The Wolf Man [PG]

When Larry Talbot returns home to Talbot castle he believes that he’ll be able to settle in to the little town nicely, find a girl, and rekindle the broken relationship with his father. But on his first night home he attempts to save a woman from a wolf and gets bitten. The next morning his wound is mysteriously healed and no wolf found, but the body of a gypsy instead. Suspicious tales and legends of a werewolf begin flying through the town and Larry soon begins to believe them as a strange pentagram appears on his chest, wolf tracks appear leading to his bedroom, strange murders are happening nightly, and Larry can’t remember ever going to bed. 

The brilliance of Universal’s classic monster movie canon is that they feature monster stories of truly tragic natures. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and The Phantom of the Opera, all are tragic tales of love and the internal struggle of man and monster. Add to this the story of The Wolf Man and it’s a complete set. 

Like the aforementioned films, the beauty and tragedy of this movie lies within its multiple stories that run parallel with each other. We have an impossible and doomed romantic story between a sweet man and a confused and engaged woman. We have the internal struggle of Larry as he tries to adopt the rational mind of his father, but is so strongly influenced by superstition and horror. We have the broken relationship between the father and son, which ends in probably the most tragic way ever. And then there’s the fight of a superstitious man to seek help amongst rational minds. 

Needless to say that the outcome of each and every one of these tales is a doomed one, but that is what makes the movie so beautiful, and its tragedy so poignant. 

Lon Chaney delivers a heartbreaking performance as Larry, as his charming, boyish character at the beginning of the film slowly breaks down, reducing him to a terrified, broken man. It’s incredibly sad to watch, even more so when we compare him to the stiff and somewhat cold character of his father, John Talbot. 

Claude Rains as Lord Talbot is perfect in the role and his performance balances against Chaney’s as well as crispy conveys the various dichotomies that are being explored: science vs. superstition, and father vs. son. Both Chaney’s and Rains’ performances are key enablers in conveying the tragedy of the story. 

Whilst the story is still beautiful and tragic, the film falls down a little bit in its special effects department, as well as costuming, and narrative flow. My personal feelings are that the writers could have extended Larry’s struggle to find help, even if he began conducting his own research; the fight between the man and the wolf wasn’t delved into as deeply as it could have been, which is a shame because it could have been a great way to really come to love Larry: as it stands he’s a character that I struggled with. 

The wolf man costume was pretty primitive, just a lot of hair glued all over Chaney and some false teeth put in, making him look like just a really hairy dude with sharp teeth, a sort of Neanderthal and not very scary. 

The transformation sequences with various stages of hairiness being overlapped onto each other was neither compelling nor frightening; if it weren’t for the atmospheric score, those scenes would have induced mild yawning and eye-wandering. 

Starring Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Maria Ouspenskaya, Evelyn Ankers, J. M. Kerrigan, Fay Helm, Forrester Harvey, and Bela Lugosi, The Wolf Man is a good movie that depicts a tragic tale. Where it falls down in special effects and costuming, it makes up for in its haunting score and memorable performances. 

Filled with drama, desperation, action, horror, romance, and suspense, it still sits as a classic monster movie.