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The Wolf Man (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection)

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Among the pantheon of classic Universal monsters, only Dracula and Frankenstein's monster stand taller than The Wolf Man. This 1941 classic starring Lon Chaney, Jr., is a must-see for anyone claiming any interest in horror movies. The film has exerted a huge influence on the art of bringing horror to life for over six decades now, thanks to the heralded make-up prowess of Jack Pierce, the tight and powerful script of Curt Siodmak, some impressive photography work, and wonderful performances from a truly stellar cast of actors and actresses.

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.

The best thing about The Wolf Man is not the monster itself but the subtle progression of wolfish themes that are brought out from start to finish in the movie. Even though the much dated 'look' of the monster brings this Universal Classic offering a notch down it still happens to be the best screenplay of the Horror Classics. Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, son of Phantom of the Opera's Lon Chaney) shows that he has some of his father in him (not much facial contortions until the transformations) in his way of bringing darkness and madness to a character that is jolly, loving and smitten by local town kitten after he arrives at his fathers estate following a brief period of absence to take care of things. He learns the local legend of The Wolf Man in the village, how strange poems about the moon and wolfs bane can bring out the wolf in a man, the pentagram and how it can prevent werewolf attacks but also how if it appears on someone's skin then that person is the werewolf's next victim.

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!

The Wolf Man is simply one of the greatest horror films ever made. Written by Curt Siodmak and directed by George Waggner this film had the perfect combination of narrative content and visual elements. The Wolf Man was one of a dozen B horror movies that Universal produced within the 1930s and 40s, but remains of an elite category for its excellence. From its release in 1941 and until now I believe this film hasn't been getting the appreciation it deserves. Its reputation of being just another black and white B horror film precedes it unfortunately.
The Wolf Man is the story of a man who takes the shape of an animal, in this case a wolf, to deal with his struggle with sexual repression. Larry Talbot, played by Lon Chaney Jr., returns to his home in England after studying abroad for nearly two decades. Shortly after his return, he falls in love with the daughter of an antique shop named Gwen Conliffe, who is played by Evelyn Ankers. Gwen is the stereotypical country girl. She is pretty, sweet, and moral. Larry is bitten by a werewolf on his first date with Gwen and becomes inflicted with the disease of lycanthropy. As the film prolongs we learn of Gwen's engagement to another man and how it leads to a great deal of Larry's frustration. An interesting aspect of this film is that before almost all of Larry's transformations into a wolf he is either directly or indirectly engaged with Gwen's seemingly unreachable hand until it's too late. This leads me to believe that Gwen is, in a way, responsible for Larry's "liberation" from man into beast; being that she is the object of not only his love, but of his sexual frustrations and repressions.
It is always interesting to see how a leading lady was depicted in the golden years of Hollywood films. In The Wolf Man's case, as in many other cases, she is represented as a stereotype and as an object. Without her character, however, the narrative would not have had its particularly well crafted strength.

okay, the film has flaws.
who cares?
the supporting cast is possibly the best assembled cast of any 40s film.
Bela Lugosi, Claude Rains, Warren William, Maria Ouspenskia, Evelyn Ankers are all in top form (Lugosi, proving too, that he was better in classy supporting rols rather than having to slum it though starring roles in secondary features).
Chaney too is top notch.
Fans will not want to admit it, but his Lawrence Talbot soon became repetative and whiney, but here he is Larry Talbot; a classic horror film icon.
After this the great roles were very few and far between (but he did have some roles that PROVED he was indeed a worthy succesor to his father-check out HIGH NOON, THE DEFIANT ONES, LION IS IN THE STREETS, SPIDER BABY and OF MICE AND MEN to see his worth as an actor).
Full of atmosphere and pathos.
strangley enough i remember it better than some of the 'better classics'.

...The Wolf Man. Obviously, because this is a fourties movie, there wan't all the special effects that we are used to seeing in films like Ginger Snaps, An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, Silver Bullet, or the upcoming Van Helsing. George Waggner's The Wolf Man was excactly what the title states...a wolf-man. He stands up on two legs and has the bodily structure of a man, but has the hair, teeth, claws, feet, howl, and bite of a wolf. Whenever the moon rises poor old Larry Talbot turns into a werewolf after being bitten by the first werewolf he already killed named Bela (Bela Lugosi). This film has perfect make up work for it's time. You can really feel sorry for all that Larry Talbot is going through. This film uses great use of light and music to really creep you out. Even today, The Wolf Man still stands up to the current werewolf films because it it's atmosphere, cast, music, and plot and characters. This is only one of Universal's classic monster films that despite it's age, I (as a young twenty year old) absolutely love. The Universal monsters will never die.

Like gangster films and screwball comedies, horror movies dominated 1930's cinema until the British banned the genre in 1937. A revival came with the 1939 release of "Son of Frankenstein." Following that success, Universal, the leader in the cinema of the macabre, dusted off the werewolf concept that failed (commercially, at least) in 1935's "Werewolf of London," and brought forth "The Wolf Man." The title role was offered to a disinterested (and, by that time, too old) Boris Karloff, and coveted by a comeback craving (but also too old, and certainly inappropriate) Bela Lugosi.

The role brought stardom to Lon Chaney, Jr., the son of the famous Man of a Thousand Faces, and the film is perhaps the last truly classic contribution Universal made to the Golden Age of Horror.

