buttons well hidden Kolchak tells the captain to equip his men with silver bullets blessed by a priest (in Latin). After a stern warning that any further talk of werewolves could invoke the maritime article for insanity, Kolchak is allowed to leave.

As the moon rises on this second night, the killings begin again. In his cabin Kolchak melts the captain's buttons a propane torch. He has a priest, who flunked out of divinity school, bless the bullets (in Latin).

With blessed, silver shotgun slugs Kolchak goes on the offensive, shooting the werewolf and ending the killing spree. The cruise ship, the Hannover, was scrapped after the voyage and with it all of the evidence. Kolchak is given a stern warning (through Tony) that the government will not tolerate him publishing any stories about werewolves.

Trivia

The Show

• The cruise that Kolchak took was scheduled to be the final voyage of the Hannover before it was to be scrapped.
• The werewolf was Bernhardt Stieglitz: a NATO officer, who only a month earlier was the sole survivor of a six-man NATO radar team in Greenland that was attacked by a werewolf. He was on rest leave from Billings Naval Hospital in Montana.

Allusions and References

• As Kolchak's voice narrates over the Christmas party, he tells us that the Asian flu has decimated the office staff.
• Kolchak's roomate, Mel Tarter, tells the bikini joke:

You know why they call it a bikini? ... Because that's where they set off the atom bomb.

• Mel Tarter mistakenly believes that the press is known as the fifth column. Kolchak corrects him and tells him that it is the fourth estate.
• Kolchak tries to enlist Paula's help by likening his plight to that of Humphrey Bogart in the 1942 film Across the Pacific.
• Captain Wells threatens to invoke various articles of maritime law, if Kolchak doesn't stop prying into matters.

Memorable Moments

• Kolchak steals the buttons from the captain's dress uniform to make silver bullets. The captain has only just dismissed him, when he realizes that his buttons are missing.
• Kolchak has the bullets "blessed" by a man wearing a lei, who quit divinity school. It had to be done in a hurry, because the man, Jay Redding, had invested a lot of time in two chicks and wanted to get back to them.