Like a lot of horror fans of my generation, one of my
earliest exposures to Gothic Horror was through the classic Universal monster
films. For kids growing up in the 1960s, the monsters were readily available on
Saturday afternoon TV shows and were routinely trotted out for double and
triple features at local theaters and drive-ins at Halloween. We went to the
movies, waited impatiently for them to show up on horror shows on TV, bought
Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, and assembled Aurora model kits.
Today, it’s easy to see the allure of these old movies. The
wizardry of combining studio sets and matte paintings was revolutionary in the 1930s,
the stories mesmerizing in their power of suggestion, and the actors, Bela
Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and others, delivered some of the best performances ever
committed to film. To me, Karloff’s Frankenstein’s Monster compares to Brando’s
Don Corleon as one of the greatest performances of the 20th Century.
I can’t say the same for Lon Chaney, Jr. His name is as well
known as those of Lugosi and Karloff, but his acting is clumsy and awkward.
Which is exactly what makes his reading of Larry Talbot so poignant. Larry
Talbot is the 1940s equivalent of the All American Guy. He is Everyman, horror
filmdom’s Henry Fonda. He’s a loveable schmuck who snitched apples when he was
a kid, is handy with tools, and a snappy dresser. Girls go crazy for a sharp
dressed man, and in The Wolf Man
(1941), Talbot gets not one, but two… the alluring Gwen Conliff and her
good-times gal pal Jenny Williams.
If Chaney was a second rate actor, what makes The Wolf Man my all time top favorite of
the Universal Monsters franchise? Bela Lugosi’s Dracula is at once dreadfully
seductive and horrifying in his ruthless desire for human blood. Karloff’s
Monster is an unloved child with an abnormal brain. He has no sense of right or
wrong. When it is time to kill, he kills without remorse. But what happens to
Larry Talbot could happen to anybody. His tragedy is as much bad luck as is being
struck down by cancer or being killed by a drunk driver. And who better to
represent this sort of hapless victim of circumstances than a loveable lug, a
bumbling, happy-go-lucky Everyman?
While Universal’s The
Wolfman (2010) remake scores high on the Gothic Eye Candy scale, the
character as written, and Benicio del
Toro’s lifeless performance of Larry Talbot, are one of the movie’s many
shortcomings. The script is more or less the same with a bit of visceral
updating, but here Talbot has more of a cynical edge, as is evident in the
opening scenes showing Talbot backstage after a performance of Hamlet. (Here he is an actor, not a
mechanic who works on astronomy equipment.) It’s well documented that del Toro
is a huge fan of the original film and was eager to play the part, which leaves
me curious why he would turn in such an uninspired performance.
I enjoy watching the 2010 remake. It’s not uncommon for me
to watch both films back to back. While the early version presents a more
precise story and is single handedly responsible for creating a specific
mythology that carries on in werewolf stories to this day, the remake excels on
the production values, from the location shots of Chatsworh House standing in
for Talbot Hall, to the misty woods and the Victorian interiors bathed in dusty
shafts of filtered sunlight. Some days I can’t get enough eye-candy, and both
movies deliver in spades.
The good news is that, while the 2010 version under
performed (with good reason) at the box office, Universal realized they were
onto something, and in 2011 announced that they would reboot the story, meaning
they would return to the 1941 source film rather than create a direct sequel to
the 2010 film.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t resist returning to the
misty, gypsy infested forests surrounding the Talbot estate… especially when
the autumn moon is bright.
