226. The Wolf Man

Song - Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

Movie: The Wolf Man (George Waggner, 1941)

There is no bad moon in The Wolf Man, nor a wolf dramatically howling at it. Modern werewolf stories have taken much of the symbolism and lore from this film, but not its tone. They luxuriate in their melodrmatic sensationalism, anguished transformations, their explicitly gruesome imagery, and the frightening idea of an unstoppable natural phenomenon turining ordinary, often decent, men, into agrresive animalistic killers who will stop at nothing that stands in their way. The Wolf Man is surprisingly much more grounded than that. The original script wanted the audience to question whether Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) really becomes a werewolf, or whether the transformation only happens in his mind. The studio demanded a literal transformation, but the original intent of the script is still very much visible in the film. The transformation is filmed in the most understated possible way - in a series of dissolves we see Chaney's legs become progressively hairier, until we see him in a full shot looking, not too convincingly, beastly as he roams through a foggy forest looking for a victim. 

Chaney Jr. doesn't spend too much time in his werewolf makeup either. He is mostly at home (basically, a castle) with his father, the aristocratic Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains), who is trying to convince his son that he is not actually a werewolf, but is experiencing a traumatic episode. Larry has a murky past; upon his arrival at his father's place, we learn that the two haven't seen each other in a long time and that they haven't always had the best relationship. We never learn exactly why, but it is evident (mostly through Chaney's great performance; even his seemingly confident easy-going flirting is imbued with a certain inexplicable ever-lingering hesitance and fear that always makes him slightly more awkward than he presents himself to be) that Larry is not a man who is fully comfortable in his own skin. Turning him into a werewolf makes that literal and allows the film to explore how Larry tries to make sense of his own unease with his place in the world. 

The film also uses Larry to explore how science and religion can be compatible with each other. Sir John keeps insisting to his son that his condition can be scientifically and rationally explained, as a conflict of the mind, and that "belief in the afterlife" can help ease such conflicts of the mind. It's to the film's credit that it earnestly believes in John's arguments, but unambigiously shows him to be wrong. Larry is indeed a werewolf, despite the fact that none of the rational townspeople, some of them respected doctors and detectives believe him. Nobody heeds the warnings of the travelling gypsies who keep telling everyone that they should be careful and do something about the werewolf before it's too late. Yes, writer Curt Siodmak is a German who came to Hollywood to escape the Nazi's, which is also why it's quite unfortunate that the film presents the gypsies as religious heretics who are ultimately responsible for the werewolf disease that is now disturbing this previously peaceful town.