A literate script by Curt Siodmak, atmospheric direction by George Waggner, and a prestigious cast headed by the incomparable Claude Rains more than compensate for this film's few weaknesses, but there are weaknesses, notably Chaney, Jr himself. Though perfect as the dim-witted Lenny in Lewis Milestone's film of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," the beefy actor lacks the polish and English accent required to be wholly believable as the off-spring of Rains' very British Sir John Talbot. If it's difficult to believe Chaney hails from the same family, he nonetheless gives an excellent performance, one that inspires sympathy for the cursed Larry Talbot.

The remaining cast is superb with Bela Lugosi too briefly seen as the gypsy whose lycanthropic bite brings about Chaney's transformation, and Maria Ouspenskaya is perfect as Lugosi's compassionate mother, the only one to believe and sympathize with Talbot's doomed plight. Frank Skinner's wonderfully spooky score was revived with some minor changes for Universal's series of Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.

Aside from its remarkable atmosphere, two things always intigued me about "The Wolfman." One is the way Lugosi morphed into a genuine four-legged wolf but Talbot still remained a man after sprouting hair and fangs. Then there's Talbot's change of clothing whenever he knew a full moon was on the rise. He prepares for his transformation by changing from a suit and tie into work clothes more suitable to a janitor. Certainly, a werewolf would look silly prowling about in formal attire, but would a man who's about to change into a ferocious beast be concerned with his appearance or worried about the possibility of ruining a good jacket?

Perhaps "The Wolfman" is less a horror film than a subliminal (and snobbish) social commentary. Talbot returns to Britain after attending college in the U.S. Are his antics as a werewolf meant to represent the influence of Americans whose supposed penchant for violence and incivility are worrisome to many Europeans? It may also be a sly observation on class, a warning to the elites, like Sir John Talbot, to beware of the proletariat, who might poison their childrens' minds with the social liberalism that often characterizes higher education.

Yes, under all that yak hair, "The Wolf Man" is more than a horror film. When looking beneath the surface, it's all the more frightening.

This was one of the first horror films to use fog to make the movie more scary. Excellent performances by Claude Raines, Lon Chaney Jr., and the woman that played Maleva. Bela Lugosi had a small role as Bela who bites Chaney to begin his nightmare as a creature of the full moon. Great musical score adds to the eerie effects.

In his star-making role, Lon Chaney, Jr. plays Larry Talbot, a young British heir, who returns to the mansion of his father (Claude Rains) after receiving a college education in America. In a small English village, Chaney meets Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), the daughter the of an antique store owner. Inside the shop, he buys an ornate walking stick with a silver wolf's head and pentagram engraved on the handle. When Gwen recites an old gypsy folk rhyme (as seen in the editorial review above), Larry laughs off the rhyme as a silly superstition...Seeking to keep the second great horror boom going strong at the box office - horror flicks waned in popularity by 1937 - Universal decided to resurrect the forgotten monster from their 1935 THE WEREWOLF OF LONDON and transform him into THE WOLFMAN. It was a profitable gamble. Despite the fact that the film was released just two days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the movie was a smash hit at the box-office and it was Universal's biggest hit of the season. This was Chaney's favourite role, and his is considered the definitive version: it was his original creation. Rains does his usual fine work in role not entirely worthy of his talent, and the wonderful Maria Ouspenskaya is memorable as the wise old gypsy woman who foretells tragedy. The original working title of the film was DESTINY.

This legendary horror film is the granddaddy of all werewolf movies. The previous "Werewolf of London" notwithstanding, this film set the standard for much that followed. Wolf Man Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney) became a popular member of the classic horror family at Universal Studios. Makeup genius Jack Pierce created the trademark hirsute fright look that has been imitated, but never improved, over the years. The familiar story of metamorphosis, wolfbane, and the autumn moon unfolds quickly. The running time of the film is a mere 70 minutes. Once it gets going, the action doesn't let up. The inspired casting of Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva the gypsy woman is a memorable event in classic horror flicks. She brings a mystic sense of Slavic fatalism to her role. Her son, Bela the fortune teller, has the mark of the beast and infects Talbot. Bela Lugosi's appearance is brief, but he manages to project the world-weariness and suffering of his peculiar malady as the doomed gypsy who sees the pentagram in the palm of his next victim. The terrific scenes of Chaney in full makeup, creeping amid the gnarled trees and through the foggy night are the stuff of troubled childhood dreams. Scream Queen Evelyn Ankers is the resident threatened female. Claude Rains is cast in the unlikely role of the hulking Chaney's father. American Ralph Bellamy is also a peculiar choice to play the stern local chief constable. Despite these little quirks, it all blends nicely. About the only thing missing, is the dark sense of humor of James Whale, which made the early Universal Frankenstein flicks so richly enjoyable. Every serious collector of Classic Horror 101 needs this addition to their collection. ;-)

"The Wolf Man" is a classic from the Universal Studios monster collection. When we think of werewolves, we think of unfortunate souls who look like Lon Chaney Jr. in his makeup. Even with the more modern werewolf films like "American Werewolf in London" and "The Howling," this 1941 film still stands up. Gore is not a necessity for a good film.

Lon Chaney, Jr. plays Larry Talbot, the son of Claude Rains. He was in America, but has returned to England to take his place as heir after the death of his brother. From here, he becomes victim to the werewolf and fights the beast within him. In other werewolf movies, Chaney tends to look like he is going to cry. He still gives us the tormented look, but before the encounter, we actually see him more upbeat.

Although it is a great film, it is not without error. To borrow from Coleridge, you have to apply a willful suspension of disbelief to thoroughly enjoy this. In other words, don't focus on the little details that don't quite add up. For instance, when the famous Bela Lugosi transforms, why is he a wolf and not a wolf-man? When Lon Chaney changes the first time, when did he put on the shirt? Ignore the little things and enjoy the film.

I would recommend seeing this film.