Film Review: The Wolf Man (1941)

Hollywood’s ability to shape global culture can be best seen in the way most people imagine werewolves. Stories about lycanthropy have existed from the earliest of times in various forms and tradition, but the werewolves lore an average person could easily recognise and understand is actually relatively recent phenomenon, codified through The Wolf Man, 1941 horror film directed by George Waggner, one of the most popular films of its time and nowadays recognised as one of the classics of the genre.

The plot is set in Welsh village where Sir John Talbot (played by Claude Rains), local noble and renowned scientist, greets his estranged son Larry (played by Lon Chaney Jr.) who returned after the death of his older brother and father’s presumed heir. Larry, who have been working on telescopes in California, notices Gwen Conliffe (played by Evelyn Ankers), beautiful local girl working in an antique shop. He comes to her shop and buys a walking cane with silver wolf’s head as an excuse to strike conversation and asks her for a date. She reluctantly agrees, bringing her friend Jenny Williams (played by Fay Helm) as chaperone. Three of them visit Gypsy camp where Jenny will have her fortune told by Bela (played by Bela Lugosi), before she gets attacked and killed a wolf. Larry fails to save her, but kills a dog with a cane, while being bitten himself. Soon afterwards, Bela’s body is found too. Larry begins to experience strange transformation and turns into werewolf and later kills a man. This causes massive hunt, while Larry tries to grasp his condition, which is partially explained by Bela’s elderly mother Maleva (played by Maria Ouspenskaya), who claims that her son was werewolf and brought his condition on Larry by biting him.

The Wolf Man was produced by Universal Pictures, studio that became famous for horror films during Classic Hollywood era. Unlike the lead characters of its other iconic hits, like Dracula, Frankenstein or The Invisible Man, that were based on famous literary sources, werewolf in this film is original creation of screenwriter Curt Siodmak. He invented some of the elements of the lycanthropy lore like normal person being “turned” after being bitten or silver being the only thing than can harm or kill werewolf. Universal has tried to deal with the werewolves before in 1935 film Werewolf of London, but the result was unsuccessful, unlike The Wolf Man which became major box office hit.

Reason for film’s success can’t be attributed to solid, but not particularly inspiring direction by George Waggner. The Wolf Man had relatively little budget, being shot completely at studio backlot and with most of the actors don’t even bothering to speak with credible Welsh or English accent. But this was compensated by the brilliant performance of Lon Chaney Jr., an actor who began career under the shadow of his famous father and silent era superstar Lon Chaney. He was, just like his father, became associated with horror genre and the role of Larry Talbot is the most iconic in his career. Lon Chaney Jr. is tall and intimidating and not exactly attractive man, but he nevertheless successfully conveys tragedy of an ordinary person turned into monster against his will and feeling genuine remorse when he restores his human form and grasps the nature of his vile acts. The motive of duality of human nature and constant struggle between good and evil in each person is tackled by some of the dialogues of Larry’s father, played brilliantly by veteran Claude Rains. It could have been handled even better if producers accepted Siodmak’s idea to leave the question of reality of Larry’s transformation open. But, even with such unfulfilled potential, The Wolf Man was a very good and very influential piece of genre cinema that would set the standards for future werewolf-related films. Its success led to sequels and crossovers during which Lon Chaney Jr. repeated his role, ending with 1948 parody Abott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In 2010 Universal released The Wolfman, remake starring Benicio del Toro.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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