Ah, Lon Chaney, Jr.

He was the son of a famous man and, like many sons of famous men, he often struggled to escape his father’s shadow.  While he would never be mistaken for a man of a thousand faces, Lon Chaney, Jr. did make a name for himself as Larry Talbot, the unfortunate man who found himself cursed to turn into the Wolf Man whenever the man was full.  Chaney spent the majority of his career appearing in horror films and, later, westerns.  Not only did he play The Wolf Man but he was also one of the many actors to take a shot at playing both Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula.  Later, he would appear in a series of low budget horror films that, quality-wise, were often a far cry from his best-known films.  That said, he was also a favorite of producer/director Stanley Kramer, who cast him in both High Noon and The Defiant Ones and who once said that Chaney was one of the finest character actors in Hollywood.

In today’s scene that I love, Larry Talbot learns the facts about being a werewolf.  From 1941’s The Wolf Man, here is Lon Chaney, Jr in his signature role.