The Wolf Man

"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." --The Wolf Man (1941)

Larry Talbot, as portrayed by actor Lon Chaney Jr. in 1941's iconic film The Wolf Man, has to qualify as one of the saddest characters in cinematic history. His big, affable oafishness is offset by his somewhat puffy facial features; a bulbous nose and somewhat droopy lids. His manner is gentle, but is marked by a kind of child-like, innocent suffering.

He is a doomed man. Doomed by the pentagram, the "sign of the werewolf."

Larry Talbot travels back to Wales after seventeen years spent abroad, becoming an American. Here, he will inherit his ancestral estate, reconnect with his father (Claude Rains) and the people in the small, surrounding village, and learn to be a "lord of the manor" in the traditional manner. After fixing the large telescope in the family observatory, he focuses in on Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), who works in the antique shop across the street. Going over to meet her, he surprises her with the details he knows of her private doings (via the telescope), and purchases a strange item: a silver-headed cane that bears the pentagram. Gwen informs him that this is the sign of the werewolf, but the poor, doomed man simply laughs off the suggestion.

They both agree to go and get their fortunes told, as a lark, at the gypsy encampment on the edge of town. Accompanying them is their friend Jenny (Fay Helm). Jenny goes in to get her tarot cards read by Bela (Bela Lugosi), and he doesn't see anything good in THAT particular young woman's future. Finally taking her hand, he sees the odd, five-pointed star glow in the center of her palm, marking her as a sure victim of the werewolf. She leaves him, visibly upset.

Meanwhile Larry has sneaked off with Gwen to make his romantic moves. Suddenly hearing screams in the distance, Larry rushes through the dark and fog to find Jenny being attacked by what appears to be a large animal.

He beats the beast with the silver-headed wolf cane, but is wounded. The next day, while recuperating in bed, he is visited by the police inspector, Colonel Paul Montford (Ralph Bellamy). Bela the gypsy's barefoot, battered body has been discovered in the same place as where Larry claims to have beat to death a wolf.

Their suspicions and interrogations are fended off momentarily by Sir John, Larry's father, but Larry realizes that something is seriously wrong. His dreams become hallucinatory and strange, and he visits the old gypsy woman Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), who informs him that he has been wounded by a werewolf and so will become one himself. Larry overhears a strange poem (recited three times by Ouspenskaya during the course of the film), while she visits Bela's coffin:

""The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Your suffering is over, Bela my son. Now you will find peace."

Larry indeed transforms into a hairy, half-man, half-wolf hybrid, with fangs, a dog-like nose, and hairy feet he lopes about on as if walking on the balls of them. He kills a local gravedigger, and the surrounding village becomes frantic about the recent murders.

Realizing now that what Maleva has told him is true, he confronts his father with the knowledge of his lycanthropy. Sir John tells him he is being a paranoid, superstitious fool, but Larry has himself tied to a chair. As the moon rises, though, he manages to break free easily.

Moving across the moors, while a posse of villagers is hunting him, he accosts Gwen. By happenstance, Sir John is nearby with the silver-headed cane. To save Gwen, he beats the Wolf Man to death, watching in horror as the beast-hybrid slowly transforms back into the image of his own son. Maleva comes upon the scene and recites the strange poem again.

And that is pretty much all there is to a very simple, strange tale of supernatural possession. Chaney plays Talbot as a man possessed suddenly and tragically by dark forces, forces he cannot quite comprehend or understand. The film's "wolf men," Bela and Lon, both have a forlorn, doomed quality, as if the sign of the pentagram was on them and marking them out from the moment of their doomed births. Larry, who has been away in another land, returns home, not suspecting that the old legends and ancient curses may rise again, to claim the next generation, whether that generation be modern and sophisticated, or mired in superstitious fog.

The Wolf Man is a short, hypnotic and satisfying howl of good, old-fashioned Universal monster movie entertainment. The soundstages are transformed into dark, stark landscapes of mist, barren trees with roots that reach out of the earth like curled fingers, and leaning, crumbling tombstones giving mute testimony to the ancient dead resting beneath. Altogether essential viewing for those investigating the hairy history of horror, we give it four stars. (Pentagrams, naturally.)