The Wolf Man

The Wolf Man is a 1941 horror film written by Curt Siodmak and produced and directed by George Waggner, starring Lon Chaney Jr, Claude Rains, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Bellamy, Patrick Knowles, Bela Lugosi, and Maria Ouspenskaya. It introduced a character that stands alongside Frankenstein and Dracula as the most recognized Universal Studios monsters and has had a great deal of influence on Hollywood's depictions of the legend of the werewolf.

Legacy

It was The Wolf Man that introduced the concepts of werewolves being vulnerable to silver (in traditional folklore, it’s more effective against vampires), the werewolf's forced shapeshifting under a full moon, and being marked with a pentagram (a symbol of the occult and of Satanism). These are considered by many as part of the original folklore of the werewolf, even though they were created for the film. Unlike the werewolves of legend, which resemble true wolves, the Wolf Man was a kind of hybrid creature. It stood erect like a human, but had the fur, teeth and claws of a wolf. There had been similar depictions of werewolves in several earlier movies but this was by far the most influential, and subsequent movies have built on this image.

Related Topics:
Silver - Vampire - Shapeshifting - Pentagram - Occult - Satanism - Folklore - Hybrid

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