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In Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Pretorius, played by the inimitable Ernest Thesiger, raises his glass and proposes a toast to Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein—“to a new world of Gods and Monsters.” I invite you to join me in exploring this world, focusing on horror films from the dawn of the Universal Monster movies in 1931 to the collapse of the studio system and the rise of the new Hollywood rebels in the late 1960’s. With this period as our focus, and occasional ventures beyond, we will explore this magnificent world of classic horror. So, I raise my glass to you and invite you to join me in the toast.
Universal had been the reigning house of horror in Hollywood since 1931 largely because of Carl Laemmle, Jr.’s brief reign as head of production. Unfortunately, the studio also hemorrhaged money under his watch. In March of 1936, the studio was sold and production of horror films ground to a halt. Except for The Invisible Ray and Dracula’s Daughter, both released in the year of the sale, virtually nothing from the genre would be released for three years even though they were essentially the only profitable films for Universal during the tenure of the younger Laemmle. But as is so often the case in times of political uncertainty, in this instance the rise of fascism in Europe, horror became a means of facing and releasing fears. In 1939, as Hitler was invading neighboring nations, Universal revived its most successful monster for a third time with Son of Frankenstein. Sequels to The Invisible Man and The Mummy soon followed, also to great success. It was clear that the time was ripe to introduce a new monster to the pantheon—The Wolf Man.
Universal had made a werewolf movie before, Werewolf of London in 1935, but it had failed to ignite at the box office. The film is much more related to the science-bound Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story than the folkloric mythos more often associated with werewolves today. The studio also attempted to make a werewolf movie for its great monster star Boris Karloff, but the script never came together entirely and was abandoned when the Laemmles lost control of the studio.
Though hardly the first werewolf movie, The Wolf Man set the template for the subgenre as we know it. The mythology of the werewolf including the full moon, death by silver, and becoming a werewolf by being bitten by a werewolf all come, not from medieval folklore, but from the mind of screenwriter Curt Siodmak. Though other touches, such as the pentagram marking the werewolf’s next victim and the importance of wolfsbane have fallen by the wayside, these other elements have an organic sensibility to them that make them feel as though they sprung from the ancients rather than the relatively modern world. That is also something of the feel of the whole film. In some ways, it seems far flung in both time and place, while in others, set in modern (1941) America. In the original script, the setting was modern-day Wales, but references to this were removed during the shooting. This ultimately works to the film’s benefit, giving it a universal and timeless sensibility, much like the monster movies of Universal’s first wave of classics.
Siodmak also tapped into important human elements of the story. As with the Frankenstein monster, he understood that it was important for audiences to sympathize with the monster, and the Wolf Man is indeed the most sympathetic of all Universal monsters. There is a deep tragedy to the story of a man forced to become something frightening and murderous against his will. As the rhyme repeated three times in the film says, “even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” Larry Talbot is such a “pure in heart” man. That he is killed by his own father, who has recently lost another son, only deepens the classically tragic element, making it a tragedy of nearly Greek or Shakespearian proportions.
For the role of Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man, Universal decided to capitalize on the name of one of its greatest stars of the silent era Lon Chaney, in the form of his son Creighton, who began performing under the name Lon Chaney, Jr. under pressure from studios. In 1939, Chaney had had his big break with the role of Lennie in Of Mice and Men—an acclaimed performance of sensitivity and nuance. Universal, however, saw his imposing size and decided he was best suited to play monsters. In early 1941, he played his first major horror role as the title character in Man Made Monster, a role not too far removed from the Frankenstein monster, which he would play in Ghost of Frankenstein in 1942. With Talbot, Chaney was able to play to his greatest strengths, both as a troubled and tragic man when he appeared as Larry, and the imposing physical presence of his beastly form.
Chaney was accompanied by a stellar supporting cast, one of the strongest ever assembled for a Universal monster movie. Evelyn Ankers (Gwen Conliffe) was the leading female horror star of the 1940’s at Universal and often appeared opposite Chaney. Ralph Bellamy (Colonel Montford) had been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Awful Truth in 1937 and had a very long and varied career that included appearances in His Girl Friday (1940), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Trading Places (1983), and Pretty Woman (1990). Patric Knowles (Frank Andrews) also had a long and diverse career appearing in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Chism (1970). He would also appear in the second Wolf Man film along with Lon Chaney, Jr., Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).
