300th Review: The Wolf Man (1941)

        300 movies can do a lot for a guy like me. As always, this is one cool hobby to do by exploring how movies evolved. Now, I will admit that the venture had some bumps, my earlier reviews are probably the worst since I didn’t really do any sort of analysis. And you can also say that in certain periods I have been bad with my scheduling, I still regret how I handled my animation look from last year. With all that, I managed to talk about some important and one of my favorite films for you all to see just how I love to express myself. It’s another season of Halloween so let’s get started. 

1. Of Wolf and Man

        This year is going to be different since we’re not talking about a silent film to kick off the season. Since I have already talked about some of the Universal Monsters throughout this whole venture, it only makes sense to talk about the remaining stars. Little did I know that this wasn’t the first werewolf movie to appear in the US. Years earlier, Universal released Werewolf of London in 1935. There’s even a misconception that The Wolf Man was the first appearance of the creature, but the prior film gets overshadowed due to the latter’s popularity. 

        While the prior entries were based on a prior work, it’s only this one and The Mummy where the whole premise is completely original. With that, we follow Larry Talbot as he returns home to make peace with his father. He soon falls in love with an antique storekeeper Gwen, who has him purchase a unique cane with a wolf emblazoned on it. Talbot is told the legend of the werewolf but blows it off as a Gypsy superstition. Soon Talbot encounters a wolf and kills it, unintentionally making him become the creature as he sees a bite mark. 

            If there’s something to admire about the whole franchise is that there’s a sense of superstition and science that is imbued with presenting the individual creatures. Like each creature has a reason to exist instead of some contrived way. What makes the Wolf Man work is that there’s a sense of belief and legend. We hear that the citizens of the town only know the legend, but the Gypsies know the truth since one of their own is an actual werewolf. I think the film tried to go at a psychological angle since early on we’re led to believe that Larry made up the fight with the wolf since the police couldn’t find any marks. 

        Of course, it can’t just be in his head since we all want to see the werewolf pop up. And it’s such a shame that Bela Lugosi was relegated to second billing since he portrays a gypsy man who turns into a werewolf. He was in Dracula, and one could say that his portrayal practically sold everyone on the whole franchise due to his performance. It must be mentioned that he was offered the role of Frankenstein but believed he was better than that. He did go on to make more appearances in the franchise, but it wasn’t as good as his initial portrayal. 

        Anyways, I’ll talk about Lon Chaney Jr. in a moment. What I will talk about is the actual werewolf that we see. I like how it takes a good while for the film to show how Talbot gets transformed. At first, we see him being skeptical but ultimately become paranoid since he was associated with a wolf attack that makes him and Gwen into pariahs of the town. More so that we see just how much he has the hots for her and gets jealous of her fiancée when they go out at a carnival. One could interpret the film as a metaphor for lust. Larry first lays on Gwen and tries to court her even as she’s engaged. They both hang out, but Talbot can’t get himself to leave her alone but soon falls for her as they are shunned in the town. Not to say that it’s the first film to deal with psychosexual aspects, but it would be a pioneer since more films in the decades to come would bring up the subject and be creative with how it handles it. 

        If there’s one downside is that I think people would be disappointed that there weren’t any special effects to show how exactly Talbot is morphed into a werewolf. While not advanced as The Invisible Man by having it be the main highlight, the film uses shot dissolves to show how Larry gradually grows fur and then becomes the werewolf. It would be decades later when another werewolf film would use clever puppetry and special effects to have the transformation be believable.

2. Lon Chaney Jr. 

        Since he is the title character, Chaney Jr. does a good job with playing Larry. I love how there’s a separation since he’s coming from a rich family but is completely out of his element when he’s in town. So much so that he tries to flirt with Gwen but went about it in a completely creepy way that makes him into a peeping tom. And I think it’s rare for a character to realize that he is a danger and actually tries to have himself be restrained before he hurts anyone. 

        I might as well talk about the actor because his background, specifically his family history is interesting. He is the son of actor Lon Chaney who was a prolific actor during the silent age of film. He was dubbed “The Man of a Thousand Faces” due to his performances being that his face was expressive and conveyed a lot of emotion. In fact we talked about one of his movies last year with The Phantom of the Opera. Ironically, he passed away due to throat cancer at the time when the talkies were slowly taking over movies. 

        Chaney Jr. wanted to go at a different path than his father since he didn’t want to follow in his footsteps and to have the obligatory comparisons. This film was his first that made him into a horror icon, which unfortunately made him to be typecast in various horror films of ranging quality. He’s the only actor in the entire franchise to be featured in multiple sequels Additionally, the only actor to also portray Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the Mummy.

3. Legacy

        It’s so tough to rank which of the debut Universal Monster Films is the best. Nearly all of them have something going for them as far as portraying the supernatural in either folklore or through science. For The Wolf Man, it practically created the very basics of the werewolf as far as transformation and weakness that would be featured in other media. Universal’s creature was remade in two occasions with the new one coming out next year. I haven’t seen the 2010 version of it, but I’ve heard mixed things. I’m hoping that director Leigh Whannel will do the reboot justice as he did with 2020s The Invisible Man.

4. Overall

        The Wolf Man is part of the Mount Rushmore of horror icons and his film is one of the best in 1940s horror.