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 traditions, but the werewolf lore that an average person could easily recognise and understand is actually a relatively recent phenomenon, codified through The Wolf Man, the 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 a Welsh village where Sir John Talbot (played by Claude Rains), a local noble and renowned scientist, greets his estranged son Larry (played by Lon Chaney Jr.) who has returned after the death of his older brother, his father’s presumed heir. Larry, who had been working on telescopes in California, notices Gwen Conliffe (played by Evelyn Ankers), a beautiful local girl working in an antique shop. He comes to her shop and buys a walking cane with a silver wolf’s head as an excuse to strike up a conversation and asks her for a date. She reluctantly agrees, bringing her friend Jenny Williams (played by Fay Helm) as a chaperone. The three of them visit a Gypsy camp where Jenny has her fortune told by Bela (played by Bela Lugosi), before she is attacked and killed by a wolf. Larry fails to save her but kills the animal with his cane, while being bitten himself. Soon afterwards, Bela’s body is found too. Larry begins to experience a strange transformation and turns into a werewolf, later killing a man. This causes a 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 a werewolf and passed his condition to Larry by biting him.

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

The reason for the film’s success cannot be attributed solely to the solid, but not particularly inspiring, direction by George Waggner. The Wolf Man had a relatively small budget, being shot completely on a studio backlot and with most of the actors not even bothering to attempt a credible Welsh or English accent. But this was compensated for by the brilliant performance of Lon Chaney Jr., an actor who began his career under the shadow of his famous father, the silent-era superstar Lon Chaney. He, like his father, became associated with the horror genre, and the role of Larry Talbot is the most iconic of his career. Lon Chaney Jr. was a tall, intimidating, and not exactly attractive man, but he nevertheless successfully conveyed the tragedy of an ordinary person turned into a monster against his will and feeling genuine remorse when he restores his human form and grasps the nature of his vile acts. The motif of the duality of human nature and the constant struggle between good and evil in each person is tackled in some of the dialogues of Larry’s father, played brilliantly by veteran Claude Rains. It could have been handled even better if the producers had accepted Siodmak’s idea to leave the question of the 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 the 1948 parody Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In 2010, Universal released The Wolfman, a remake starring Benicio del Toro.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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