The Wolf Man (1941)

(This post is a bit of a re-hash of one I just wrote for my comics blog Rainbow Creatures, the writing of which inspired me to start this blog.)

I have blanked out anything that I felt spoiled too much.


I watched The Wolf Man on Netflix instant watch the other morning after a nearly sleepless night. Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation, but it struck me that, for its time, The Wolf Man is a pretty good movie. At just 70 minutes, it doesn't have a chance to overstay its welcome. During that time it packs in several heavy themes and a fairly well constructed plot with admirable economy.

Like many films and books featuring monsters of legend the "rules" governing The Wolf Man's werewolves are somewhat different than the rules most people are familiar with. There are no silver bullets in the film, though they are mentioned as a method of killing a werewolf along with various other silver weapons.

Such as this wolf headed cane

The moon, full or otherwise, is never seen once during the film. The full moon doesn't seem to trigger the transformation from man to wolf; it being nighttime during the right time of year seems to be enough to do the trick. The basic rules for this version of lycanthropy are laid in a haunting little poem that everybody in the movie, except poor Larry Talbot, seems to know. They are also explained more fully throughout the film.

This poem also outlines the central horror of the concept in the line "Even a man who is pure in heart..." It doesn't matter how descent or sincere you are, by night the wolf must have blood.

As is traditional since this film, werewolfism is transmitted by bite. The afflicted also sees the mark of the five pointed star on whomever his next victim is to be. The film has almost a Hitchcockian tone at times, going back and forth between domestic family drama and supernatural melodrama. Unlike previous Universal monster franchises, Dracula and Frankenstein, The Wolf Man is an original story. I think this accounts for it's brisk well constructed, at least compared to those two films, plot. 

The Wolf Man carries some fairly heavy themes. From the first scene between Larry Talbot, played by Lon Chaney Jr., and his father Sir John Talbot, played by Claude Rains, to the last frame of the movie there is a heavy sense of parental guilt and responsibility. As the film opens, it reveals to us that Larry is a scion of a noble Welsh family recalled to the family's ancestral home upon his older brother's death in a hunting accident. Sir John expresses regret over Larry's prodigal years in America. In the early scenes between the two it is evident, though underplayed, that the two begin to rewarm to each other. The other figure of parental guilt is Maleva, played by Maria Ouspenskaya, whose son Bela, played by Bela Lugosi, is afflicted by the werewolf curse which he spreads to Larry via bite. (Maleva and Bela are stereotypical Hollywood gypsies, but are perhaps played fairly for the era as neither are particularly sinister or untrustworthy characters.) Maleva carries the weight of caring for her son's affliction which induces him to occasionally murder people through no fault of his own. It is interesting that there isn't really an outright villain in the picture other than abstract fate, more about that in a bit, and the curse of the werewolf. The Gypsies arrive at just about at the same time as Larry and seem to act as an externalization of his status as an outsider. In a way he and Bela are brothers. This is driven home through Maleva's vigil over Larry as his curse takes home, the same care she attempted to give her biological son until Larry beat him to death with silver headed cane. Just before the film's climax Sir John and Maleva meet in the foggy metaphor laden woods and have a brief conversation about their respective inabilities to help their troubled children.

There is also a strange feeling of predestination about the whole movie. Larry arrives at the manor house and talks with his father about his brother's death in a hunting accident. At the climax of the film the Wolf Man is killed and reverts to his natural form as Larry Talbot, something that, in the context of the scene, could almost be described as a hunting accident. Everywhere Larry goes the symbol of the wolf is waiting for him before he gets there, even before he's bitten. While flirting with a young woman in the village, he buys the wolf headed cane. The werewolves see the sign of the five pointed star in the palm of their next victims. As the film ends it's as though Larry's death cycles back to the start of the film, like nothing that happened could be prevented, because it had already happened in the last iteration of this cycle. Assisting this is the unreal dreamlike nature of the woods where most of the action takes place. This dreamlike quality and Larry's inability to fully remember his actions as the wolf man, make his savage outings seem almost like a case of sleepwalking gone horribly wrong.

There is also the sexual element. Larry find himself attracted to Gwen, the aforementioned shop girl. He first sees her by accident while testing his father's newly installed telescope. This seemingly random event again brings with it the feeling of predestination. It is while going out with her and her friend that he is bitten by Bela. It turns out she has a fiance and the whole thing become's a bit of a scandal, what with Gwen's friend getting her throat torn out by Bela. Angry villagers arrive at her shop and blame the death on Gwen for going out with strange men. As the movie continues and Larry is pulled deeper into his curse, Gwen seems to grow more attracted to him until the end when he transforms and attacks her in the woods.

Those woods. There's something about the woods in this film. They're as phony as baloney, but the tangled rootless trees and the ever present waves of mist add an expressionistic touch to every seen feature Larry in his Wolf Man form. It and the woods almost seem part of each other, with the wolf man's gnarled features and coarse hair matching the trunks and canopies of the trees surrounding him. Every other other set in the film has a logical modern reality to it's construction. The woods are where the persecuted outsiders, like Larry and the Gypsies spend their time. They are the places where absurdly rationalist lawmen investigate werewolf killings and conduct fruitless hunts. They are the fate that awaits poor folks like Larry who are doomed the moment they step out of  their new world and back into the old. They killed Larry's brother and they'll wait as long as they have to to get Larry too.

In the movie monster, especially the Universal Monsters, we have elemental fears and dreads embodied in man sized figures we can relate to. It's hard to eliminate humanity's compulsion to perpetrate irrational and nonsensical violence, but we can shoot the Wolf Man with silver, metal of the moon and imagination don't you know. We might not eliminate the tendency to use and manipulate and drain people we love, but we can drive a stake through Dracula's heart. This is the power source behind such seemingly mundane monsters such as Hannibal Lecter, the Saw Killer, and Norman Bates. The flipside of the cathartic monster killing element of all this is the appeal of the taboo in identifying with these characters and the less than nice internal conditions they represent.

So there you are, a reasonably good movie on Netflix. A horror movie at that, the genre of many of instant watch's worst films. Proof that with mindful navigation there are many interesting channels to pursue.

Other Universal horror movies currently available on Netflix instant watch include:
Dracula
Son of Frankenstein (much better than it sounds)
Creature from the Black Lagoon
The Invisible Man