DVD Review: Classic Horror with The Wolf Man

Of the three major Universal Studios monster movies, Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man, The Wolf Man did not spring from a notable novel. While many legends of werewolves abound in print, it took the skill of screenwriter Curt Siodmak, the talent of makeup artist Jack Pierce, and the acting of Lon Chaney Jr. to tell the story of a man doomed by an eternal curse to kill the ones he loves by the light of the full moon.

The Wolf Man was originally intended as a vehicle for Boris Karloff, but as often happens in Hollywood, intentions change, as well as script ideas. Only the title remained as the movie was eventually assigned to director George Waggner and scriptwriter Curt Siodmak. While Waggner's uninspired and straightforward direction is adequate, it is Siodmak, first drawing on European folklore, then creating his own, who weaves a fairytale spun out of Greek tragedy, blooming wolfbane, moonlight, and a sympathetic, doomed hero.

Lon Chaney, Jr. has the distinction of being the only actor to portray the tragic Larry Talbot, cursed to change into the Wolf Man and kill against his will, in five of Universal's horror offerings, thus making the role uniquely his own. His sympathetic performance as Lenny in Of Mice and Men typecast him as a hulking, sympathetic type, but that proved a perfect fit for his portrayal of the agonized, guilt-ridden Talbot and his demonic alter-ego.

Americanized Larry Talbot returns to his ancestral home in Wales, after eighteen years of estrangement, when his brother dies. His prim and proper father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains), hopes that Larry will take over the duties of his family now, and that the two will reconcile their long-standing differences. In the first version of the script, the Mutt and Jeff look — as Tom Weaver describes it in his amusing commentary for the film — of the tall and thick Chaney next to the wispy, more delicate Rains was better explained; Chaney originally played an American engineer visiting Talbot Castle to work on Sir John's telescope. However, as the relationship changed story-wise, the physiques and family resemblance didn't.

That trifling incongruency aside, the red, white, and blue Larry, of course, is more focused on the gorgeous woman (Evelyn Ankers) he spies through the lens of the telescope. Seems like Larry's a bit of wolf before he's even bitten.

When he visits Gwen's (Ankers) antique shop in town, he buys a walking stick decorated with the head of a wolf and the symbol of a pentagram in silver, which prompts a discussion of werewolves and the first recitation of Siodmak's brilliant folklore-sounding poem:

Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night

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Article Author: ILoz Zoc

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTT D), expiring writer of Zombos Closet of Horror Blog, and valet to Zombos, the noted B-movie horror actor (to his few remaining and decaying fans).

Visit ILoz Zoc's author page — ILoz Zoc's Blog