It's great to see this interesting thread return to life. Some thoughts on actors, characters and names: that the two other American male actors cast in major roles in the film, Ralph Bellamy and Warren William, had both essayed fictional detectives (Ellery Queen and the Lone Wolf) may just be serendipitous, as each in his way, as officer of the law and physician, try to understand and then track down the wolf man. Lon Chaney, Jr. had already played a morally ambiguous character, the simpleminded giant, Lennie, in Of Mice and Men.

I find the casting of Claude Rains as Sir John significant, as the actor became famous in films playing the Invsible Man, went on to a career as an eminent character actor in all kinds of films, nearly all of them steering clear of the "stigma" of horror. Indeed, The Invisible Man is arguably borderline horror or proto-science fiction, depending on the point of view, it's often regarded as a horror due to its director, James Whale, and the studio that produced it, Universal. The same year he was cast in The Wolf Man Rains played the "peekaboo" title role in the comedy fantasy, Here Comes Mr. Jordan. His casting as the Phantom Of the Opera aside, the actor was able to maintain his status as a mainstream player of considerable prestige till the end of his career. The Wolf Man was a return to horror and Universal, and my guess that either the money was good or that Rains wanted to play the part. The mere presence of Rains lends The Wolf Man a touch of class, as does the casting of Bellamy and William, which suggests that the studio for aiming for the big time when they made the picture.


That there are a number of future Sherlock Holmes series regulars in the picture is likely due more to the studio and their nationality (British) as anything else. Same with the overall look and feel of the picture, which rather suggests the Holmes series, which hadn't even begun at Universal. Strangely, though, if one can accept Larry as a hound (and why not?) the plot of The Wolf Man bears some similarities to Hound Of the Baskervilles, what with a relative of a prominent local family returning from abroad. No moors, though; and I don't recall any gypsies in the Baskervilles tale. There's no master detective and his assistant in the mix, either, with Montford and Lloyd rather average sorts compared to Holmes and Watson, but no matter.

As to the names, Talbot, while used by Norman nobles, is likely of Germanic origin: tal, to destroy, bot, a body, which is to say "messenger of destruction", is oft-disputed by linguists. Screenwriter Curt Siodmak, a native of Germany, had to have known this when he chose the name for Larry. Bela the Gypsey channels the name of the actor who portrays him, Bela Lugosi, best known for playing vampires, supernatural creatures who prey on humans for their blood. Maleva, I can only guess: mal=bad, eva, a reference to the Biblical Eve perhaps, thus bad mother, or mother of evil, depending on how one chooses to interpret it. Gwen's non-Welsh last name, Conliffe, if one cares to juggle its vowels around can be interpreted in a variety of ways, many of them of a highly suggestive nature. To wind this up, the subject matter of The Wolf Man, of a man who turns into a wolf, must have surely had a meaning for author Siodmak, whose native country had been taken over by a man whose first name, Adolf, means noble wolf in old High German. Larry Talbot is himself rather a play on that name, split up: noble when a man, ignoble as a wolf. Curt Siodmak, the real father of the Wolf Man, clearly knew what he was doing when he wrote this film.