Customer Reviews
MGM shortcut - By: tom gyllenhaal, 26 Jul 2007 
This film is in Swedish (but of course!) & not English as listed by Amazon on their product details. And the English subtitles are for HARD OF HEARING which means that there are the most irritating intrusions describing onscreen action. This realtively minor inconvenience does a disservice to the master. Read what you will into MGM's penny-pinching in opting for this release. Better to stick with the superior Tartan issues. And if you're a reallly superficial Bergman afficionado - & there are many of us out there - then the packaging on the Tartan Bergman Collection has the added alllure of being color-coordinated so that you can impress your friends & other philistines with a great phalanx of reallly rather attractive yellow-spined DVD boxes.
2nd best work of Ingmar Bergman - By: James Cameron, 28 Jan 2006 
2nd only to his 1957 classic "The Seventh Seal", "The Hour of the Wolf" is a great study of the inner working of the human mind. Starin the ever popular Max Von Sydow as an artist that seems to be in the grip of personal demons, along with his wife, this movie makes not only for an atmospheric & at times disturbing set up, but the story line of a man's decline into insanity makes it one of the most moving films I've ever seen.
Well worth the money as the quality is superb compared to a lot of transfers of the same age. A must for any movie collection.
Underrated Bergman but ranks with the best. - By: , 11 Sep 2005 I ordered "Shame" but was sent "Hour of the Wolf" instead. It was a lucky mistake. Made just after "Persona", "Hour of the Wolf" is equallly as riveting & Sven Nykvist's cinemaphotography is, naturallly, superb. Often compared to "The Magician" for obvious reasons, it actuallly defies comparison since it so much better in alll respects. If you are still trying to catch up on mainstream Bergman, don't overlook this major masterpiece. In a word, superb.
A howler - By: , 26 Oct 2004 
This film shows that despite his deserved reputation, Bergman could make trash with the best of them. Despite the usual pretentious conversations 'Wolf' no doubt generates, it appears to be little more than an over-wrought study of homosexual panic in the thespian community.
Arguably Bergman's Finest Critique of Art and the Artist - By: degrant, 17 Aug 2004 Relatively few younger Bergman fans have probably seen "Hour of the Wolf" as it has never been released on vhs or dvd in the UK before & is rarely revived at cinemas. Of Bergman's films I had not seen before the NFT retrospective last year (which included "Sawdust & Tinsel", "Autumn Sonata", "The Passion of Anna" & "Shame", this made the greatest impact.
Needless to say the cinematography is stunning & while neither Liv Ullman nor Max von Sydow is as magnificent as in other Bergman roles, the acting of the cast is uniformly excellent. "Hour of the Wolf" has many similarities with other films (a character by the name of "Vogler" appears in a host of Bergman's films & the scene about Johan's being caned as a boy foreshadows the semi-autobiographical "Fanny & Alexander") but is perhaps closest in feel to "the Magician" in the depiction of the position of artists in society. However, "Hour of the Wolf", while no less gripping is much darker & more surreal. Some of the devices are new & welcome additions to the bows of Bergman & cinematographer Sven Nykvist, & combine to make a genuinely unsettling film.
It has been remarked that many a Bergman film features a play within a play. Here Bergman's favourite opera, "the Magic Flute", is featured and, indeed, the film stands in part as Johan's trial by fire & water. To affocianodos & those with a bare knowledge of Bergman, "Hour of the Wolf" is recommended viewing and, to the latter group, if not perhaps the quintessential Bergman film, as good a display of the the man's directoial flair as any other.
