The Wolf Man

Origin: U.S.(Universal) 1941
Length: 70 minutes
Format: Black & White
Director: George Waggner
Producer: Jack J. Gross, George Waggner
Screenplay: Curt Siodmak
Photography: Joseph A. Valentine
Cast: Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Evelyn Ankers, J.M. Kerrigan, Fay Helm, Lon Chaney Jr., Forrester Harvey
Links: The Wolf Man Wiki, The Wolf Man Trailer

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The figure of the wolf man - that bipedal, cinematic version of the werewolf archtype- first took center stage in Universal's Werewolf of London, starring Henry Hull in a role reprised decades later by Jack Nicholson in Wolf. Shortly thereafter, Curt Siodmak finished the screenplay for what was to be Universal Pictures' latest horror classic - following Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy - The Wolf Man, directed by George Waggner. In what still remains the most recognizable and cherished version of the myth, Lon Chaney Jr. stars as Lawrence Talbot, an American-educated Welshman who wants nothing more than to be cured of his irrepressible lycanthropy.
Makeup king Jack Pierce devised an elaborate yak-hair costume for Chaney that would come to serve as the template for countless Halloween masks. What distinguishes Siodmak's story from previous werewolf tales was the coded emphasis on repressed sexual energy as the motivating force behind Talbot's full-moon transformations. The success of Waggner's picture led to four more Chaney-driven Wolf Man films in the 1940s alone. Dozens of imitators, updates, takeoffs and spoofs have since followed.