Blog-o-ween 2022: Werewolves

“Even a man who is pure in heart,
And says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms,
And the moon is full and bright.”

When Lon Chaney, Jr., hears these words for the first time in George Waggner's 1941 film, The Wolf Man, he laughs them off as village superstition. He doesn't laugh for long, however, and as the moon goes up, ol' Lon lets his hair down.

While not the first cinematic portrayal of lycanthrophy, The Wolf Man really crystallized the mythololgy in the minds of the general populace. The rules are simple:

1.) Anyone who is bitten by a werewolf and lives becomes a werewolf.

2.) Said person becomes a werewolf during the full moon.

3.) A werewolf can only be killed by silver.

It wouldn't be until the 1970s that we learned from Warren Zevon that werewolves prefer the piña coladas at Trader Vic's and that they have outstanding taste in coiffure.

Werewolves on the radio seem like a perfect match because, since we are dealing with the theatre of the mind, the messy, elaborate, and just expensive transformation scenes are taken care of by the perfect blend of sound design and the listener's imagination. There are many old time radio programs that dealt with werewolves. Let's listen to a few...

First up is Dark Fantasy and their tale "W Is for Werewolf." This story was first broadcast on a Friday the 13th and it was Dark Fantasy thirteenth broadcast, so...listen at your own peril! The story concerns Jim Howard and his visit to the town of Cape Howe to see his old friend Dr. Bill Andrews. The doc keeps to himself on a private island he shares with his son, John. Before his visit, Jim was asked by his friend to bring every book he could fin on the subject of lycanthropy. Now why would he want that, I wonder?

Next, let's go back to our old friends, The Weird Circle. Their tale, "The Werewolf," is described on one website thusly: A simple woodland hunter marries a lady with sharp teeth. I can't think of a way to improve on that economic use of language, so let's move on...

...to the last of today's shaggy dog stories. Creeps by Night host Boris Karloff brings us the story of "The Hunt." In this tale, a old recluse keeps his sister hidden in a farmhouse by a swamp. When a potential suitor has his throat ripped out by a strange wolf-like, an expert on lycanthrope arrives on the scene to investigate.