In My Write Mind Richard J. Schellbach’s “What Big Teeth You Have!”
Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night,
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.
you, I became a monster kid before schedule-altering items like VCRs, cable TV, and Vivarin were around. Basically, I would read about horror movies in the pages of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and then visually devour the TV Guide each week when Mom brought it home from the store. I’d circle every horror flick (then listed as ‘melodrama’) and instantly adjust my weekly sleep schedule so I could somehow stay up all kinds of ungodly hours to watch them. 3:00 AM to 4:30 AM inevitably turned out to be time slot of the movie I wanted to see the most. This should leave no one wondering why I almost didn’t graduate elementary school, junior high, or high school. In fact, I still consider it a miracle that I know how to count past nine. The first movie I ever saw with a werewolf in it was 1944’s
L
THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE. Like most werewolves, Andreas Obry was covered in fur, had nasty pointed teeth, and was pretty scary to a kid of my tender years. Unlike most werewolves, although it didn’t occur to me at the time—Andreas Obry wore a proper European suit and… spoke English! Imagine it: my first experience with cinematic lycanthropes was a nicely dressed, fully articulate werewolf. Needless to say, when I finally got around to seeing Dr. Wilfred Glendon as the WEREWOLF OF LONDON and Lawrence Talbot as THE WOLF MAN, I though they must be idiots. Seriously, if Andreas Obry could morph from human being to beast while managing to hold onto his Shakespearian command of the English language, why couldn’t
the other two at
ike most things in my life, I didn’t get into werewolves in a conventional way—let alone chronologically. Like many of
least enunciate properly? I felt the fool when I realized that poor Obry was the exception
instead of the rule. But that was after years of making myself look like the perfect moron every time I opened my mouth and told other kids that I was a talking werewolf. No wonder my street cred was zilch. But no matter how unorthodox Matt Willis’ interpretation of Andreas Obry is, RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE began my love affair with werewolves, and they remain one of my favorite horror sub-genres. (Although zombies still rule!) There were, in my humble opinion, two golden eras for werewolf movies. The first was the thirteen year span starting with WEREWOLF OF LONDON and ending with ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. I thought Henry Hull was amazing as Dr. Glendon, and the ferocity of the title character stands as one of the spookiest performances of the golden era of horror films. That said, Lon Chaney Jr. was the absolute master of the genre, even though writers of the day kept giving him the same basic lines to repeat ad nauseum in THE WOLF MAN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF DRACULA, and ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. Let’s be honest—there are horror savants who put me to shame in the trivia department who still can’t tell the difference between one “Tonight, the moon will be full and I’ll turn into a wolf” and the next. The next time you’re at a convention, walk up to any horror movie historian and directly quote one of the “Beware!” type lines Lon Chaney Jr. spoke in one of those five Universal films. I’ll bet you dimes to donuts they’ll get that deer in the headlights look and not be able to tell you which movie it’s from. Jack Pierce is the one
who really shines, in both WEREWOLF OF LONDON and THE WOLF MAN.
22
FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • JAN/FEB 2012
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102