The success of Dracula kicked off a fair craze of horror films. First came Frankenstein later that same year, then The Mummy and The Invisible Man the next year, followed by a string of sequels; Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula’s Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, Son of Dracula, The Mummy’s Hand (not actually a sequel, but what we today would call a ‘reboot’), The Invisible Man Returns, and so on.
The surprising thing is that, while the Vampire, the Mummy, and the man-made monster came in quick succession of each other, the Werewolf took a rather long time to make its appearance (although first werewolf film, Werewolf of London starring Harry Hull and Warner Oland, came out in 1935 it didn’t make much impact). It wasn’t until 1941 that Universal Studios, the House of Horror, added a Werewolf to its monster stable.
The Wolf Man opens with Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) returning to his ancestral home in Wales following the death of his elder brother. Larry had been away in America for several years and is estranged from his father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains). Though father and son are very different people, they both seem to appreciate the chance to reconcile and Sir John begins by introducing his son to his own hobby of amateur astronomy. While testing on the telescope, Larry notices a beautiful woman (Evelyn Ankers) living over an antique shop and heads down to ask her out.
The young woman, Gwen, is rather put off by Larry’s clumsy (and moderately creepy) advances, but agrees to go on a date with him all the same, despite being engaged to another man. During their conversation, she shows him an antique cane with a silver handle in the shape of a wolf’s head, which he takes a liking to and purchases.
That night Larry arrives for their date to find that Gwen has brought her friend Jenny (Fay Helm) along to make things less awkward. They go to a nearby camp of gypsies to have their fortunes told, but when the gypsy, Bela (Bela Lugosi) tries to read Jenny’s fortune he becomes agitated and frightened, warning her to “go now…and quickly!”
Alarmed, Jenny runs out into the woods. Larry and Gwen, who’ve been going for a stroll, hear her screams and Larry, rushing to her aide, is set upon by an enormous wolf which bites him on the chest before he can club it to death with his silver cane.
Gwen helps him back home, where he’s bandaged and laid up in bed. Meanwhile, the police find Jenny with her throat torn out, lying next to Bela, who appears to have been clubbed to death…
There are three major strengths in this film. The first is some really incredible atmosphere, thanks largely to the art-direction and the presence of the gypsies, exemplified by the old woman Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya). Appropriately for a werewolf story, the film depicts a clash of the old, wild, pagan, and supernatural with the new, civilized, Christian, and scientific. The movie jumps back and forth from the quaint, but well-ordered town and the soaring, book-filled Talbot Manor to the dark, mist-shrouded forest with its tent-filled gypsy camp.
Maleva gets the task of providing most of the exposition about Werewolves: it is she who pronounces the famous ‘rules’ that define the werewolf as we know it: whoever is bitten by a werewolf becomes a werewolf himself, and werewolves can only be killed by silver (oddly enough, the moon is only obliquely involved here). The interesting thing about her is that, even when she’s pronouncing dire warnings and strange incantations, she remains an entirely sympathetic character. She does what she can to help Larry, while frequently expressing compassion for his plight and that of Sir John. Nevertheless, she simply drips with old-world spookiness: the kind that speaks of curses, deals with the devil, and makes the poor modern man doubt his science and fear the night again.
The second strength is the compact, efficient writing. In a little over an hour’s screen-time (which would hardly even count as a feature-length today) the film manages to feature a moving father-son relationship, a romantic triangle, two werewolves (along the way establishing the famous ‘rules’ for werewolves), the conflict between science and the supernatural, a man’s life collapsing into tragedy, and two striking poems, all without feeling the least bit rushed or confused. I’ve seen two-and-a-half hour blockbusters that don’t have half that much going on! There’s enough material in almost any one of those to fill an entire movie on its own, and yet they’re all included and, moreover, feel complete. It’s truly a masterpiece of compact storytelling.
The movie’s final strength is its acting, especially the two central performances by Claude Rains as Sir John Talbot and Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot. Rains, of course, was one of the finest actors of his age and gives an effortlessly commanding performance (indeed, he very nearly blows Chaney off the screen). He has the somewhat thankless task of expressing stubborn skepticism in the face of the supernatural, a necessary but usually onerous job in a film like this. Rains makes it work better than usual, however, as his response to his son’s increasingly desperate pleas for his father to believe him is not impatience or frustration but love and concern. Sir John clearly cares for his son and wants to help him, but he’s a scientific man and simply cannot accept the idea of werewolves.
