The Wolfman (1941)

The Wolf Man is a 1941 American Werewolf Horror film written by Curt Siodmak and produced and directed by George Waggner. The film stars Lon Chaney, Jr. as The Wolf Man, featuring Claude Rains, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Béla Lugosi, and Maria Ouspenskaya. The title character has had a great deal of influence on Hollywood's depictions of the legend of the werewolf.[2] The film is the second Universal Pictures werewolf movie, preceded six years earlier by the less commercially successful Werewolf of London. Chaney. Jr's portrayal of The Wolf Man is considered to be one of the main Universal Monsters and is often listed with the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera and Gill Man.



After learning of the death of his brother, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) returns to his ancestral home in Llanwelly, Wales to reconcile with his estranged father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains). While there, Larry becomes romantically interested in a local girl named Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), who runs an antique shop. As a pretext to converse with her, he purchases a silver-headed walking stick decorated with a wolf. Gwen tells him that it represents a werewolf (which she defines as a man who changes into a wolf "at certain times of the year.")


Throughout the film, various villagers recite a poem, whenever the subject of werewolves comes up:
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.

That night, Larry attempts to rescue Gwen's friend Jenny from what he believes to be a sudden wolf attack. He kills the beast with his new walking stick, but is bitten on the chest in the process. A gypsy fortuneteller named Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) reveals to Larry that the animal which bit him was actually her son Bela (Béla Lugosi) in the form of a wolf. Bela had been a werewolf for years and now Larry will be transformed into one as well. Talbot transforms into a wolf-like creature and stalks the village, first killing the local gravedigger. Talbot retains vague memories of being a werewolf and wanting to kill, and continually struggles to overcome his condition. He is finally bludgeoned to death by his father with his own silver walking stick after attacking Gwen. Sir John Talbot watches in horror as the werewolf transforms into his son's human form as the local police arrive on the scene.

Production:
The poem, contrary to popular belief, was not an ancient legend, but was in fact an invention of screenwriter Siodmak. The poem is repeated in every subsequent film in which Talbot/The Wolf Man appears, with the exception of House of Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and is also quoted in the later film Van Helsing, although many later films change the last line of the poem to "And the moon is full and bright".


The original Wolf Man film does not make use of the idea that a werewolf is transformed under a full moon. Gwen's description and the poem imply that it happens when the wolfbane blooms in autumn. The first sequel, though, made explicit use of the full moon both visually and in the dialog, and also changed the poem to specify when the moon is full and bright. Presumably this is what popularized the full-moon connection in the 20th century. The sequel visually implies that the transformation occurs as a result of direct exposure to light from the full moon. Other fiction has assumed the transformation is an inescapable monthly occurrence and does not examine whether it is caused by light, tidal effects, or some cycle that happens to coincide with the moon's phases.

From Wikipedia



THE WOLF MAN
GEORGE WAGNER  (1941)
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
71 MIN
USA