THE WOLF MAN

'''The Wolf Man''' is a 1941 horror film written by Curt Siodmak and produced and directed by George Waggner, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Claude Rains, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Bela Lugosi, and Maria Ouspenskaya. It introduced a character that stands alongside Frankenstein and Dracula as one of the most recognized of the Universal Monsters and has had a great deal of influence on Hollywood's depictions of the legend of the werewolf.
Universal films has announced a remake of the original film, which is scheduled for release in summer 2008. The remake is directed by Mark Romanek, written by Andrew Kevin Walker (writer of the films ''Se7en'' and ''Sleepy Hollow''), and stars Benicio del Toro in the title role. [1]
The remake has no references or tie-ins to the Universal Film 2004 ''Van Helsing'', which used the "Wolf Man" name for its primary werewolf in that film.

Contents

Film overview

Special effects

Themes

Sequels

Legacy

Cast

Universal Legacy Collection DVD

Trivia

References

External links

Film overview

Lawrence Stewart "Larry" Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) returns to his ancestral home in Llanwelly, Wales to reconcile with his father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains). While there, Larry becomes romantically interested in a local girl named Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), who runs an antique shop. As a pretext, he buys something from her, a silver-headed walking stick decorated with a wolf. Gwen tells him that it represents a werewolf (which she defines as a man who changes into a wolf "at certain times of the year".)
Throughout the film, various villagers recite a poem that all the locals apparently know, whenever the subject of werewolves comes up:
:''Even a man who is pure in heart''
: ''and says his prayers by night''
: ''may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms''
: ''and the autumn moon is bright.''
That night, Larry attempts to rescue Gwen's friend Jenny from what he believes to be a sudden attack by a wolf. He kills the beast with his new walking stick, but is bitten in the process. He soon discovers that it was not just a wolf; it was a werewolf, and now Talbot has become one. A gypsy (Roma) fortuneteller named Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) reveals to Larry that the animal which bit him was actually her son Bela (Bela Lugosi) in the form of a wolf. Bela had been a werewolf for years and now the curse of lycanthropy has been passed to Larry.
Sure enough, Talbot prowls the countryside in the form of a two-legged wolf. Struggling to overcome the curse, he is finally bludgeoned to death by his father with his own walking stick. As he dies, he returns to human form.
The poem, contrary to popular belief, was not an ancient legend, but was in fact an invention of screenwriter Siodmak. The poem is repeated in every subsequent film in which Talbot/The Wolf Man appears, with the exception of ''Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'', and is also quoted in the later film ''Van Helsing'', although many later films change the last line of the poem to "And the moon is full and bright".
The original ''Wolf Man'' film does not make use of the idea that a werewolf is transformed under a full moon. Gwen's description and the poem imply that it happens when the wolfbane blooms in autumn. The first sequel, though, made explicit use of the full moon both visually and in the dialog, and also changed the poem to specify ''when the moon is full and bright.'' Presumably this is what popularized the full-moon connection in the 20th century. The sequel visually implies that the transformation occurs as a result of direct exposure to light from the full moon. Other fiction has assumed the transformation is an inescapable monthly occurrence and does not examine whether it is caused by light, tidal effects, or some cycle that happens to coincide with the moon's phases.

Special effects

The transformation of Chaney from man into monster was laborious. A plaster mold was made to hold his head absolutely still as his image was photographed and his outline drawn on panes of glass in front of the camera. Chaney then went to makeup man Jack Pierce's office and using grease paint, a rubber snout appliance and glued layers of yak hair the Wolf Man makeup to his face. Then Chaney would return to the set, line himself up using the panes of glass as reference and several frames of film were shot. Then the make-up was removed and a new layer was applied, showing the transformation further along. This was done again and again. Talbot’s lap dissolve transformation on screen only took seconds, while Chaney’s took almost ten hours.
After the start of World War II it became impossible for Universal Studios to receive more shipments of yak hair from the orient. As a result the Wolf Man sometimes appears with bare hands in ''House of Frankenstein'' (1944) and makes very limited appearances in ''House of Dracula'' (1945).

Themes

As in most of Universal’s classic monsters, the appeal of the Wolf Man lies in the humanity beneath the horror. Lawrence Talbot was tormented with the knowledge that he became a savage beast with a lust to kill; he is the quintessential reluctant monster. Only death could set him free but, as the sequels proved, death is only temporary in monster movies.
Writer Curt Siodmak has written that he was heavily influenced by Greek Mythology while drafting the script for this film.

