Consider the Source: The Wolf Man (1941)

Fangs, fur and claws are bustin’ out all over as Joe Johnston’s A-list film of The Wolfman is unleashed in theaters this Friday and marks a whole new werewolf renaissance. Ironically, the original Wolf Man, released in 1941, came late to Universal Pictures’ mad monster party. Universal established a stable of iconic creatures and supernatural bad guys a decade earlier with Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932), Bela Lugosi’s Dracula (1931) and Claude Rains’ The Invisible Man (1933). Universal attempted to bring a wolf into the fold with 1935’s Werewolf of London, which had less staying power, but did inspire the Warren Zevon song.

The Wolf Man, however, swiftly established lycanthropic Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) as the third member of Universal’s terror triumvirate alongside Frankenstein and Dracula. Lugosi even “passes the torch” to Chaney by playing “Bela” (gee, how’d they come up with that name?), a tormented gypsy who bites Talbot and passes along the werewolf infection. At 70 minutes, The Wolf Man remains a prime example of the fleet, effective storytelling of the studio era, and takes a backseat only to director James Whales’ powerful, moody Frankenstein films.