You’d never guess from the accents, but Universal’s 1940s werewolf classics are (at least partly) set in Wales. Is it ridiculously geeky to try to figure out where in Wales? I thought so.

In The Wolf Man (1941) and its sequel Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943) , the werewolf character, Lawrence Talbot (played by Lon Chaney Jr) is the American heir to a stately home in Llanwelly – there’s no such place, but it sounds a bit like “Llanelli”, doesn’t it?

Then, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Talbot ends up in Cardiff (yes – there is such a place – I live there).

“How did I get in Cardiff?” I recall him asking rather clumsily. To be honest, I can’t remember. I think he goes on the rampage as a wolf at night and wakes up naked on a Cardiff street (hey – it’s happened to us all, hasn’t it?) before being taken to hospital.

So the Talbot estate must be within wolf-human commuting distance of the city. According to the International Wolf Center (yes, that’s right) a wolf may travel 50 miles or more in search of food. Talbot isn’t actually a wolf – so maybe he would travel 30 or 40 miles, still giving himself time to doze off on that Cardiff street before morning.

There’s some lovely dialogue, by the way (thanks IMDB):

Inspector Owen: “This is Inspector Owen speaking, in Cardiff. Have you got anything in your files about a man named…”

Llanwelly Police Sergeant: “Lawrence Talbot? Why of course, he lived here.”

Inspector Owen: “Well, that’s all right, then. We’ve got him up here in our hospital.”

Llanwelly Police Sergeant: “I wouldn’t want him in our hospital; he died four years ago!”

Now, did you notice his name? Talbot. Well, there’s a town called Port Talbot – you know it, it’s 30-something miles from Cardiff (easily in wolf-human night-time wandering distance) – and on the way to Llanelli, via Swansea. It even has a big old house – Margam House, which would be  a fitting home for an American heir/ werewolf. Mystery solved?

Thanks for your patience. Now reward yourselves with the trailers:

Here’s the trailer of the 1941 original – not much about Wales, though. And here’s the trailer for that sequel from 1943.