Not only that, but there’s an interesting subtext in their relationship: we know that father and son have been estranged for several years, though we’re never told precisely what led to the estrangement. Rains injects a real sense of regret into his performance: we get the impression that Sir John feels somehow responsible for having been absent from his son’s life for so long and is determined to do better this time, only to have Larry seemingly self-destruct before his eyes (in a typically subtle move, Larry calls Sir John by the formal ‘sir’ or ‘father’ the whole movie up until their last moment together, which is the first and only time he calls him by the more familiar ‘dad’). In a way his determination to ‘cure’ his son seems to be his attempt to make up for his past failures. It’s part of the movie’s tragedy that he fails.
Lon Chaney Jr., it must be said, doesn’t quite have his father (Lon Chaney Sr.)’s acting talent. However, he’s perfect for this role. When Gwen’s fiancé Frank (Patric Knowles) comments that there’s something tragic about him, we know exactly what he’s talking about. Chaney’s drooping eyes, large frame, and slow voice gives the unmistakable impression of sadness (an impression that, alas, was not just acting: Chaney had an often-hard life off-screen, culminating in a failed battle with alcoholism). Indeed, the relationship between slow, simple Larry and his sophisticated, multi-talented father dimly mirrors Chaney’s relationship with his own revered father (Chaney Jr.’s real name was ‘Creighton Chaney:’ the studios demanded he change his name to increase his market value, something he always hated). In both cases the older man inevitably overshadows his beloved, but less able son.
But I’m sounding far too critical: Lon Chaney Jr. was a talented actor in his own right and Larry Talbot is the role of his career. His performance is what the film lives or dies on and as important and welcome as all the other elements are it is Larry Talbot that elevates the film to classic status. Chaney is both immensely likeable (in his cheerful handiness and his clumsy attempts at romance) and intensely tragic. We can’t help but feel for the poor man as his life collapses around him, leaving him questioning whether he has truly succumbed to a supernatural curse or is simply going mad: a terrible choice either way.
Indeed, Chaney is so perfectly cast, so essential to the character that he’s the only one of the classic Universal monsters to never be recast: the Wolf-Man can only be Larry Talbot, and Larry Talbot can only be Lon Chaney Jr.
Other roles range from good to adequate: I already mentioned the marvelous Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva, but she is so good that she really deserves another mention. One of the best scenes in the film has her going toe-to-toe with Claude Rains in a kind of acting duel and proves a powerful match for him. Evelyn Ankers is attractive and has some good moments, such as the way she’s clearly trying not to be attracted to Larry when he asks her out, or her guilt after Jenny is killed. Bela Lugosi only has a few minutes of screen-time, but he gets at least one great moment where he realizes that Jenny’s going to be his next victim and tries to send her away without frightening her (he fails, but the effort is appreciated). The rest of the cast is pretty much forgettable, though veteran second-fiddle Patric Knowles at least makes Frank Andrews (Larry’s rival for Gwen’s affections) a decent enough sort that there’s actually a question of whether she should go for Larry.
It may surprise you to learn, but most of the trappings of werewolf mythology that have so ingrained themselves in our imaginations originate no earlier than this film (or, at the earliest, Werewolf of London): the idea that a man bitten by a werewolf will become a werewolf himself, the involuntary nature of the transformation, the weakness to silver, the pentagram sign, and the role of the moon all have their origins in these two films.
This is a testament to how effective this film is that we never question these assertions; they have the feel of timelessness about them, as though things were always this way. There’s a real symbolic power, for instance, behind the use of silver to kill werewolves; silver can be tarnished and wiped clean again, making it a symbol for sin and the soul. Thus the silver could be viewed as cleansing the werewolf of the infecting evil (it also calls the mind the moon, underlying the lunar aspect of the werewolf).
