The Wolf Man (1941)

The Wolf Man is a 1941 Universal horror film starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot, a man cursed to become a werewolf.

At a Glance

Overview

Larry Talbot returns to his family’s ancestral home in Llanwelly, Wales, after the death of his brother, hoping to reconcile with his estranged father, Sir John Talbot. In the village he falls for Gwen Conliffe, who runs an antique shop, and buys a walking stick topped with a silver wolf’s head as an excuse to talk to her. Gwen explains that it represents a werewolf, a man who changes into a wolf at certain times of the year and sees a pentagram on the palm of his next victim. The villagers have a poem about it that they recite whenever werewolves are mentioned.

That night, Larry, Gwen and her friend Jenny visit a Romani camp to have their fortunes told. The fortune teller, Bela, sees a pentagram in Jenny’s palm and sends her away in terror. Moments later Jenny is attacked by a wolf. Larry kills it with his silver cane but is bitten on the chest. By morning the police have found Jenny dead and Bela beaten to death beside Larry’s cane, and Larry’s wound has mysteriously healed. Bela’s mother, Maleva, tells him the truth: the wolf was Bela, and now Larry is a werewolf too.

The Wolf Man is a tragedy as much as a monster movie. Larry is a decent man who cannot stop what he becomes, and the film did more than any other to define how Hollywood shows werewolves. It sits at the heart of the Universal Monsters cycle alongside Dracula, which also starred Bela Lugosi.

For the man behind the monster, see our profile of Lon Chaney Jr., the only actor to play all four of Universal’s great monsters.

Production

Curt Siodmak wrote the script, and George Waggner produced and directed. It was Universal’s second werewolf film after the less successful Werewolf of London (1935). Jack Pierce had originally designed his wolf makeup for Henry Hull in that earlier film, but Hull objected that his character needed to stay recognizable, so Pierce saved the design and reused it here. Applying the makeup took five to six hours and removing it took an hour, using a rubber snout, wigs and layers of yak hair. Chaney’s on-screen transformation is kept brief: in the first, only his feet are seen turning into huge paws, using rubber boots covered in yak hair. The full face dissolve comes in the final scene, as the dead werewolf turns back into Larry. Joseph Valentine shot the film, and the music was by Hans J. Salter, Frank Skinner and Charles Previn.

Cast

• Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot / The Wolf Man

• Claude Rains as Sir John Talbot

• Warren William as Dr. Lloyd

• Ralph Bellamy as Captain Paul Montford

• Patric Knowles as Frank Andrews

• Bela Lugosi as Bela

• Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva

• Evelyn Ankers as Gwen Conliffe

• Fay Helm as Jenny Williams

Reception

The Wolf Man was a success for Universal and established Chaney in the role he would return to again and again. Rotten Tomatoes lists 91 percent approval from 43 reviews, describing “a handsomely told tale with an affecting performance from Lon Chaney, Jr.,” and Metacritic’s score is 72 out of 100. Leonard Maltin gave it three and a half stars and called it “one of the finest horror films ever made,” praising its makeup, music and Chaney’s performance. Chaney played Larry Talbot again in four sequels, beginning with Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Universal remade the story as The Wolfman (2010), with Benicio del Toro as Talbot.
More than that, the film wrote the modern werewolf rulebook: the full-moon transformation, the silver bullet and the cursed, unwilling monster all trace their popular form to Siodmak’s screenplay, and nearly every werewolf film since has worked in its shadow.

Spoiler: The Ending

Larry transforms the next night and kills a villager, waking with no memory of it. Hunting parties set traps, and when the werewolf is caught in one, Maleva uses a spell to change him back so he can escape. Convinced of the truth, Larry plans to leave, but when he says goodbye to Gwen he sees a pentagram on her palm. He confesses to his father, who thinks he is delusional and ties him to a chair to prove he is not a werewolf. When the moon rises, Larry transforms, breaks free and attacks Gwen. Sir John, not recognizing the creature as his son, beats it to death with the silver-headed cane Larry gave him. Maleva arrives and says her spell, and Sir John watches in horror as the dead werewolf turns back into Larry.

Trivia and Facts

• Jack Pierce’s design was first created for Henry Hull in Werewolf of London (1935).
• The makeup took five to six hours to apply.
• Talbot’s feet transform with rubber boots covered in yak hair.
• Bela Lugosi plays Bela, the werewolf who bites Larry.
• Chaney later said crew drove small nails into his hands to keep them still, but that story is unconfirmed.
• In 2020, Ryan Gosling was cast in a planned new Wolfman reboot from a story he pitched.