04/27/2024
The tale of two's and how a Universal Monster Movie remake was undervalued when it originally released.
Tale of Two Facts:
1) This is CURRENLY the only official remake of the Original 1941 The Wolf Man film from Universal Studios. It was released 69 years after m the original.
2) It is the second Werewolf film to receive an Academy Award for it's amazing Werewolf make-up. The first was An American Werewolf in London, and the second was this film, in which both werewolf make ups were done by the iconic Rick Baker. (Rick was snubbed at the 1994 Academy Awards for his Make-up on Jack Nicholson in Wolf.)
3) It was two years from the time that the film completed shooting in 2008, until it was released in 2010.
4) Actor Benicio Del Toro's wardrobe was designed to resemble that from Oliver Reed's Hammer Horror film The Curse of the Werewolf in 1961 (It was Hammer Studio's on Werewolf film.)
5) The term "Wolf Man" was never used in either film to describe Lawrence Talbot's werewolf character.
6) Benicio Del Toro has played a werewolf like character in two films, P*e Wee's Big Top (1988) and in this film, both films were scored ironically by composer Danny Elfman.
7) David Schofield played character's in two werewolf movies, An American Werewolf in London (1981) and in The Wolfman (2010.) In the first he was a dart player, in the later he played Inspector Nye.
8) David Sterne who played Mr. Kirk in The Wolf Man would play Charlie Packham in 2014's werewolf horror western, Blood Moon.
9) Geraldine Chaplin who plays Maleva, the fortune teller Gypsy in The Wolf Man, also played a fortune teller in 2005's BloodRayne.
10) Emil Hostina who plays a Gypsy Man in The Wolf Man, two years later would play Jager in the 2012 Werewolf: The Beast
Among Us.
11) John Owens who plays an Asylum Doctor in The Wolf Man, played a cop in An American Werewolf in London.
I absolutely love this film and think it's one of the best Werewolf films ever made. When the film came out in 2010, film critics panned the film as trite cinema. It is a shame that their opinions pressed upon so many, who would later revisit this film and see it's brilliance. Many noted two issues with this version, as they felt Sir Anthony Hopkins, was not as charming and a calming rationalist with his son like Claude Rains was in the original. They also looked at Del Toro who doesn't play Larry Talbot as a reluctant helpless man like Lon Chaney Jr's take in the original film. I actually liked Benicio's more confident character, and I also felt the dynamic's of the love affair with Emily Blunt was more balanced between the two of them vs Chaney and Evelyn Ankers.
Don't get me wrong here, while Chaney did an amazing job in the original, as for the classic Universal Movie Monster films, I still prefer Werewolf of London (1935) with Henry Hull, over Chaney's The Wolf Man film. We all have our personal preferences and that is what makes watching film so entertaining.