The three most notable performances in the film, besides Chaney, are from Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, and the inimitable Maria Ouspenskaya. Claude Rains, who plays Larry’s stern and scientifically minded father John Talbot, began his career at Universal playing the lead, though mostly unseen, role of Jack Griffin, better known as The Invisible Man (1933). Managing to avoid the typecasting of his predecessors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, Rains became one of the most respected character actors of all time, appearing in a wide variety of roles in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Casablanca (1942), Phantom of the Opera (1943), Notorious (1946), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) among many, many others. Though Lugosi appears only briefly as Bela, the fortune teller, he pours everything he has into the role, as he always did. He leaves a lasting mark on the film and on the main character as he is the werewolf that bites Talbot.
Maria Ouspenskaya is a truly indelible film presence. She was not only a very highly respected actress, but also acting and dance coach. She was twice nominated for Academy Awards for her roles in Dodsworth (1936) and Love Affair (1939) and founded The School of Dramatic Art in New York City in 1929 and The Maria Ouspenskaya School of Dance in Los Angeles when she moved to Hollywood in the 30’s. Though her role as Maleva could be seen as a tired cliché today, it was quite unique at the time. She is the sage who simultaneously teaches and warns. Maleva’s descendants have appeared throughout horror history, sometimes as a harbinger like Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) in the first two Friday the 13th movies or perhaps more directly in a character like Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein) in the Poltergeist series. For all her formidable credentials, Maleva is Ouspenskaya’s most famous role, and she would repeat it two years later in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
Universal’s legendary Jack Pierce would create his fourth iconic monster make-up (after Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, and the Bride) with the Wolf Man. Pierce was already considered a master of hair make-ups, exemplified by his work on the human-beast hybrids in Island of Lost Souls (1932) and Ygor (Bela Lugosi) in Son of Frankenstein, but the Wolf Man is the epitome of this skill. He had originally planned a very similar make-up for Henry Hull in Werewolf of London, but the star and the studio requested that he scale it back to make Hull more recognizable. There were no such limitations with Chaney, who found the process arduous and the make-up itself extremely uncomfortable. Also, he and Pierce did not particularly get along. Ironically, no actor (with the possible exception of Boris Karloff) spent as much time in Pierce’s chair than Chaney, playing the Mummy twice in addition to his Frankenstein’s monster and Wolf Man appearances. Despite his distaste for the make-up, Chaney agreed to play the character four more times, making the Wolf Man the only major Universal monster to be played consistently by the same actor.
Following the original, Chaney would play Larry Talbot and his hairy alter-ego in several “monster mashes” of the 1940’s. The first of these was the afore-mentioned Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. The success of having two monsters clash led to having many monsters together in House of Frankenstein in 1944. The following year, the monsters teamed up again for House of Dracula in which Larry Talbot finally finds a happy ending when he is cured of his lycanthropy. This cure was brushed aside for one final team-up in the horror-comedy classic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), in which the comedy duo also meet Dracula (played for only the second time on screen by Bela Lugosi) and the Wolf Man.
Like the phases of the moon, werewolf movies seem to come in cycles. About every twenty years, a new important film appears involving the legendary creature, most of them owing a great deal to the mythos created by Curt Siodmak and The Wolf Man—either to pay tribute to it, or to subvert it. In 1961, Hammer released Curse of the Werewolf starring Oliver Reed, which carries on the particularly tragic elements from the earlier film. 1981 saw three major films (as well as a few minor ones) that put their own stamp on the legend: The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, and Wolfen. The Howling and American Werewolf in particular make direct references to The Wolf Man, sometimes to adhere to the mythos it created, sometimes to subvert it. The Canadian film Ginger Snaps was released in 2000 and brought the puberty and sexual awakening subtext of the werewolf story to the forefront. And, right on schedule, 2020-21 have seen several werewolf films, perhaps most notably The Wolf of Snow Hollow and Werewolves Within. Of course, there have been smatterings of films that fall outside the cycles—I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), The Company of Wolves (1984), Teen Wolf (1985), Bad Moon (1996), and Cursed (2005) are all great examples, but they are in many ways exceptions that prove the rule.
Of all these films, The Wolf Man remains the most influential of them all. It inspired the screenwriters, directors, and make-up masters that grew up watching it as they set out to make their own werewolf films, which in turn inspired the next generation in making theirs. But it all leads back to the beginning—to Curt Siodmak, Lon Chaney, Jr., Jack Pierce, the misty moors of the undisclosed town and the tragic monster they created to inhabit it. It is a modern creation that feels like an ancient legend. It continues, after 80 years, to bid us to fear the full moon and reminds us that even those who are pure in heart can hide a beast within.
