Review of The Wolf Man (1941) by Forrest P — 27 Jun 2011

To say that The Wolf Man is a movie with characters that captivated me and held onto my attention from start to finish would be an unfortunate lie. This is an early creature feature directed by George Waggner and starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and Claude Rains and it is an example of how sometimes I am exasperated by films that are remembered for being old rather than unique or creative.

George Waggner is a relatively unknown director, having few credits to his name apart from Wolf Man and a late addition to the Frankenstein film series. I cannot say that I feel like he is a bad director, but I will say that he did not put enough into The Wolf Man to make it truly distinguishable from other creature features from this time period. Does he do a bad job? Of course not. The cinematography and atmosphere is not bad for 1941. But it is not particularly good for 1941 either. I think that both Frankenstein and Dracula were able to pull off many of the same kinds of things and better--and both films were released ten years earlier. Plus, this movie has some really generic early-horror music playing. It is nothing that I have not seen before.

As for the wolf man himself, Lon Chaney, Jr., I was satisfied with the performance. But only satisfied. I still do not think he was able to put a whole lot into the performance to make this character really well-rounded. I get tired of basic characters that I cannot remember after the film is over. I wanted *something* to make him more memorable. But, as with the film as a whole, there just was not enough there.

I did not even think that the mythology of the werewolf was expanded on quite as much as it could have been. What we had was fascinating, but occasionally a little difficult to swallow. The film states that a pentagram appears on the palm of the person the werewolf will attack next. I did not like that. That was a little too campy for my taste, especially for a film that was not lending itself to camp to begin with.

I am sure that a lot of people have, over time, found The Wolf Man more enjoyable than I did. But the film felt flat to me. The events had no suspense leading up to them, the mystery was not poignant enough, and there was just too much basic character and plot structures for me to really get behind the picture and support it. The worst part is that this is a film with characters that dulled me to tears--perhaps the worst feature for any film.

Overall, I just did not find the wolf man himself threatening enough, did not find the characters interesting or engaging, and was let down by the lack of original style, even for the time period it was released in. It was simply a disappointment for me.

4/10.