Under the Dark and the Moon - The Wolf Man (1941) / Final thoughts

Happier times

The worst of times

Janet unaware Bela is a werewolf

Werewolf homicide

Wolfshead cane found next to Bela's body

Larry visits Bela's casket, mournful

The foggy, dark woods

Bela, Gwen, Larry, Janet

A father had to kill his son

The way you walk is thorny...

Not alone in the dark

Tragedy brings Larry and The Old Gypsy Woman together

One of the aspects of many of the early Universal Monster classics is the opposing science against supernatural, or “science against superstition” that I like quite a bit. Not long ago a good-to-great example of this was when Countess Zaleska tells psychiatrist Jeffery Garth to use his science to lift her “spell” off his secretary, whose heartbeat could be slowed or even lowered until flatline if the vampire daughter of Dracula so chose to do so.¹  In “The Wolf Man” (1941), Larry’s father, every bit a practical man with a scientific view on things, Sir John (Claude Rains) tries to tell his son that whatever Maria Ouspenskaya’s Old Gypsy Woman is “filling his head with”—gibberish and werewolf nonsense, he says—should not be taken seriously, it is only ironic that with the wolfshead cane Larry begs him to take with him when “on the hunt in the dark woods with the posse”, Sir John, ever the skeptic (and why wouldn’t he be?), is the one responsible for killing the werewolf often on the prowl for fresh necks to gnaw into. I think you get your money’s worth in that finale with the werewolf. Unlike the Universal “House” films², where Chaney’s werewolf is more or less a cameo or two, “The Wolf Man” has him out there grabbing a hold of Gwen one moment, trapped in an animal trap hooked to his ankle where Old Gypsy Woman finds him, and encountering Sir John in quite a nice quarrel where Rains sells the attack and death of his son phenomenally…the sheer horror on his face and realization of what he had to do, that the werewolf was real, is masterfully conveyed. There are all these moments that I can’t help but love that sort of float that tragic shadow that haunts Larry Talbot, like when at a carnival during the shooting gallery reveals the snarling wolf (Larry agonizing over how he is such a beast), Frank (Knowles) telling Gwen (who both men desire) that there is something “tragic about that man, only harm can come to you…”, the paw prints leading to his room, the pentagram imagery (on chests and hands, foretelling of bad things), and the inevitable doom that will eventually befall Larry (Ouspenskaya’s Maleva very much represents the fortune teller her people’s traveling group is reputed to be, expected to be at the body of Larry after his father caned the werewolf rampaging the woods on the outskirts of the town and Talbot castle). The memorable quotable Ouspenskaya dialogue about the werewolf (practically every character knows the “even a man who is pure at heart…” poem) and her presence in the film seems to serve as a reminder that nothing but a sad end awaits Larry, as it did Bela, Maleva’s son. Although a cameo for Bela Lugosi, he’s in yet another classic, portraying yet another tragic character, this time an innocent burdened by a curse not of his own making…and, interesting enough, when he’s turned, Bela is but a dark wolf, not a wolf man. There is a scene I never seem to comment on (perhaps last time, I’d have to check) that is visually impactful: when Larry arrives at the church with his father, the congregation all turns to look right at him. Larry is left to feel ashamed, another cut among many he takes after actually trying to kill a wolf that attacked Janet. And I don’t often mention the tragedy that had already befallen the Family Talbot…the loss of Larry’s older brother in a hunting accident. So not only does Sir John lose his oldest son, but by film’s end he “kills” his only other son. That tragedy even claims Sir John³, eventually, offering such a melancholic feeling when one looks back at the unfortunate fate of this family of Talbot men (and, we must assume, Sir John’s wife and Larry’s mother).

But this film is really, truly a film I love to look at each and every viewing. God, this is what brings me back to it along with Pierce’s werewolf makeup work and Lon Chaney’s performance. There is the amazing cast, my favorite assembled of the Universal franchise, top to bottom (even Bellamy as the cynical policeman and Warren William’s contemplative doc) uniformly excellent. I think you can look back at all the great creature features of the golden age of Universal horror and that thick Gothic dark, enveloping, encroaching, and often always producing more than folks walking within it bargain for is never more on display than in “The Wolf Man”. All the talent the Universal machine produced throughout the 30s seems to culminate here in this 1941 film…for perhaps the exception of “Creature from the Black Lagoon” in the next decade, I think the real quality of Universal filmmaking ends with “The Wolf Man”. You get the sequels, of course, after this, the “monster mashes”, but storytelling quality and characters at their very finest seem to run hot and cold in them. If you can look past Larry peeping on Gwen through his dad’s gigantic telescope while she’s in her room upon first noticing her, using that to eventually visit her antiquities store out of interest in her, then maybe the rest of the film won’t bother you too much. Future Universal horror outings featuring Larry do eventually wear out his “tragic tormented soul” routine, but initially Chaney’s most famous character left an indelible mark on the horror genre…his father’s shadow didn’t prevent the son from producing his own genre star to shine.

¹Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

²House of Frankenstein (1944)/House of Dracula (1945)

³Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), it is said when police visit Larry Talbot’s coffin that Sir John died of grief.