Curt Siodmak: The Wolf Man’s Man

The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.), in "The Wolf Man." Universal Pictures

Born in Germany during the turn of the 20th century, Curt Siodmak was drawn to the world of mathematics, but his greatest legacy would be in the world of literature, film, and modern American mythology.

By 1927, Siodmak had graduated with a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Zurich; but in that same year, he tried his hand as a journalist and was provided access to Fritz Lang’s closed set of “Metropolis,” the silent science-fiction German film. He remained in Germany until he fled to France in 1933 after Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took power. From France, he migrated to England and then arrived in the United States in 1937.

With his experience in film, he blended right into the world of Hollywood and soon joined Universal Pictures where his first success in the American film industry came as the co-screenwriter of “The Invisible Man Returns” (1940). But it was the following year that made Siodmak a film legend, and also put America’s stamp on the creation of a new monster the likes of Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster.

Curt Siodmak. Public Domain

Siodmak wrote the screenplay for “The Wolf Man,” which starred Lon Chaney Jr. as the wolfish character. It was a role Chaney would play five times.

A New Monster

“The Wolf Man was a brand new monster,” Joe Dante, director of “Gremlins” and “The ‘Burbs,” said in an interview.

Werewolf mythology dates back thousands of years. Siodmak, however, didn’t simply replicate the werewolf mythology for film, something that had been done only a few years prior with Universal’s 1935 “Werewolf of London.” He completely remade the werewolf legend, pulling from other lore and stories, like Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” George Trendle and Fran Striker’s “The Lone Ranger,” and even Ancient Greek tragedies. His decisions for his character established today’s accepted mythology for werewolves: Transforming only on full moons, one can only turn into a werewolf if bitten by one (like vampires), and one can only be killed by silver (an idea he gathered from the Lone Ranger’s silver bullets).

“How brilliant was Curt Siodmak to come up with a legend for the werewolf that you believe is what the legends really were,” said horror film director Mick Garris in an interview.

The film, despite premiering in Los Angeles two days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, still premiered to a roaring success. As aforementioned, there were four other films made with Chaney as the Wolf Man. Universal rebooted the film in 2010 starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving. The film company looks to reboot it once more with Ryan Gosling.

Creating the Tragic Figure

It is interesting how Siodmak was able to establish a new mythology that many believe to be millennia old. His interest in science fiction led him to the sets of “Metropolis” and later into the world of Universal Monsters. But it was the ancient Greeks and his personal experience in Germany that influenced the character arc of Lawrence Talbot, the human version of the Wolf Man.

Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) and Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), in "The Wolf Man." Universal Pictures

Siodmak created an endearing yet tragic character. In the story, Talbot moves to Wales to reconcile with his estranged father and become heir to the estate after the death of his elder brother. He soon falls in love with a local girl. In a moment of heroism, rescuing someone from a wolf, he is bitten. The wolf was a werewolf, and so his fate is sealed.

“He was looking back to the classic Greek Aristotelian definition of tragedy. The great man, who is cursed by the gods to fail, and his destiny cannot be escaped,” said Steve Haberman, screenwriter and film historian, in an interview.

“What Curt Siodmak brilliantly did was he gave us an Everyman Greek tragedy, and in this case he is cursed by the supernatural. He is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He [gets bitten] by a werewolf and all of the qualities that he has―that we have, that we can identify with―they avail him not. And so that becomes Curt Siodmak’s 20th-century version of Greek tragedy.”

For Siodmak, however, the story itself was more than just a new addition to the line of monsters for Universal Pictures. It was a metaphorical biography.

“I am the Wolf Man,” Siodmak said in an interview with Writers Guild magazine shortly before he died. “I was forced into a fate I didn’t want: to be a Jew in Germany. I would not have chosen that as my fate.”

Siodmak lived in America for more than 60 years, producing many successful works in both film and literature. Nothing, however, can compare to the success he achieved or the impact on American folklore and mythology than his creation of Lawrence Talbot, the man fated to become both protagonist and antagonist. The story of the Wolf Man (indeed mankind in general) can be summed up in Siodmak’s four-line poem from his screenplay:

Even a man who’s pure in heart, And says his prayers by night, May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms And the autumn moon is bright.

‘‘That four-liner has been attributed to ’Gypsy folklore,‘ ’‘ Siodmak wrote in his autobiography, “Wolf Man’s Maker,” according to the New York Times. ’‘I made it up. That’s how folk history is made.’’