The Dog of Dracula and Dr. Jekyll
(originally posted on IMDb 18 August 2018)

Like Universal's prior "Werewolf of London" (1935), "The Wolf Man" is largely a reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Whereas the studio had the rights to the other two great works of 19th-century English-language Gothic horror, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Bram Stoker's "Dracula," "Jekyll and Hyde" was the domain of Paramount, and they had already adapted it in 1920, 1931/32 and, shortly before this film was released, MGM produced a remake in 1941. As a workaround, Universal cast the Jekyll/Hyde story within the myth of another bipolar shapeshifter with no control over the transformations, the werewolf, as well as by adding allusions to "Dracula."

Unlike "Werewolf of London," which was blatant in its imitation, "The Wolf Man" replaces the foggy streets of London as the monster's stomping grounds with the foggy forest. Instead of the Hyde/werewolf transformations being a disguise to unleash the Jekyll's repressed sexual and murderous deviancy, Larry Talbot is an entirely unwilling participant, who unlike Jekyll is not a scientist (in fact, Larry repeatedly explains that science is all "Greek" to him) and who regrets his actions and tries to get help from others--all of whom are convinced that his lycanthropy is a delusion (which the film also suggests with its opening definition of the word). If anything, Larry is more of a horndog before he's afflicted with literally becoming a canine. He spies on Gwen through her room window via a telescope, then goes to her father's antique shop and creepily asks to see her personal earrings he saw her with while spying on her. He asks her on a date repeatedly and refuses to accept "no" for an answer. Later, during a Gypsy festival, he has a shooting competition with her fiancé with toy rifles at a shooting gallery--basically a pissing contest over the girl. Rather humorously, it's only after Larry becomes a brooding, tragic figure struggling with lycanthropy that the ladies seem to desire him--a point that would be repeated in the subsequent monster rally sequels.

Besides "Jekyll and Hyde," "The Wolf Man" also takes its inspiration from "Dracula," another shapeshifting monster. Unlike "Werewolf in London," lycanthropy in this film, like vampirism, is transferred through a bite from the fanged beast. Wolf's bane, which replaced garlic in Universal's 1931 "Dracula" adaptation, is also added to this story. Making this connection seemingly intentional, Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi, is cast in the role of the first werewolf, a Gypsy fortune teller turned wolf who bites Larry when he interrupts his feast of a young woman. The role of Gypsies and folklore are also interesting replacements here for the science from "Jekyll and Hyde," because both were, instead, prominent in Stoker's story. Additionally, some have claimed the fact that Bela takes the form of a wolf, whereas Larry takes that of an upright-walking, humanoid wolf-man to be something of an error in the film, but I like it because Dracula also took the form of a wolf, among other creatures, such as bats. (On the other hand, I find the cops not being able to discern the difference between the footprints of an upright-walking creature and a four-legged wolf to be far more disconcerting.)

I also like the waking nightmare montage as the Gypsies break camp and Larry becomes increasingly anxious that he's a werewolf. Overall, by altering its repackaging of "Jekyll and Hyde" significantly enough and with its added allusions to "Dracula," "The Wolf Man" managed to invent a new monster--and introduce a new horror star in Lon Chaney Jr.--and, with a new mythology involving pentagrams, a poem and silver, a new filmic universe, which Universal would subsequently combine with that of its other ghouls in the monster-rally sequels "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1943), "House of Frankenstein" (1944), "House of Dracula" (1945) and "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948).