My Movie Journal is Better Than Yours

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Notes History

Date Viewed	Venue	Note
11.10.12		This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2012 Lon Chaney Jr. (with perfect hair) plays Larry Talbot... wolf man! It's funny these days to have everyone in the movie be so naïve. The same went for Karloff slouching around as a non-mummy in the last movie. The concept of a real werewolf is so far-fetched for everybody to actually believe that they continue to insist that there's a real killer wolf on the loose AND Larry's just going insane. But everybody knows the werewolf legend... kind of confusing. Anyway, dude turned into a wolf and killed a few people. I am glad to finally be watching these. Hopefully these notes don't sound too negative. I love all the little things that place these films in the 30s and early 40s like how all they need to set up the movie is a single screen of text followed by a process shot of two guys in the car saying "look, there's Castle Talbot!" or how the film literally dumps to the End screen. Some studio exec somewhere says "The wolf man's dad, what else is there to say!? Just end it" and so the editor does just that. And the plastic trees in the forest and all the dry ice fog and low key lighting and really everything about the movie except the plot, make-up, and Lon Chaney's acting I deeply love. It's great to see Claude Rains in a movie like this two years after Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and one year before Casablanca. Speaking of Rains...