Creature Feature! Part 4: "As the Rain Enters the Soil…"
by Joseph F. Berenato
During the course of this series, I have done my best to
take you on a journey through my childhood, and impart upon all of you exactly
what it was about each Universal Monster that made me crazy about them. I've
given anecdotes about my interests beforehand, and toys that I had, and games
that I would play with my Mom, and have woven those together with each week's
feature in the hopes that maybe you'd appreciate the Universal Monsters as much
as I do.
This week, however, I got nothin'.
There really isn't much from my childhood that initially
attracted me to this week's feature. It isn't about my favorite character—though
I do like him; it doesn't star my favorite monster movie actor—though I can't
picture anyone else in the role; and it isn't my favorite sub-genre of monster
movies—though, if done properly, it IS a fun one.
So what's my attraction? It's just a damned good movie.
That doesn't mean that the film didn't have an ex post facto
influence on my childhood once I saw it. Out of all my Remco Mini-Monsters,
this character is the only action figure still in my possession, and I put him
out every year with my Halloween decorations. For months on end I would bay at
the full moon. I even once bought a silver wolf-headed sword cane because of
this week's feature.
If you haven't figured it out by now, well, then, stay in
your seats. The lights are dimming, and it's time to enjoy the show!
The Wolf Man, in
THIS writer's opinion, is the quintessential werewolf movie.
I realize it's not the first—that honor goes to Werewolf of London, the first attempt by
Universal Studios, in 1935, at crafting a believable, spooky werewolf tale.
There were so many things wrong with that movie, though: an absolute prick of a
main character (Dr. Glendon, played by Henry Hull), a half-assed make-up job
(by make-up master Jack Pierce, dumbed down at Hull's insistence), and such
glaring contradictions in the werewolf mythos (he can talk, and at one point
even stops, post transformation, to put on a hat and scarf), to name but a few.
It's an interesting movie to watch, just to see all the mis-steps.
Thankfully, Universal Studios gave the werewolf genre
another shot. Not long after Werewolf of
London, the studio planned another werewolf movie, this time intended for
Boris Karloff, but that one never saw the light of day. Instead, screenwriter
Curt Siodmark gave it a shot, and what we are left with is pure fun on a bun.
The Wolf Man tales
the tale of Lawrence "Larry" Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), recently
returned to his ancestral home in Wales after an 18-year stint in California.
Re-assimilation into his old life is a difficult one, but, with the help of his
father Sir John (Claude Rains) and the beautiful shopkeep Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn
Ankers), Larry makes the most of it.
Gwen's father owns an antique store, and it is there that
she and Larry meet. While making idle chit-chat, Larry purchases a walking
stick topped with the head of a wolf and a pentagram. When Larry expresses his
confusion as to the mixing of the two symbols, Gwen explains that the pentagram
is the sign of the werewolf, and it is then that she recites the small poem
that has become synonymous with Hollywood werewolves ever since: "Even a
man who is pure of heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when
the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright." Larry, who has—incredibly—never
heard of werewolves, dismisses the old folklore.
Larry manages to convince Gwen—who has a fiancée—to join him
that evening at the gypsy carnival which has rolled into town. That night,
accompanied by Gwen's friend Jenny (Fay Helm), they attend the faire, and Jenny
stops to have her fortune told by eerie gypsy Bela (Bela Lugosi). Bela sees the
sign of the pentagram on Julie's hand, and warns her away.
Larry and Gwen, meanwhile, have wandered off into the
forest, where Larry is pitching his best woo. Just as he's about the
successfully land a kiss, there is a wolf's howl, and a piercing human scream.
Larry runs to the rescue only to find Jenny being savagely attacked by a large
beast. Larry manages to put down the animal with his silver-headed cane, but
not before being bitten.
From there things go from bad to worse for Larry.
Jenny is dead. The wolf that Larry killed was actually Bela,
and not a wolf at all…or was it? Another visit to the Gypsy carnival brings
Larry in contact with Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), Bela's mother. She is the one
who tells him that Bela was, in fact, a werewolf, and, because Larry was bitten
and survived, so, too, is he. She gives Larry a pentagram charm to wear, to
ward off the evil curse, but he dismisses the idea entirely, and instead gives
the medallion to Gwen.
Big mistake, Larry. Big mistake.
