During my recent viewing up on the big screen of the classic Universal Monsters movie THE WOLFMAN (nee WOLF MAN), I noticed—or I should say my lovely better half noticed, as I was too much enraptured to be anything akin to a critical viewer—a seeming snafu. During the first transformation the viewer sees Larry Talbot wearing light-colored slacks and a wifebeater. But then moments later, when he is prowling the moors as the Wolfman, he’s wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and black pants. This would seem to suggest a mistake in editing, that the two scenes were not filmed at the same time, and no one noticed that they’d dressed Lon Chaney, Jr. in different costuming for two scenes that were supposed to take place in sequence. But it’s only an *apparent* inconsistency!
I submit the following: Larry Talbot, undergoing his first transformation into the monster, retains some small amount of his human intellect. Being a polished Brit, the idea of leaving the house without first getting dressed would be an alien concept for him. Thus, even while transformed into his bestial state, he put on a shirt, and finding this shirt did not match his pants, he changed pants. Then he went out in search of victims. The werewolf as depicted in this film is one form of the humanoid versions of the archetypal monster, far more humanoid than, say, one of the werewolves from THE HOWLING or a fully four-legged brute like the ones in THE BEAST MUST DIE. Thus it makes perfect sense that he would behave in a manner more closely mimicking a human.
Do I win a No-prize now? (Extra points for all you geeks who know what a No-prize is.)
That has always bugged me about the movie. He didn’t just put on a shirt, fangs and all, he buttoned it all the way up.
I didn’t think about it when I was 10. Now at 66 I’m wondering why they did it. Aren’t there any notes or files somewhere out there? Maybe Jack didn’t want to take the time attaching Yak hair to all the exposed skin. I read he used a curling iron.