"When the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright"

Perhaps the most famous werewolf story and certainly the one that has had the most cultural impact on our society in the past sixty years, The Wolf Man is one of those quintessential horror flicks that everyone needs to watch. I could not find the film in its entirity, but a YouTube user has the entire film posted, albeit divided into seven parts. You can watch the movie starting with the first part here.

Released in 1941 by Universal, the film had an all-star cast, including Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi reprising his famous vampiric role, and none other than the great Lon Chaney Jr. in perhaps some of the most famous and tediously applied stage make up ever. Everyone knows the famous quote from the movie, "Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright", as well as the additions to the werewolf lore that than can only be killed by a silver bullet, a silver knife, or a stick with a silver handle.

I will sum up the story of The Wolf Man, since most of you know it already. Larry Talbot (Chaney) returns home after the death of his brother to his home in Wales and reconcile with his father (Claude Rains). While there, he buys a silver staff with a wolf for his sweetheart, Gwen (Evelyn Ankers). The villagers recite the wolf poem several times throughout the course of the movie following Gwen informing Larry of the myth and first recitation of the poem. That night, in an attempt to save Gwen's friend Jenny, Larry kills a wolf but is bitten first. A gypsy fortuneteller living in the woods tells him it was not a wolf but a werewolf and now he will become one too. The animal, she says, was actually her son Bela (Lugosi). Now that the curse has been passed to Larry, he must deal with the supernatural forces taking a hold of him.

The werewolf fur Chaney used in his make up was actually yak hair. A plaster mold was made to keep Chaney's face still as his image was photographed then an outline was drawn on glass in front of the camera. The make up wizard behind the monsters, Jack Pierce, used grease paint, a rubber snout appendage, wigs, and glued layers of the yak hair to create the Wolf Man character. This process was repeated over and over again over a period of ten hours to create an image that only took a few seconds on screen. Seventeen face shots were made and it took six hours to put on Chaney's make up though only three to take it off.

The Wolf Man is in the great pantheon of early horror and creature films, along with such other notable classics as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, King Kong, Godzilla, and The Invisible Man. The website classic-horror.com has done a great review of The Wolf Man, which you can find here, though word of caution, it does contain spoilers. I would highly recommend that you check out this movie when you can make the time since its legacy continues to live on.

Fright Fest Begins

The month of October is upon us and this month I have decided to celebrate some of the shocks, screams, thrills, and chills Old Hollywood had to offer. From the terrifying long nails of Nosferatu to the hair-tingling transformation of Lon Chaney, Jr. into The Wolfman to The Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, Hollywood had us on the edge of our seats with fright and anticipation.

Unlike the horror movies of today, which rely more on straightforward gore, violence, and sexuality to draw in viewers to the box office, this movies relied more on suspense, drama, and a creation of a frightening realm through makeup, costuming, scenery, and spectacular acting to keep audiences paralyzed with fear. Though many see these films as outdated and their horror not quite as petrifying as the modern films that push all the limits and sometimes manage to desensitize us to the truly horrible, many are still relevant and still relevantly spooky if you watch them at the right time of night with the lights off. I dare you to stay up late and watch one of the old movies where Vincent Price interprets the works of Edgar Allan Poe then have pleasant dreams that night.

Of course, there are some films whose once innovative and frightening special effects now emit laughter and certain films that missed the mark, becoming more horrible than horrifying. Still, we need to explore what it was that once made these movies so terrifying to audiences, what about audiences have changed, and the major innovations these first frightening films made that allowed for modern advancement in the movies. I like to think that even the bad films did some good, even if the only good is giving us something to laugh at.

So I invite you, if you dare, to join me this month in celebrating what is scary and what is scarily funny about Old Hollywood. Who knows? We might all get a good scream out of it.