Lon Chaney, also known as the “Man of a Thousand Faces”, is considered one of the greatest silent film actors. Chaney became a horror icon thanks to his roles in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera. He was originally slated to play the title role in Dracula, but he passed away due to a throat hemorrhage. During Universal’s second wave of horror films, Chaney’s son Creighton, aka Lon Chaney Jr., was struggling as an actor. After years of minor roles, he was cast as Lennie Small in 1939’s Of Mice and Men, catching Universal’s attention. They cast him as the title character in 1941’s Man Made Monster as a testing ground for his abilities. Following the middling reception of Werewolf of London, Universal decided to make another werewolf movie, this time with Chaney Jr. In December of 1941, Universal’s The Wolf Man was released.
%
Rating
Synopsis
Following the death of his brother, Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) returns to his family home in Wales. He reconciles with his father John (Claude Rains) and meets a young woman named Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers). One night, Lawrence, Gwen, and her friend Jenny (Fay Helm) happen upon gypsies Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) and Bela (Bela Lugosi). Jenny gets attacked by a wolf that Lawrence manages to fight off, only to get bitten before killing the wolf. The police investigate, finding the body of Bela and a cane with a silver wolf’s head belonging to Lawrence. He’s suspected of murder, but Maleva warns him that Bela was a werewolf, and he’ll turn into a werewolf soon. As the full moon rises, Lawrence indeed turns into a werewolf and starts killing people throughout the village. Can Lawrence be saved from the curse, and who will The Wolf Man kill next?
Review
After a few years of B-tier horror films with some exceptions, The Wolf Man is a real return to form. While Werewolf of London preceded it, this took that film’s ideas, expanded upon them, and improved on them. Screenwriter Curt Siodmak, a German immigrant, managed to take real-world experiences with the Nazis to create the definitive werewolf lore. Things like the werewolf’s victims marked by a pentagram or five-pointed star and the lead being cursed by outside forces. It’s one thing for a writer to pen a good screenplay, but another to become the definitive lore for werewolves. Producer/director George Waggner, who previously directed Lon Chaney Jr. in Man Made Monster, does a phenomenal job. He takes full advantage of the spooky and foggy forest, plus the village set, to create an almost dreamlike atmosphere. It has a hypnotic quality similar to what Tod Browning did with Dracula.
Acting-wise, the cast does a phenomenal job, from Claude Rains as the father to Evelyn Ankers as the empathetic companion. Maria Ouspenskaya practically defines the prototypical gypsy in her role, and Bela Lugosi has a small but memorable role. However, it’s Lon Chaney Jr. as Lawrence Talbot/The Wolf Man that makes the film work so well. When he’s The Wolf Man, he’s terrifying and intense, but as Talbot, he’s likable, charming, and sympathetic, playing an everyman. What makes him compelling is that he commits horrific acts, knows what he did, and can’t do anything about it. This, combined with the fantastic make-up from the great Jack Pierce, make for one of cinema’s most iconic monsters. Admittedly, some of the transformation effects are nothing special, and at 69 minutes, it goes by maybe too fast. But overall, The Wolf Man deserves its status as a Universal horror classic.
Buy The Wolf Man from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3dnFnct
