Le Loup-garou

An all time classic! One of the top notch horror films of the 1940's! Superb Universal atmosphere, superb performance by Lon Chaney Jr. I won't go into the story because we all know it. Let me just say that this movie is chuck full of atmosphere and it's fair share of thrills. If your a youngster, it will still scare you just as it did all those years ago. And for us older folk, it is a great throwback and full of nostalgia. Really makes you remember where you were as a kid the first time you saw it! Rent it, buy it, treasure it! One heck of an enduring classic!

When I was about 18, my uncle came over and said he had just bought two new movies Frankenstien and the Wolf Man and wanted me to watch them with him. Since I was nursing a broken foot at the time I decided to go watch them. Thank you uncle for a truly memorable night. The Wolf Man is great movie. It spooky atmosphere and creepy music only add to this gem of a flick. As far as Lon Chaney goes; this role was made for him. He is perfect as the tragic Larry Talbot. Horror movie makers of today should watch these classic gems before attempting their movies. God knows they could learn a thing or two about how to make a REAL horror movies. What must Lon, Boris, Bela and Vincent be think as they look down the atrocities that are called horror movies. It's like my uncle has always said: They sure don't make horror movies like they used to.

They sure don't uncle. They sure don't.

Lon Chaney portrays psychological torment, guilt, and conflict so well in this film. These feelings are so absent in this century. Larry Talbot, in contrast to public officials and corporate executives, wants to do the right thing, and feels remorse at the suffering that he has caused. Chaney also does this in his later Inner Sanctum films. Maria Ouspenskaya is also great as Maleva, the gypsy. And the music is also marvelous. Films as these put contemporary horror films to shame. The former are fun and a pleasure to watch. This one is quite good.

As werewolf movies go The Wolf Man is probably the best. It was written by Curt Siodmak and directed by George Waggner. The script, though it gets the job done, has altogether too many wolf and dog references in it for comfort, many in the first fifteen minutes. A horror movie should never at the outset tell you that it is a horror movie. The title and and cast often give this away anyway, I grant, not to mention lobby cards and reviews. But the idea is or should be to draw the viewer in slowly, enabling him to acclimatize himself to the people and atmosphere so that the horror can, as it were, creep up on him. For all its excellent qualities The Wolf Man does not do this. Otherwise it works fairly nicely.

A thoroughly Americanized Larry Talbot arrives at the estate of his British father, Sir John (A baronet? I wish they'd made this clear). Aside from the fact that he is three times larger than his father and altogether different in temperament (shy and fumbling as opposed to assertive and incisive), the two hit it off well enough. Larry has returned from the States due to the death of his brother, and Sir John clearly wants Larry to take his place (whatever it is) in the village. Larry spies on a young woman through a telescope (Sir John is an astronomer), and goes to her shop, where he buys a cane, with a wolf's head, and asks her for a date. She agrees, but when they meet later on she brings a friend, just in case Larry gets too, well, wolfish. It is autumn and the gypsies are in town. Larry his girl and her friend go to a fortune teller to get their palms read. The palm-reader sees death in the friend's hand and urges her to go. Later on, in the form of a wolf, he attacks and kills the girl, and is in turn killed by Larry with his cane; but Larry is bitten by the wolf, which guarantees that he will become one, too. In time Larry does indeed become a werewolf, but as with everything else in his life only goes half-way. While the animal that attacked him was a wolf, Larry becomes only partly wolf in appearance, though when the transformation occurs he is wholly wolf in spirit, yet walks on two human, albeit furry legs. He is more or less adopted by the dead Gypsy fortune teller's mother, who looks after him, and has a way of turning up in her wagon at appropriate moments. She also recites a poem about werewolfery (or lycanthropy if you will), which I shall not repeat here and which everyone in the village seems to know by heart. Sir John, being a man of science, does not believe that his son is a true werewolf but suffering from some form of mental illness. Yet when the moon rises Larry turns into a werewolf and goes on rampages.

The Wolf Man is quite well made on what appears to be, for its studio, a generous budget; fog swirls everywhere, and the landscape is dominated by gnarled, leafless trees. It's tone is evocative of the Sherlock Holmes films, though not of course the content. There are so many good and bad things in the picture they're difficult to enumerate, and are often jumbled together. Of the bad, the casting of Americans Evelyn Ankers and Ralph Bellamy as Brits. Neither give a bad performance, but they don't belong in this film. It's difficult enough to keep one's disbelief in suspension with Lon Chaney on hand, but the addition of these two is a bit too much. Claude Rains, as Sir John, is a great asset to the movie, giving it a touch class and gravitas. His occasionally supercilious manner is in keeping in with the part he plays; and though he doesn't look at all like Chaney's father, he acts it. Maria Ouspenskaya and Bela Lugosi make marvelous gypsies, and they play their parts sincerely, with none of the hamming one might expect. Chaney's Larry Talbot became, after his Lennie in Of Mice and Men, his most famous role. He is sincere if somewhat phlegmatic in his 'normal' scenes, and early on, before the wolf-bite, lacks the joi de vivre he ought to have, as he is supposed to be a carefree young man. Chaney never seemed carefree. On the other hand his tragic, deeply lined face, sad eyes and prematurely middle-aged appearance suggests a troubled soul,--not an easy thing to fake--and in this regard he is magnificent in the part. His worry, over the prospect of another werewolf transformation, and the damage it will cause, appears genuine, and to a degree seems to come at times from outside the character he is playing, which as we know Chaney had serious personal problems, is a case of art imitating life, and the result is a kind of sad serendipity.

It wasn't the first werewolf movie (that honor goes to `Werewolf of London'), but it was `The Wolf Man' that gives us most of the werewolf mythology we still cling to today.

As with most classics, `The Wolf Man' draws its power from a combination of elements. First, there's Curt Siodmak's plausible and intelligent script. Siodmak said he was given a title, a star and a start date, and from there he consolidated and invented the werewolf myth into a cohesive, logical format.

Then there's the actors, a veritable who's who of 1930s-40s Universal horror. Lon Chaney joins the pantheon on great horror actors on this one, playing the tormented Larry Talbot. He manages to give Larry a tragic quality, a man trapped by a curse he doesn't understand or deserve. Chaney also generates considerable chemistry with the luminous Evelyn Ankers, which is surprising considering the rumors that the two practically hated each other. And then there's the always-excellent Claude Rains, who doesn't look very much like Lon Chaney's father, but still exudes quiet authority and authenticity.

Topping off the whole package is a healthy dollop of atmosphere: foggy forests, Gothic mansions and crypts, colorful Gypsy encampments. Each bit of design enhances the sense of mystery and dread that surround Larry Talbot, and burns `The Wolf Man' into your memory.

I'll never walk a foggy forest at night again!