The Wolf Man (1941)
I figured it was time to review Lon Chaney Jr.’s magnum opus. The first thing that is apparent is that Claude Rains was an order of magnitude above the rest of the actors. Well, Rains was two orders beyond Chaney. But I will say that in the non-monster related earlier part of the movie the scenes with Chaney and his father and with the girl were fun to watch. As Larry Talbot, Chaney was engaging and sympathetic. But once he started killing werewolves and becoming a werewolf he became increasingly annoying and neurotic about telling everyone about how tough it was being a werewolf. Me, me, me. Very needy.
Incidentally, they killed off Bela Lugosi about ninety seconds into the only screen time he was given. And to add insult to injury, they didn’t even bother to give him an original character name. They called him Bela! I mean, how lousy is that? They probably paid him by the hour and sent him packing after his scene to save money. Very sad.
And I noticed something very strange about the wolf man character. Right before Larry Talbot goes out on his first killing spree, he notices hair growing on his body. He takes off a white shirt leaving him in a white undershirt (incidentally a wife beater style). Then he takes off his shoes and socks and we watch his feet becoming paws while he is sitting in a chair. Then still focusing on his legs he gets up, apparently heading out the window of his room to go find the grave digger and rip out his throat. But in the next shot we see the wolf man in a dark colored button down shirt.
Now are we supposed to believe that the Wolf Man went into Larry Talbot’s closet, picked out a matching shirt and using his front paws, buttoned it up and headed out for a bite to eat? I don’t know. I mean it was a nice shirt but just how far is my suspension of disbelief supposed to stretch. I feel like I’m being abused here.
Well, anyway, after Claude Rains clubs Lon Chaney Jr. to death with his own silver wolf-headed walking stick, the gypsy lady recites that, “The way he walked was thorny” doggerel over poor Larry’s corpse and the music soars and the credits roll.
But i don’t know. I feel kind of cheated. I feel like Larry’s ghost should have appeared and complained about the bum deal he got. He’s living in California for eighteen years, helping to build the Mt Wilson observatory. Then his elder brother dies so he returns to Talbot Castle to take up the role of heir apparent to his father’s title (baronet?) and after just a couple of days he’s bitten by a werewolf and beaten to death by his own dad. And what fun did he actually have? He only managed to kill one crummy grave digger. It doesn’t seem fair. At least if he’d gotten a chance to sink his teeth into Gwen Conliffe’s throat he’d have a story to tell the other dearly departed monsters like Dracula and the Mummy. But as things stand he seems to have been given short shrift.
Alright. That’s enough. So all in all the movie starts off well and ends a little flat. Perhaps I’ll consider Larry Talbot’s run in with Abbott and Costello more successful.