Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) arrives at his ancestral castle, falls in love via telescope, and buys a new walking stick. Yep, everything is wonderful! Uh oh! Gypsies roll into town, and the mysterious Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) and her son, Bela (Bela Lugosi) have the inside track on the spirit world! If that's not bad enough, Bela's got a terrible secret that plays right into an old Talbot family curse! Soon enough, someone is killed and Larry starts getting hairy! THE WOLF MAN is, of course, a classic horror / monster film. It's also quite an enjoyable ball of -lupine- yarn. This movie still has that unique Universal look and atmosphere, which started to fade into the realm of "monsters-on-the-loose" cheeeze, as the 1940's wore on. Claude Rains is believable as Sir John Talbot, whose love for his son is tested to the utmost. Ralph Belamy (ROSEMARY'S BABY) and Evelyn Ankers (SON OF DRACULA) are also quite good in their roles. A Halloween staple...

Modern horror fans will probably find this, the definitive wolf man picture, rather slow and disappointing. Certainly, it takes an enormously long time to get started and Lon Chaney unfortunately has a great deal of pre-werewolf footage including cosy domestic chats with his father Claude Rains (with Rains looking unusually diminutive) and even worse, small-talk romantic scenes with heroine Evelyn Ankers - all of which he hams up atrociously. Also the special effects of the actual change are rather disappointing (only in the final shot does his face change on-camera) and the make-up is neither particularly frightening nor grotesque - it is almost funny. Also the introduction of some comic relief with Ralph Bellamy of all people playing straight man to Forrester Harvey tends to dissipate the mood - fortunately this is not persisted with and Mr Harvey is dropped altogether from the climax. The dialogue has pretensions - we get all the usual claptrap about the werewolf legend and the poem is repeated no less than 3 times - but it succeeds only in being mundane. It was a mistake to set the film in modern times. Warren William's doctor is along to provide the medical explanation of psychiatric disturbance. Lugosi's role is unfortunately very small - only one scene in fact. Rains, William and Bellamy are wasted in roles that are far below their talents - only Miss Ankers and Mr Knowles are perfectly suited to the mediocre script. Ouspenskaya plays the gypsy straight but unconvincingly.The best thing in the film is Valentine's lighting, including a remarkable long shot of Chaney in the town with striped diagonal shadows thrown right across the set. The sets too are quite impressive and there is great deal of atmosphere with fog and gnarled trees in the moonlight. Waggner's direction is at its best when there is something happening - we like the camera panning at random to simulate the telescope, the tracking shots through the mist and the camera dollying in on the frightened features of the grave-digger. The music contains some familiar themes but it is effective too.

The Wolf ManUnlike the previous Dark Universal features, its not witty or gripping in either aspects of it; execution and writing, for this wafer thin plot is not even worth the 70 minute of its runtime. The writing is the main factor, why this fails to live up to its predecessors legacy and why it fails on delivering any satisfactory material. George Wagner is definitely not in its A game which result into this overlong repetitive slog which should have been an entertaining experience. Lon Chaney Jr. in the centre of it fails to pull off this horror show despite of being supported by a great cast. The Wolf Man is something that should have been a 15 minute introduction of the amazing horror tale and is unfortunately carried out to be an hour long feature.

I'm going to assume this is the first movie about werewolves and if it is, I think I finally understand why every werewolf movie has gypsies in it(I don't think Werewolf In A Girls Dormitory did). Although this is a good movie, there are a few things I don't get. Why does the werewolf who bites Larry just look like a regular wolf? They did the same thing in The Werewolf Of Washington and it just doesn't make any sense. The other thing is that the gypsies all ran out of town but the old lady mysteriously shows up in the woods to find Larry. It's a bit confusing. There are some other minor issues but they don't really affect the movie. Surprisingly, this may be the creepiest Lon Chaney ever was. He manages to pick up an engaged woman using extremely creepy lines that would have made anyone else call the police. Not bad for an 80 year old movie. Just make sure you watch this before you watch Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, I didn't.