The Wolf Man has
got to be one of the most tragic monster movies ever produced. In Larry Talbot,
we find an archetype—a very good man who has very bad things happen to him. In
Lon Chaney Jr., we find the perfect man to play the role. Chaney's sad
features, deep worry lines and hangdog face are indelible characteristics of
Larry Talbot—take away Chaney, and you take away most of the greatness of the
picture. He gives a youthful exuberance to his character that can, at the drop
of a hat, turn into the heaviest melancholy ever to befall a monster movie main
character. Post-transformation, in full Wolf Man make-up, Chaney is limber and
spry, moving with almost cat-like grace and bringing a surprising level of
believability to the role. (As an aside, it should be noted that Lon Chaney Jr.
shares the singular distinction of being the only actor to continuously play
the same monster; with the exception of the upcoming remake of The Wolf Man, no other actor ever played
Larry Talbot.)
Equally important to The
Wolf Man is the old Gypsy woman Maleva, played by the charming Maria
Ouspenskaya. A student of Russian acting master Stanislavski, Ouspenskaya was
one of the first Method actors in the United States; she founded her own acting
school in New York City in 1929, and taught Method acting to students like Lee
Strasberg, who went on to become one of the most influential acting teachers in
U.S. history. With such credentials, it's no wonder that Ouspenskaya stole
nearly every scene she was in. Her portrayal of Maleva is positively haunting,
and a joy to watch.
And, of course, we must not forget Bela Lugosi, who does a
remarkably deep turn as the tortured Gypsy fortune-teller, Bela. Though his
appearance is, at most, five minutes, Lugosi gives one of the more memorable
performances in the picture.
Rounding out the cast are three relatively well-known,
capable actors.
As Sir John, we have Claude Rains, known not only for his
portrayal as Erique in 1943's The Phantom
of the Opera, and as the title role in 1933's The Invisible Man, but also perhaps best known as Captain Renault,
the gloriously corrupt French official in Casablanca.
Following hard on his heels is the beautiful Evelyn Ankers
as Gwen Conliffe. Ankers is mostly remembered as a B-actress, going on to
portray imperiled women in The Ghost of
Frankenstein (1942) and Son of
Dracula (1943), and for good reason: she's easy on the eyes, and can scream
like nobody's business.
Finally, as dutiful police Colonel Mumford, we're treated to
Ralph Bellamy, who not only had quite a career at the time, but is perhaps best
known to modern audiences as Randolph Duke who, along with brother Mortimer
(Don Ameche) put the screws to both Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in Trading Places (1983).
The influence of The
Wolf Man on the modern werewolf mythos can not be overstated. Before The Wolf Man, there really was no
agreed-upon method for killing a werewolf. It was The Wolf Man that introduced the concept of needing silver.
Virtually every bit of Hollywood werewolf lore hence has, in some manner or
another, required the use of silver in order to kill a werewolf. Then, of
course, there's the above-mentioned poem recited by Jenny (and Gwen and Sir
John), which has been repeated ad infinitum. Interestingly, that poem has no
basis in lore at all—it is purely the fruit of writer Curt Siodmark's
imagination.
The Wolf Man,
despite its not being the first werewolf flick from Universal, really is the
one that started it all. Silver Bullet,
An American Werewolf in London, and
even Teen Wolf owe much of their
existence to this picture. If you've never seen it, in my opinion, you have
never seen a werewolf movie.
The first of the monster movie team-ups!
Cashing in on the success of The Wolf Man, Universal Studios showed us in 1943 that you can't
keep a good dog—er, wolf—down.
Taking place four years after the end of The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man opens on a pair of unwitting
grave-robbers who have decided to plunder the Talbot family crypt in search of
riches. Expecting to find a pile of bones, they open Larry's tomb (sorry to
spoil the ending of the first flick for you, but it's been around for almost
seventy years, so it's not like I'm telling you anything new), only to discover
his corpse fully intact. Unfortunately for them, this happens to be during a
full moon and, once the silvery moonbeams hit Larry's body, a hand reaches out
from the tomb and grabs one of the graverobbers. Cue pants-wetting, cue scream.
Not long after, Larry awakens in a sanitarium miles away in
Cardiff, where he is under the care of Dr. Frank Mannering (Patric Knowles),
who dismisses Larry's talks of werewolfery as the ravings of a madman deep in
the throes of lycanthropy. A few full moons and murders later, and Larry knows
it's time to high-tail it out of there.
