My quest to watch the classic Universal monster films is getting more complicated.  After my viewing of the original The Wolf Man (1941), it looks like it will be even more complex.  Now that I have seen Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and The Mummy (1932), what else is there to watch?  The obvious answer is The Wolf Man.  Having covered vampires and other forms of the undead, the logical next in line would be werewolves, no?  I did not immediately think of this, so I went to the internet to find my subsequent choice.  I did something that I used to discourage my students from doing, and that is looking at Wikipedia.  According to the dubious online source, there are many entries considered to be a part of this pantheon of films, but only a select few check all the boxes in the various lists of collections over the years.  This narrows my choices but leaves me feeling guilty for those I will be leaving out . . . for now.  There is always next Halloween.  In the meantime, enjoy this review of The Wolf Man.

The Wolf Man is Lawrence “Larry” Talbot (Lon Cheney Jr.).  He is returning to his father’s, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains), estate (castle, really) after an eighteen-year absence following the death of Larry’s brother.  Larry has come home to help out his father, and to learn how to run the large holdings in the event of dad’s passing.  While Sir John is philosophically and scientifically minded, the time Larry spent in America (hence his non-English accent) made him more mechanically minded.  As such, he helps his dad fix a large telescope in the observatory, which, of course, Sir John owns one.  Once Larry mends it, he looks through the aperture and sees the nearby town bustling with activity.  In the upstairs window of an antique shop, he spies Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers).  I guess this is less creepy in 1941.  Anyway, he goes there under the pretense of buying something, though he really wants to ask her out on a date.  To prove he is earnest, he buys an old walking stick with a silver wolf on the handle, marked with a pentagram.  Again, nothing creepy, right?  He insists that he will be returning at 8:00 pm for a walk, though she continues to say no.  Nonetheless, at the appointed time she expectantly walks out of her storefront and finds the happy-go-lucky Larry with cane in hand.  Because Evelyn is actually engaged to Frank Knowles (Patric Knowles), they have a third person with them to supervise (I guess), Jenny Williams (Fay Helm).  Because a troop of gypsies have recently come to town, they decide to walk to their camp to have their fortunes told.  Gwen and Larry let Jenny be the first to consult with Bela (Bela Lugosi).  Gwen wants to know when she will be married.  Instead, Bela sees the mark of the werewolf on her hand, indicating that she will be the monster’s next victim.  As Gwen tries to fend off Larry’s mostly gentlemanly advances, they hear Jenny scream in the distance.  This is because she is being attacked by Bela in werewolf form.  Larry comes too late to her rescue.  He manages to kill the creature, but is bitten himself.  He is helped back to Talbot Manor by Gwen and Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), a Gypsy sorceress.  When the local authorities go to the scene of Jenny’s death, they find Bela instead of an animal.  Larry claims that he had killed a wolf, and that he had been bitten by it, but there is no mark on him.  They do find the instrument with which he had felled the werewolf, that being the silver tipped walking stick.  Though Gwen, the police, and Sir John all view it as an act of self-defense, the rest of the town see Larry as a murderer.  He, too, is self-conscious about it, and is open about what he believes he saw and did.  The suspicions of the town only exasperate his anxiety, such as when he goes to see that Gwen is okay the next day.  This is when he finally gets to meet Frank.  Despite an awkward parting, Frank is later keen to speak to Larry at the Gypsy carnival later that day.  Upon getting separated from the group, Larry consults with Maleva, who knows what is happening to him.  Because he had a vision of him as the werewolf harming Gwen, Maleva attempts to give him a necklace with a charm of a pentagram on it.  She says it will keep Larry from transforming into the werewolf.  Despite coming to believe in the curse that has befallen him, he decides to give this piece of jewelry to Gwen for her protection.  That night, to his terror, he undergoes the transformation into the werewolf for the first time.  Taking to the woods, he happens upon a grave digger, killing the man in the same manner in which Jenny had died.  Larry awakens the next morning in his bedroom, but soon the town is abuzz with news of the latest incident.  He does not want to admit to it, but deep down he knows it is him.  He later goes to Gwen to tell her that he believes he has become a monster and that he is going to leave, spurred by seeing a pentagram on her hand, but she begs him to stay.  He says the same to his father.  Sir John’s solution, while not believing his son, is to tie Larry to a chair.  He breaks free, of course, when he becomes the werewolf.  Gwen takes to the night to try to find him, only to encounter the werewolf.  She is caught by the monster and is about to meet her doom when Sir John comes along wielding Larry’s silver cane.  The result is the same as with Bela, and Sir John is horrified to see it turn back into his son.  Luckily, Gwen is okay, and the last shot is of her being comforted by Frank.

What is amazing about The Wolf Man, other than the notion of a person becoming a werewolf, is Larry.  He is not your typical werewolf.  In other films of this ilk, like An American Werewolf in London (1981), the person who becomes the lycan typically has some kind of character flaw that brings upon the curse.  With David Kessler (David Naughton), it is his sexual predilections that lead him into trouble.  The same cannot be said of Larry in The Wolf Man.  It may not have come through in some of my snarkier constructions, but he is a genuinely nice, even reserved, guy.  He came upon this curse entirely unwittingly, trying to be gallant.  That seems like an awfully raw deal for a movie, which, especially in this era, tried to represent an idealized society.  Yet, the film has an explanation for this that is of interest for a Catholic reviewer.  There is a verse about werewolves that is repeated a few times early on that says, “Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night; May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”  There is also some effort to claim that people believing they are werewolves is merely a form of mental psychosis rather than a physical reality.  Yet, it brings up some interesting points about human nature with which Christian theology has contended over the centuries.  The rhyme seems to suggest that there is no escaping evil, even for a person who is faithful.  This could also be seen as an explanation for sin.  While it is true that we humans are sinners, and that is inescapable, it also ignores the concept of free will.  There is a great deal of mystery behind the things that God does, but we have a choice to choose Him, in other words, not sin.  If it were somehow uncontrollable, then what would be the point of Faith?  We can also redeem ourselves when we do fall, something that is denied a werewolf since they cannot stop themselves when in their monster form.  It makes me extra thankful that such creatures do not actually exist.

There are a few people in The Wolf Man that you would almost not recognize here given their fame in other films, namely Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi.  I am not sure this is a reason to watch the film, but it is interesting if you are familiar with their other work.  At any rate, I found this one less interesting than others in the series, but still entirely more watchable than its more modern cousins.