Sequels

''The Wolf Man'' proved popular, and so Chaney reprised his now-signature role in four more Universal films, though unlike his contemporaries he never enjoyed the chance to have a sequel all to himself. ''Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man'' (1943) had Talbot’s grave opened on a full moon night, causing him to rise again (making him, in the subsequent films, technically one of the undead). He seeks out Dr. Frankenstein for a cure, but finds the monster (Bela Lugosi) instead. The two square off at the climax, but the fight ends in a draw when a dam is exploded and Frankenstein’s castle is flooded. In ''House of Frankenstein'' (1944), Talbot is once again resurrected and is promised a cure via a brain transplant, but ends up shot with a silver bullet instead. He returns (with no explanation) in ''House of Dracula'' (1945), and is finally cured of his condition. But he was afflicted once again, in the comedy film ''Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'' (1948). This time the Wolf Man was a hero of sorts, saving Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) from having his brain transplanted by Dracula (Bela Lugosi) into the head of the monster (Glenn Strange). Grabbing the vampire as he turned into a bat, the Wolf Man dove over a balcony into the sea. This is perhaps why, in ''Van Helsing'' (2004), a werewolf is the only creature capable of killing Dracula.
In a recent news post Universal Pictures was "keen to develop" a remake.

Legacy

It was ''The Wolf Man'' that introduced the concepts of werewolves being vulnerable to silver (in traditional folklore, it is more effective against vampires), the werewolf's forced shapeshifting under a full moon, and being marked with a pentagram (a symbol of the occult and of Satanism). These are considered by many as part of the original folklore of the werewolf, even though they were created for the film. Unlike the werewolves of legend, which resemble true wolves, the Universal Wolf Man was an extension of the previous 1935 Werewolf of London in which both primary characters are a hybrid creature unlike the traditional interpretation. The Wolf Man stood erect like a human, but had the fur, teeth and claws and savage impulses of a wolf. For some unknown reason in-story, (censor boards of that time would NOT permit an actual wolf to be used in-story in "murder scenes" as it was too real), the werewolves, who would bite the primary characters and cause the antagonist to transform, was always depicted as being an actual four legged wolf. Perhaps as a note to show that the primary character was not as savage as the original werewolf who had degraded into little more than a mindless beast. There had been similar depictions of werewolves in several earlier movies but this was by far the most influential, and subsequent movies have built on this image.
The poem recited is used in each of Chaney's subsequent appearances as the Wolf Man, with the exception of ''Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein''; it is also recited by a character in ''Van Helsing'' (2004), which featured modernized reinterpretations of the classic Universal Studios monsters. In ''Van Helsing'', the werewolf transforms by ripping off the human skin, revealing the wolfish form. The transformation also works in reverse; the werewolf fur sheds to reveal the human form. The werewolves in this movie were also controlled by Dracula after their first full moon.
The Wolf Man has the distinction of being the only classic Universal monster to be played by the same actor in all his classic 1940s film appearances. Lon Chaney, Jr. was very proud of this, frequently stating in interviews: "He was my baby." Chaney would go on to play a wolf man (if not ''the'' Wolf Man) in very similar makeup in the 1959 Mexican film ''La Casa del Terror'' and a famous 1962 episode of TV's ''Route 66'' titled ''Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing,'' which also starred Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster. Nearly a decade later, even though he was seriously ill at the time, Chaney managed to conjure up his original energetic gestures while masked in a quasi-wolfish rubber mask for one scene in his last (and most unfortunate) film, 1971's ''Frankenstein vs. Dracula''.
''The Wolf Man'' was not Universal's first werewolf film. It was preceded by ''Werewolf of London'' (1935), starring noted character actor Henry Hull in a quite different and more subtle werewolf makeup. The film failed at the box office, probably because audiences of the day thought it too similar in many ways to ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'', for which Fredric March had won an Oscar three years before. Many critics thought Jack Pierce's earlier werewolf looked more menacingly nightmarish than the more familiar version.
The Wolf Man is one of only three Universal Studios monsters without a novel to accompany its movie appearances. The others are The Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon (though in the 1970s, novelizations of the original films were issued as paperback originals as part of a series written by "Carl Dreadstone," a pseudonym for a several writers including British horror writer Ramsey Campbell).

Cast

Lon Chaney, Jr. ... Larry Talbot/The Wolf Man (billed as Lon Chaney)

Claude Rains ... Sir John Talbot

Warren William ... Dr. Lloyd

Ralph Bellamy ... Colonel Montford

Patric Knowles ... Frank Andrews

Bela Lugosi ... Bela

Maria Ouspenskaya ... Maleva

Evelyn Ankers ... Gwen Conliffe

J.M. Kerrigan ... Charles Conliffe

Fay Helm ... Jenny Williams

Forrester Harvey ... Twiddle

Universal Legacy Collection DVD

★ ''Werewolf of London''

★ ''The Wolf Man''

★ ''Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man''

★ ''She-Wolf of London''
The DVD collection also included the following bonus features:

★ Documentary hosted by ''Van Helsing'' director Stephen Sommers.

★ ''Monster by Moonlight'' documentary hosted by John Landis

★ ''The Wolf Man'' commentary from film historian Tom Weaver.

Trivia

★ This film was #62 on Bravo's ''100 Scariest Movie Moments''.

References

External links

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