THE HAUNTED CASTLE (1921) From the maker of NOSFERATU, here's a drama set in an old mansion where strange events occur. One dream sequence with a werewolf-like arm groping at the dreamer in bed is quite effective and foreshadowed the creepiness of NOSFERATU. Overall, it's a murder mystery involving a group of people awaiting a Baroness at an ancient castle.
WOLF BLOOD (1925) Stars Marguerite Clayton, George Chesbro and Ray Hanford. Directed and starring Geirge Chesbro....it seems to have been a great influence on 1941's THE WOLF MAN. The similarties seem just too great in some actual dialogue (title cards here) and themeatically. The story takes place in the Canadian woods as a freud rages between two logging companies. The manager of one is severely beaten by his rivals. To save him a doctor, in a renegade experiment to save him, uses wolf blood. Men start avoiding him, thinking he has lost his human soul. He gets angry easy and his personality changes as he believes he is becoming a wolf-man. His murderous feelings torment him like a later Larry Talbot (in THE WOLF MAN). It seems VERY likely that Curt Siodmak or someone at Universal had seen this picture and cribbed ideas and even dialogue for THE WOLF MAN. The setting is different, there is no visual hairy werewolf, but the themes are in place. There is a very cool scene of transparent "wolf ghost-phantoms" that are visualized.
