In the last column, we discussed what I referred to as the American Monster Canon–namely, the main monsters that inhabit the public consciousness every Halloween and how the Universal Monster movies of the early half of the last century laid the groundwork, plastering monsters like vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein’s Monsters in the public consciousness.
In the initial article, we discussed how early Universal movies mined literature, namely the works of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker for 1931’s “Frankenstein and Dracula,” respectively, but also the works of Victor Hugo, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Gaston Leroux for “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” respectively.
After the initial hits of the 1910s, 1920s, and early 1930s, Universal Pictures began to steer away from direct literary adaptations, save for 1933’s “The Invisible Man,” an adaptation of H.G. Wells. It can also be argued that, although not an adaptation of a novel, 1935’s “Werewolf of London” took inspiration from a piece of French literature published just two years prior, if in name only.
The French novel “The Werewolf of Paris,” often considered a seminal werewolf novel, was inspired by a French sergeant in the Franco-Prussian War of the 19th century. Who, according to history, was named the “Vampire of Montparnasse” and had exhumed several bodies in cemeteries around Paris, having been found to have copulated with them post-mortem.
The novel takes this story as inspiration and revolves around a Frenchman who has dreams that he is a wolf, and might be responsible for various murders around France, set against the backdrop of the 19th century. In the vein of much Gothic fiction, the narrative has a framing device akin to that of Frankenstein, in which the story is told from the perspective of an anonymous American reading reports defending the titular character.
Though werewolf myths go back as far as Ancient Greece, with the term for the ailment, lycanthropy, coming from the Greek Legend of Lycaon–though some argue that the myth goes back even further, dating back to Ancient Mesopotamia to the Epic of Gilgamesh, in which a former lover was turned into a wolf.
Werewolf tales pop up in early Nordic prose as well. In the “Saga of the Volsungs,” a father and son discover wolf pelts that allow them to transform into wolves. There are of course Native American and First Nations legends similar to the more Eurocentric werewolf legends, in which various humans take the form of animals, wolves included.
Perhaps some of the most famous and influential werewolf tales come from real-world history in 16th-century France and Germany. Frenchmen Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun both admitted to swearing allegiance to the devil after being accused of the brutal murders of several children. In Germany, Peter Stubbe, a wealthy man, confessed to horrific murders in Bedburg, Germany after a tortured confession–though many doubt the validity of his confession considering the circumstances.
Beyond the initial seemingly forgotten “Werewolf of London,” released in 1935, Universal also released the more well-remembered “The Wolfman” six years later in 1941, starring Lon Chaney Jr., the son Long Chaney Sr. who had prominent roles in early Universal Monster films like “The Phantom of the Opera” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
In total, the werewolf or wolfman would appear in six Universal films in its heyday, including “Werewolf of London” and “Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman.” The monster though would of course be reused multiple times in remakes of the films, and most notably in two of the most famous werewolf-related films of all-time, both released in 1981 in “The Howling,” directed by eventual “Gremlins” director Joe Dante, and “An American Werewolf in London,” directed by John Landis, director of “Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers,” among others.
Beyond the werewolf mythos, Universal found inspiration in current events with “The Mummy,” whose basis isn’t found in literature but rather was inspired by the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen and the subsequent supposed curse that followed its discovery. Discovered in 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter and his benefactor Lord Carnarvon, the excavation of Pharaoh Tutankhamen (commonly shortened to King Tut) was followed by a supposed curse that took the lives of many connected to the tomb’s excavation, including the man who flipped the bill for the excursion, Lord Carnarvon, who died of an infected mosquito bite.
Though the image of the mummy in the public consciousness is one of a lumbering, seemingly jointless semi-wrapped quasi-zombie, in the initial film the titular mummy “Imotep”–played by Boris Karloff–only appears in mummified form for the opening scene, the rest of the movie featuring a bandage-less Karloff.
The monster wouldn’t appear in another film–finally bandaged–until nearly a decade after the initial film’s 1932 release. In total, the mummy would appear in six films, including an Abbott and Costello tie-in movie and two strangely enough released in one year in 1944.
Beyond the mummy and the werewolf, Universal also introduced the “Gill-Man” in “The Creature From the Black Lagoon” in the mid-50s, inspired by a supposed story by Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa on the set of “Citizen Kane,” who told of a supposed race of half-fish/half-humans living in the Amazon.
But by that point, the heyday of Universal Monster films was nearly finished, and though the “Gill-Man” is much beloved by many fans, and has been adapted in other forms of media, including the comic series “Hellboy,” the character is rarely seen as ubiquitously as the vampire, Dracula, mummy, or even Frankenstein’s Monster. So, we’ll leave it there, with four monsters added to the collective American imagination, all from a series of interconnected films nearly 100 years before the founding of the MCU.
