{"id":1615,"date":"2018-10-17T20:54:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T00:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=1615"},"modified":"2018-10-17T20:59:24","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T00:59:24","slug":"universal-classic-monster-movies-an-ocf-classic-movie-review-part-4-wolfman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/17\/universal-classic-monster-movies-an-ocf-classic-movie-review-part-4-wolfman\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Classic Monster Movies \u2013 An OCF Classic Movie Review \u2013 Part 4 – Wolfman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Re-posted from October 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nowadays urban fantasy has gotten all highfalutin with a bunch \u00a0of flavors of wolf creatures.\u00a0 There are werewolves and lycanthropes and loup garous and lycans and blutbaden and all other sub-categories of wolf metamorphosing humans.\u00a0 Back in the day there were just werewolves.\u00a0 And the most famous case was Larry Talbot.<\/p>\n

Larry was a British ex-pat living in America.\u00a0 He left home after a disagreement with his father.\u00a0 His father was a titled Lord living on the family estate.\u00a0 But when Larry\u2019s older brother died it was time for the prodigal son to return and take up his family responsibility as the heir apparent.\u00a0 As luck would have it, Larry\u2019s arrival home coincided with the arrival of a troop of gypsies outside of the local village.\u00a0 And it was at the gypsy camp that Larry would begin his personal exploration of nocturnal non-domestic canine\/human feeding habits.\u00a0 Larry is attacked by a werewolf who during the day is Bela the gypsy fortune teller (interestingly played by Bela Lugosi).\u00a0 Bela wounds Larry but is himself killed by Larry using a silver headed walking stick.\u00a0 The head of the stick is, of course, shaped like a wolf\u2019s head.\u00a0 Larry is carried back to his home where he survives his wound which heals in the shape of a pentagram (the sign of the werewolf!).\u00a0 The killing of Bela becomes part of a police investigation and Larry is suspected but being a nobleman, he is not pestered by arrest or even having to appear before a magistrate.\u00a0 The police inspector is forced to come visit him at the manor and all deference to his status maintained.\u00a0 Meanwhile Larry is starting to feel funny and the next night he turns into a werewolf and goes on a killing spree.\u00a0 After this he is desperate to believe that he is only suffering from nightmares and delusions but the evidence starts mounting up against him.\u00a0 At one point during one of his nocturnal hunts, he is caught in a leg trap.\u00a0 And here he is saved by Bela\u2019s mother.\u00a0 The old gypsy lady feels responsible for Larry\u2019s plight and recites a spell over him that turns him back into a man and allows him to escape the trap.\u00a0 Finally, Larry reaches the end point of his despair when he knows that his next victim is the woman he loves.\u00a0 Luckily (sort of) his father manages to kill Larry with the same silver wolf headed walking stick that Larry used earlier for the same purpose.\u00a0 So, the story ends on this somber scene of father looking down at the son he has just killed.\u00a0 The gypsy woman recites her spell again and we\u2019re supposed to realize that this was the merciful release and the best-case ending for poor Larry Talbot.<\/p>\n

In terms of range of acting ability and style\u00a0the Wolfman is probably the most varied of the Universal Classic Monster Movies.\u00a0 On the one hand we have Claude Rains playing Lord Talbot, Larry\u2019s father.\u00a0 Rains is an excellent actor and also a very polished individual who easily can play a nobleman in a movie.\u00a0 He was also rather short and slight of build.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry.\u00a0 Chaney was an indifferent actor and a very large and tall man with a booming rough voice.\u00a0 He was more at home in a broad comedy such as the pictures he did at Universal with the comic duo Abbot and Costello.\u00a0 In fact, he reprised his role as the Wolfman in the monster spoof, \u201cAbbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein.\u201d\u00a0 It might be assumed that he would be out of his depth trying to portray a nobleman\u2019s son but he plays the part as a self-made man who grew up in America and reflects the manners and outlook of his adoptive land.\u00a0 He employs a working-class diction and style of speech and comes off as a personable individual with maybe a slightly hot temper.\u00a0 The relation between father and son seems to be cordial, warm and in the spirit of a mutual rapprochement after a youthful revolt against parental authority.\u00a0 Before the disaster occurs to Larry, the atmosphere is of a joyful family reunion.\u00a0 So, these two actors almost exact opposites in appearance, acting style and talent level manage to do a convincing job of portraying themselves as family.<\/p>\n

The other important portrayal is the old gypsy woman played by Maria Ouspenskaya.\u00a0 Since her son Bela was a werewolf she understands Larry\u2019s plight and realizes what his fate will be.\u00a0 And being a gypsy of course she has witch-like powers (and a really cool accent).\u00a0 When Larry needs to escape from his wolf form she could recite the following spell to revert him to human form.<\/p>\n

“The way you walked was thorny, though no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Now you will have peace for eternity.”<\/p>\n

She is the coolest aspect of the movie and provides the atmosphere (along with the fog machine that must have been working overtime for this film) that allows you to think 20th<\/sup> Century England could be infested with werewolves and gypsies.<\/p>\n

And finally, the other notable aspect of the movie is the tradition spawned of werewolves transforming during the full moon.\u00a0 Or did it?\u00a0 Actually, in this first Larry Talbot outing the full moon isn\u2019t explicitly mentioned:<\/p>\n

Even a man who is pure in heart<\/p>\n

and says his prayers by night<\/p>\n

may become a wolf when the wolfs bane blooms<\/p>\n

and the autumn moon is bright.<\/p>\n

Later they change the final line to \u201cand the moon is full and bright.\u201d\u00a0 So here we can see that autumn and wolfs bane is part of the equation.\u00a0 Maybe this restricts it to the Hunter\u2019s or Harvest Moon.<\/p>\n

So, do I like the Wolfman?\u00a0 Only parts.\u00a0 I like the beginning and I like the end.\u00a0 But the middle where Larry is fretting over whether he is going crazy isn\u2019t all that good.\u00a0 So, I recommend seeing it at least once but it\u2019s not my favorite for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Re-posted from October 2017   Nowadays urban fantasy has gotten all highfalutin with a bunch \u00a0of flavors of wolf creatures.\u00a0 There are werewolves and lycanthropes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237,4,243,1],"tags":[433,431,434,417,60],"class_list":["post-1615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-movie-reviews","category-uncategorized","tag-claude-rains","tag-lon-chaney-jr","tag-maria-ouspenskaya","tag-universal-classic-monster-movies","tag-werewolf"],"yoast_head":"\nUniversal Classic Monster Movies \u2013 An OCF Classic Movie Review \u2013 Part 4 - Wolfman - 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