Review of “The Wolf Man” (1941)

    “Even a man who is pure in heart
    and says his prayers by night,
    May become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms,
    and the autumn moon is bright.”

    So goes the poem about the wolf man legend that is featured prominently in this film.
    In 1941, Universal started shooting “The Wolf Man”  Unlike “Dracula”, Frankenstein”, and “The Invisible Man”, “The Wolf Man” was not a screen adaptation of a novel.  It was rather based on werewolf legends, with some “new legends” thought up by screenwriter Curt Siodmak - including the poem at the beginning of this post.  Lon Chaney Jr. (birth name Creighton Chaney), son of famous silent horror actor Lon Chaney, got the part of Larry Talbot.  Makeup artist Jack Pierce did the wolf man makeup.
    Instead of just names, the credits at the beginning of “The Wolf Man” show pictures of main characters along with the actor or actress’s names and the roles they played.  Following this are the credits for screenplay, directors and so on.  The film opens with a shot of a row of encyclopedias.  One is taken and opened, and we see an entry on “LYCANTHROPY”.  In the nest scene, Larry Talbot is being chauffeured to Talbot Castle.  Upon arrival he is greeted by Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains).  Larry is Sir John’s son, returned from America after the death of his older brother.
    Later, up in the observatory, Larry works on a telescope.  He looks through the telescope at the town, and focuses in on an open window through which a pretty girl can be seen.  The girl puts on an earring.  Seeing that the window is above an antique shop, Larry goes into town and visits the shop.  The girl, Gwen Conliffe (played by Evelyn Ankers), is behind the counter. Larry says that he is looking for a gift.  He describes to her the earring she was wearing (which she no longer has on), and after she replies that they haven’t any like that, he responds “Oh yes you have, don’t you remember?  On your dressing table, up in your room.”  Mystified, Gwen tells him they aren’t for sale.  Larry goes on to look at canes.  He takes one out with a handle in the shape of a wolf, and a five pointed star on it.  Gwen explains that the pentagram is the sign of the werewolf, and that every werewolf sees it in the palm of his next victim’s hand.  Larry buys the cane.  Gwen, still curious about the earring incident, asks him if he has ever seen her before.  He replies “Of course”, but before telling her where and how, wants her to agree to take a walk with him that night.  She says no, and walks with him to the door.  They see gypsies driving past outside.
    Later, Larry and Sir John briefly discuss the werewolf legend.  In the next scene, we see the door to the antique shop, at night, from which Gwen emerges.  Larry, waiting in a nearby doorway, walks up to her.  She is wearing the earrings he liked, and he has the cane.  Gwen calls to a friend, Jenny, who wants to come with them to the gypsy camp and have her fortune told.  Jenny and Gwen laugh at Larry’s chagrin, and the three set off together.  On the way, they see wolf bane, and Jenny picks some.  Jenny goes in to have her fortune told first.  Larry and Gwen take a walk in the fog shrouded woods.  Larry explains about the telescope.  Gwen tells him that she is engaged.  Larry, however, does not seem terribly discouraged by the announcement.  In the gypsy tent, Bela (played by Bela Lugosi) tosses Jenny’s wolf bane off the table.  When he looks at her palm, he sees a pentagram.  He is visibly upset and tells her to go.  She leaves, and goes running through the woods.  Larry and Gwen hear a wolf howling and then a scream.  Larry runs off to see what is happening and finds Jenny being mauled by a wolf.  Larry struggles with the wolf - which bites him on the chest - and finally kills it with the cane.  Gwen finds Larry on the ground.  A gypsy woman (played by Maria Ouspenskaya) comes along with her cart.  She and Gwen take Larry to Talbot Castle.
    Men go to look at Jenny’s body, and they find the body of Bela the gypsy nearby, and Larry’s cane.  The next day, the constable and a doctor go to see Larry.  He admits to owning the stick and asserts that he killed the wolf with it.  Sir John informs Larry that Bela was killed and his stick was found by the body.  Larry goes to show the wound he received, but it is gone.  Sir John tells Larry that Paul (the constable) wants to ask him some questions.