I mentioned the thematic clash between the old and the new: science and the supernatural. In many ways, of course, this clash is the entire point of the werewolf: the duality of man, the conflict between our instincts and passions and our reason, the danger of falling into mere brutality. The werewolf recalls St. Paul’s lament “The good which I will, I do not: but the evil which I will not, I do” (Romans 7:19), or Plato’s analogy of the chariot, with Reason struggling to control the contrary horses of Passion and Morality. It’s an image of the man who cannot control his own passions, whose reason is overthrown and unable to reign in his darker impulses. It’s an image that all of us, if we’re honest, can relate to: even a man who is pure of heart…
The idea of the werewolf is inherently frightening in itself (though, like the vampire, it has suffered from overexposure, to the point that most audiences don’t even think about the implications anymore): the loss of control over one’s actions, the idea of inadvertently hurting loved ones, the loss of humanity.
This movie plays well on these fears, and manages at least a few scenes that are unambiguously frightening. For me the scariest scene was when Larry comes home feeling that something is wrong with himself. He starts stripping off his clothes trying to figure out what it is, finally tearing off his shoes to see wolf-hair growing on his feet (the fact that, in this instance at least, he’s apparently conscious of the transformation and is watching it as it happens makes the scene all the more chilling). Likewise the scene where Larry wakes up in bed after his first outing as a werewolf and frantically tries to clean up the muddy footprints has a powerful ‘guilty conscience’ fear, as does the sad moment where Larry hovers in the doorway of the church while the entire congregation turns to look at him one-by-one, as though silently condemning him.
The film works best as a story of a man’s descent into madness. Larry’s helpless inability to control himself, his fears of his own sanity, and his impotence to do anything about it, or even to explain himself adequately are where this film becomes honestly frightening.
(The film’s writer, Curt Siodmak, had a different, though equally horrifying subtext in mind: having recently come to America from Europe, he brought with him the idea of otherwise ordinary men who do terrible things to victims who are marked with a star…).
The biggest flaw of the film, it must be said, is the werewolf make-up by Jack Pierce. It’s well-done, of course, but the look hasn’t aged well at all. Far from calling to mind a wolf, it looks more like Chaney simply had his head dunked in Rogaine. It’s, unfortunately, somewhat ridiculous rather than frightening, meaning this monster relies much more on Chaney’s performance than Pierce’s make-up for its effectiveness (contrast the exquisite make-up of Frankenstein).
As noted, most of the supporting cast is unremarkable, especially Ralph Bellamy as Col. Montford (who’s supposed to be an old friend of Larry’s, but just comes off as a jerk). There are some plot-holes, such as the fact that no explanation is offered for the fact that Bela became an actual wolf while Larry becomes a half-wolf, half-man (or the fact that no one seems to really notice the difference). As noted, Lon Chaney Jr. can’t really compete on equal terms with Claude Rains, talented as he is, and in their scenes together he seems in constant danger of being overwhelmed (though most of the time he manages to hold his own well enough).
On the whole, though, The Wolf-Man is a solid entry into the Universal Horror pantheon that fully deserves its classic status. It’s tightly written, well-paced, gloriously atmospheric, and, like Dracula, is solidly anchored by three outstanding performances by talented actors.
Final Rating: 4/5. For horror fans, a must see. For film-lovers in general, it comes highly recommended as an example of compact storytelling and superior acting.
Memorable Quotes:
Sir John: “Even a man who is pure of heart / and says his prayers by night / may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms / and the autumn moon is bright.”
Larry: “I’m alright with tools, but when it comes to theory I’m pretty much an amateur.”
Sir John: “All astronomers are amateurs. When it comes to the heavens, there’s only one professional.”
Larry: “Don’t try to make me think I killed a man when I know I killed a wolf!”
Sir John: “You policemen are always in such a hurry; as if dead men didn’t have all eternity.”
Maleva: “Whoever is bitten by a werewolf and lives will become a werewolf himself.”
Maleva: “A werewolf can only be killed by a silver bullet, or a silver knife, or a stick with a silver handle.”
Larry: “Hey, what’s all the excitement?”
Gypsy: “There’s a werewolf in camp!”
Sir John: “The scientific name is Lycanthropia, a form of Schizophrenia.”
Larry: “That’s all Greek to me…”
Sir John: “Well, it is Greek.”
Maleva: “The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own. But as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Your suffering is over. Now you will find peace for eternity.”
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