The Wolf Man (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection)

There is just something different about The Wolf Man; I have a hard time viewing him as a monster Larry Talbot is a thoroughly sympathetic and tragic character. Dracula loves being a vampire, Frankenstein's monster is just an unfortunate victim of circumstance whose various body parts have already lived full lives, but Larry Talbot desperately hates the monster he has become. He's already a sympathetic character, coming home after eighteen years following the death of his older brother, trying to fit in among the folks he said goodbye to long ago. Then, when he hears a fateful howl accompanied by a scream, he races off in heroic fashion, taking on a wolf in order to try and save a woman's life, killing the doggoned creature. And what does he get for his noble, self-less act? First of all, suspicion, because instead of the wolf he described, the authorities find the body of a gypsy fortune teller (played by Bela Lugosi, who gets all of seven lines in the film) clubbed to death by Talbot's cane. Then, tragically, he finds himself inflicted with the curse of the werewolf, thanks to the bite he suffered in the struggle. Chaney's performance also adds to his tragic status. He had a style of acting all his own; at times, I watch him and think the guy just couldn't act his way out of a dark room with a flashlight, but his strange and slightly awkward manner, tempered by a sort of gentle slowness ends up leaving me mesmerized. In most horror movies, I'm always ready to bring the monster on and get the party started, but I never look forwarding to watching Talbot turn into the werewolf.

I think everyone is pretty well acquainted with the story here. Man gets bitten by werewolf, man turns into werewolf, man suffers a tragic fate. The Wolf Man, though, succeeds in becoming much more than just the simple tale of a hairy monster. The inimitable Claude Rains lends the film character and class as Talbot's father. The lovely Evelyn Ankers makes a great leading lady in the form of Gwen Conliffe. Lugosi is of course terrific as the gypsy Bela, but the role is a minor one indeed. Maria Ouspenskaya is masterful as the gypsy woman Maleva who tries to warn Talbot and help him deal with the curse that suddenly consumes his life. Siodmak really provided a tight plot; there would be a number of sequels, but The Wolf Man is a completely self-contained movie of great power and meaning.

There are a number of really interesting things about this movie. For instance, we never actually see Talbot's transformation from man to wolf - we see the legs change, but that is it. There is a scene toward the end where we witness the transformation from wolf to man, but you won't see any time-lapse treatment of the change from man to monster. Of much more interest to me is the fact that you don't hear a single reference to the moon in the entire film. Apparently, the transformation happens nightly to Talbot; there is nothing to indicate that a full moon plays any part at all. Thus, some of the core Wolf Man assumptions do not trace themselves back to the original movie.

The commentary by film historian Tom Weaver, included on the DVD, is just superb. It's one of the most engaging commentaries I've heard. This guy is loaded to the gills with facts and trivia, and he barely pauses over the course of the film's 70 minutes, delivering one gem after another. He also asks some of the questions I ask when I watch the movie, and I love that. This isn't a commentary by some stuffy "expert." Weaver is indeed an expert, but at the same time he is one of us, a true fan of classic horror movies.

All of these superstitions come true very quickly when Larry finds himself the centre of a strange murder mystery in the nearby woods where a gypsy man (Bela Lugosi, in a bit of an under-performance [he is only in it for a few minutes]) was found dead without his shoes on next to the corpse of a young woman who had been mauled by a wolf that Larry had killed with his cane after going to visit the psychic gypsies who had stopped there after passing through the village. Larry remembers killing a wolf but no wolf was ever found...

... later after a gypsy funeral Larry learns that there is a werewolf in the village and that the gypsy's are leaving but not before he meets the wife of the dead gypsy who tells him that the gypsy was really a werewolf and that Larry is cursed!

Claude Rains (who also stars in The Invisible Man and the remake of Phantom of the Opera) has a supporting/lead role as Larry's father who means to prove his son's innocents and protect him from self harm as Larry falls slowly into despair with the knowledge that the superstitions are true and that he is a werewolf.

Most lovers of the classics will probably recognise this as the catchiest of the lot probably because it was closer to more supernatural/natural horror than Frankenstein, Dracula, The Invisible Man or Phantom of the Opera. Here we learned about the moon and fascinating facts about the werewolf that have not often been repeated in any other werewolf movie. Also Lon Chaney is the real reason to watch this and along side Claude Rains is to die for, really. The documentaries and extras make this a 5 star package!