Today we hop into the Wayback machine and travel to 1941. Released to theaters a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
The Wolf Man is one of my favorite horror movies from the Golden Age of cinema and one of Lon Chaney Junior's best roles.
Running a tight 70 minutes, The Wolf Man tells its story economically, quickly sketching out its main characters, setting up some interpersonal tension and then getting to the horror. Chaney plays Larry Talbot, a man returning to his family home in England after 18 years in America (which explains why he doesn’t have an accent). His older brother has died in a hunting accident, so Larry has come home to help his father John (the always wonderful Claude Rains) run their estate.
Larry suffers from a Propecia overdose. Men, don't let this happen to you! |
While fiddling round with his father’s telescope, he spies (and spies on) the comely Gwen (Evelyn Ankers), checking her out in her bedroom. She lives above her father’s shop, so Larry heads into town to...well, kind of stalk her. It’s an unintentionally creepy scene as he stares at her in the shop, then deploys knowledge he gained watching her in an attempt to pick her up. While clumsily flirting with her, Larry picks up a walking stick with a silver wolf’s head and a pentagram on it. He doesn’t know what it means, so Gwen explains the legend of the werewolf, including reciting the famous (and made-up) poem “even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night, may become a werewolf when the wolf-bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” This scene is a well-done, efficient info dump, providing the viewer with everything they need to know about werewolves in 90 seconds. One kind of funny thing is that EVERYONE but Larry seems to be aware of the werewolf poem. Maybe it's required reading in the English school system? Hmmm...
A band of gypsies enters town. Larry, Gwen and Gwen’s friend Jenny head to the gypsy camp to have their fortunes told. Larry finds out that Gwen is engaged, but takes this as more of challenge than a deterrent. While he’s hitting on Gwen, Jenny is meeting with the gypsy Bela (Bela Lugosi). He sees a pentagram in the palm of her hand, indicating she will be his next victim...because Bela is a werewolf. Bela shifts into wolf form and mauls Jenny to death. Coming to her aid, Larry kills Bela by beating him with the silver head of his cane, but not before being bitten.
Interestingly, Bela turns into a wolf, while Larry turns into a wolf/human hybrid. Is this an indication that Bela has given himself over to his animal side, while Larry still fights to retain his humanity?
Larry's seduction strategy leaves something to be desired. |
Larry’s wound heals rapidly; the bite is gone by the morning. Larry visits Gwen and has a run-in with her fiancee, Frank Andrews (Patric Knowles). Later, Larry - and, apparently, everyone in the town - are at the gypsy camp. He runs into Bela’s mother Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) and finds out that he is cursed to be a werewolf. Larry has some kind of hallucinatory freakout session, but makes it home. Of course, he soon turns into a wolf man...and, oddly enough, gets a change of clothing to go along with his claws and fangs. He heads into the fog shrouded woods and kills the local gravedigger (why he is out n the cemetery in the middle of the night is a good question). The next night, traps are set and Larry’s wolf form is caught in one. Maleva finds him, is able to turn him back into a human and helps him escape.
Would you like a flea and tick collar? |
Larry goes to tell Gwen he is going to leave. She offers to run away with him, which is odd since the entire time she has known him has been either kind of creepy or acting unhinged. Not that it matters. Larry sees a pentagram in Gwen’s hand and runs off screaming. Back at Talbot Manor, his father up Larry in his room, in order to prevent him from leaving or hurting himself. Larry shifts into wolf form, breaks free, goes on a rampage, and almost kills Gwen. His father shows up in the nick of time and beats him to death. As he dies, he shifts back into human form. The End.
Filmed in black and white, the film is a very moody with many of the scenes filmed on fog shrouded sound stage forest sets. The makeup by Universal Studio legend Jack Pierce (Frankenstein, The Mummy) is neat, particularity the paw-feet Larry has in wolf form; it's a nice touch. Larry’s weird dream/hallucination sequence is well-done, giving us an idea of what's going through his head and how the curse is contaminating his thoughts. The acing is fine, although all of the characters are underdeveloped. Or, rather, they are developed just enough for the lines they are supposed to deliver. The big problem is that the attraction between Larry and Gwen is never established. We are just supposed to assume it is there. Since Larry comes across like a stalker-ish weirdo throughout the movie, there is nothing shown that indicates why she is attracted to him.
This is a great film and a good example of how to tell a compelling story in a pared down, steam-lined fashion.
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