Larry roams the European countryside in search of Maleva,
leaving behind him a trail of death. When he happens upon her, looking for
answers and a way to die, she sadly tells him that she has no power to cure
him, but has heard of one who may be able to; a great doctor, renowned for
curing those who couldn't otherwise be cured—Dr. Frankenstein.
Frankenstein Meets the
Wolf Man is nothing but pure fun. It stays in continuity with the rest of
the Frankenstein movies, picking up right where The Ghost of Frankenstein left off. At the end of that film, the
brain of the monster (played by Lon Chaney Jr.) had been replaced by the brain
of murderous henchman Ygor (Lugosi) at the unwitting hands of Ludwig
Frankenstein (second son of the original Henry Frankenstein, and played by Sir
Cedrick Hardwick). Unfortunately, a mismatched blood type left the monster
blind, and ultimately burned by angry villagers. Returning writer Curt Siodmark
wove that whole tale perfectly into that of Larry Talbot, making for an
enjoyable—if somewhat convoluted—movie.
Chaney once again is fantastic as the tortured Talbot, but
here he seems to have a bit more latitude with the character. He is still
anguished, sure, but he seems a bit more introspective, and a bit more
determined than when last we saw him—I suppose four years in a tomb will do
that to any man.
Maria Ouspenskaya is charming as ever as Maleva, and she,
too, gets a bit more room here—whereas in the first one she was mostly dark and
mysterious, here Maleva is seen as a bit more human, both frightened by and
sympathetic for the man cursed by her son.
And, of course, there is Bela Lugosi, finally roped into the
part he swore off 12 years prior—Frankenstein's monster. Offered the role in
the original Frankenstein, Lugosi
refused, largely because the part had absolutely no lines. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man was to be different, however. The
monster had learned to speak in The Bride
of Frankenstein (1935) and, once implanted with Ygor's brain in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), was
able to speak quite well. Scenes were shot for Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man with dialogue for the monster,
including a fireside chat between he and Talbot that would have explained the
monster's blindness (and his lumbering gait with out-stretched arms which has
since become the accepted—and oft-parodied—walk for the monster), but they were
ultimately cut. As such, Lugosi was left with precisely what he never wanted—a
non-speaking part, with what amounts to a little over five minutes of screen
time.
I love Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man. It's one of my favorite monster movies, ever. The seamless
interaction of both character's stories doesn't seem forced or contrived, like
it would in later monster pairings (Van Helsing, anyone?). And this was the one
that started it all. Without Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man, there would be no House
of Frankenstein, no House of Dracula,
no Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein
(which is just fantastic), no Monster
Squad, and no Van Helsing.
Well, okay, yeah, maybe this movie does have a downside…
If you plan at all to check out either of these films, I implore
you to pick up The Wolf Man: The Legacy
Collection, which features not only The
Wolf Man and Frankenstein Meets the
Wolf Man, but also Werewolf of London
and the much-lesser-known She-Wolf of
London. You'll be glad you did.
Next Week: "Listen
to them, children of the night…"
Read part one here!
Read part two here!
Read part three here!
Joseph F. Berenato has been a fan of the fantastic for as long as he can remember. Thanks, in no small part, to his mother's influence—or brainwashing, depending on one's point of view—Joe began, by age three, a life-long love affair with comic books, monster movies and science fiction. A 2000 graduate of Rowan University, with a B.A. degree in English, Joe spent four years as the entertainment editor of The Hammonton Gazette, before returning to his roots at his family's blueberry farm. Recently, Joe was a contributor to Gotham City 14 Miles: 14 Essays on Why the 1960s Batman TV Series Matters. In his spare time, he serves as an administrator, art director and content contributor at CriticalMess.Net, under the guise of Coffee Joe, and is currently writing or co-writing two volumes for Hasslein Books: It's Alive: The Unauthorized Universal Monsters Encyclopedia (with Jim and Becky Beard) and Something Strange: The Complete Unauthorized Ghostbusters Encyclopedia.
Labels: Bela Lugosi, Creature Feature, Frankenstein, Joe Berenato, Lon Chaney, The Wolf Man, Universal Monsters
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