    “Yeah, go ahead.  But don’t try to make me believe that I killed a man when I know that I killed a wolf!” exclaims Larry.
    Will they believe him?  Will he too become a werewolf?
    Well, I doubt there will be many of my readers who don’t already know the answer to that last question. :) 
    Larry Talbot - who may, from what I’ve written, sound like a creepy, voyeuristic stalker - was played with a gentleness and sweetness by Lon Chaney Jr.  Lon Jr. had something of a childlike quality about him - which served him especially well in his portrayal of Lennie in the film adaptation of “Of Mice and Men”.  In addition to Lon Jr. in “The Wolf Man”, we get performances from Bela Lugosi and Claude Rains, as well as Maria Ouspenskaya and Evelyn Ankers.  Quite the horror roster.
    I have a soft spot for “The Wolf Man”, probably in part because it was, as I recall, my first classic horror film (other than horror comedies, that is).  But I also appreciate it allegorically - it reminds me of the duality within us, of the battle between the flesh and the spirit in the Christian.
    To choose a “most sympathetic monster” from Universal’s roster would be a difficult and probably quite subjective task.  But for me, it might be the wolf man.  After all, who else became a monster apparently as a result of trying to save someone’s life?

Review of “Frankenstein” (1931)

    After the success of “Dracula", Universal Pictures began filming an adaptation of another famous horror novel - “Frankenstein”.  A bit of clarification here for those who are under the impression that the name Frankenstein refers to the green monster with the flattish head and bolts/electrodes in the sides of his neck - Frankenstein is the last name of the scientist who stitched together dead bodies and used his scientific discoveries to bring this creature to life.  The resultant monster is, well, “the monster” or “Frankenstein’s monster”, although the name Frankenstein is often attributed, even in subsequent films if I remember correctly, to him.
    The role of the monster was offered to Bela Lugosi, fresh from his role as Dracula, but he either turned it down or was dismissed from the project; stories seem to differ.  Director James Whale tested actor Boris Karloff (born William Henry Pratt, in England) - who had been playing small parts in films for years - for the role.  Karloff got the part.  Makeup artist Jack Pierce, with the influence of James Whale (and possibly Karloff, to a degree) designed the iconic look of the monster.  Pierce used a blue-green makeup on Karloff, as it produced a pale, sickly hue in black and white.  Mortician’s wax was used on Karloff’s eyelids to give them the heavy look.
    The film opens with a prologue, spoken by Edward Van Sloan - a sort of warning to the audience of the fearful tale that is to come.  Following this are the title and credits.  Behind some of them are revolving pictures of eyes.  When the credits for the performers come up, the role of the monster is credited with a question mark.
    The first scene is in an eerie graveyard.  Mourning people stand around a grave where a service for a dead man is apparently just being concluded.  Hiding nearby, Henry Frankenstein (played by Colin Clive) and his hunchback assistant Fritz (played by Dwight Frye), lie in wait.  After the mourners have left and the grave has been filled in, Henry and Fritz go to work digging it up again.  They remove the coffin from its resting place, and haul it along through craggy scenery on a cart.  They approach a gallows upon which a hanged man still hangs.  At Henry Frankenstein’s order, Fritz climbs up and cuts the rope.  The body falls, and Henry examines it, realizing with apparent disgust that the neck is broken and the brain will be useless.
    In the quest for a usable brain, Fritz waits outside the window of Goldstadt Medical College, where a class is taking place on the differences between the normal and criminal brains - with two brains in glass containers as illustration.  When the class has left, Fritz pries open the window and goes inside, taking the normal brain from the table, but a noise startles him and he drops it, shattering the glass and, um - Warning to People with Very Weak Stomachs - I confess the brain smashing bit got to me.  Granted it’s a disembodied brain, but still.  This part is a bit more gross/gruesome than these old movies usually were.  So I advise not eating or drinking anything while watching (that’s generally a safe policy when dealing with horror films anyway).  Though many or most of you may think I’m overreacting :).  Fritz goes back to the table and takes the abnormal brain.
    Next we are taken to a luxurious house.  Henry Frankenstein’s fiancee, Elizabeth (played by Mae Clarke), voices her concern about Henry to friend Victor Moritz (played by John Boles).  She has not seen Henry, presumably for months.  He has been away in an abandoned watch tower, working on his experiments.  Victor had seen him three weeks previously, and says his manner was very strange.  Victor decides to go to Dr. Waldman, Henry’s old medical school professor, to see if he can tell him any more about all this.  Elizabeth determines to go with him.
    At Dr. Waldman’s, Elizabeth asks the doctor why Henry left the university.  Dr. Waldman (played by Edward Van Sloan) explains that Frankenstein’s advanced researches were becoming dangerous.  He desired them to provide him with other bodies, without being “too particular” where and how they got them.  Upon being told his demands were unreasonable, Frankenstein left the university.
    A curving path leads up to the watch tower, which we see amidst a storm. Inside the tower, we see Henry at work.  Electrical machinery is set up in the tower, awaiting use upon the body that lays, partially covered with a sheet, upon a table, and endowed with the brain Fritz stole from the medical college.  Henry and Fritz prepare for “one final test”.  A knock is heard on the door.  Fritz goes down the stone staircase to send the unwelcome callers away.  The callers are Dr. Waldman, Elizabeth, and Victor.  Despite Fritz’s demand for them to go away, the knocking continues, accompanied now with shouts, which Henry hears.  At the behest of his fiancee, he lets the three in.  Victor’s assertion that he is crazy is met by Henry with brooding, glowering eyes.  “Crazy am I?  We’ll see whether I’m crazy or not.” he says.
    He brings his visitors up the stairs to the room where his experiment awaits.  He tells Dr. Waldman that he has discovered a ray.  This ray he intends to harness with his machinery and use to bring the dead body on the table to life - a body which Frankenstein stitched together from different corpses.  After a bright flash of lightning, Henry and Fritz ready the equipment.  Amid flashes of electricity and noise from the strange machinery, the table bearing the body is lifted up to a hole in the ceiling of the tower.  The electrical equipment for the film, by the way, was put together by Kenneth Strickfaden, an electrician who collected parts from different machines as a hobby.
    After the body is lowered again, Frankenstein observes its hand move.  Repeating what became one of cinema’s most famous phrases - “It’s alive!” - Henry goes from rapt but controlled excitement to wild, giddy exultation.  Drunk with power, Henry proclaims, “Now I know what it feels like to be God.”  But he is, after all, only a human, and his dangerous game of playing God will not be without dire consequences.  In a world where the discoveries of science sound much like the science fiction of yesteryear - GMO “frankenfood”, the ability to alter DNA, cloning, and so on, with scientists meddling in things that may be better left alone - “Frankenstein” remains relevant.
    “Frankenstein” benefits from some excellent acting on the part of Colin Clive and Boris Karloff.  There was so much expressiveness in their eyes.  Karloff’s performance as the childlike creature yearning for affection, yet turned to brutal monster by cruelty, is touching and poignant.  His expression and body language in one scene, as he holds out his hands and looks at Henry Frankenstein, like a child to a parent, are especially moving.  I feel I ought to also mention the great performance of Marilyn Harris.  Though not in the film very long, she was apparently a very game little child actress (I refrain from saying much more on the subject in case it may be considered a “spoiler”).
    Frankenstein’s monster - thrust into a cruel world through no wish of his own, a baby in a strong man’s body -  his violence may elicit terror, but likely mixed with sympathy.
    Until next time, when I propose to revisit 1933’s “The Invisible Man”.