DRIVE IN SATURDAY

Remember Larry Talbot? When the moon was full, you could count on him to change from being a gentle, lovably nurd into a bloodthirsty, howling wolf. And I don�t mean some oldtime blues singer.

Larry, of course, was The Wolf man in those great Universal horror films of the 1930�s, the ones that still turn up regularly on Creature Features and Chiller Theatre. As played by Lon Chaney, Jr., he had to keep a straight face when other actors spoke lines like: �The ways you walked were thorny, through no fault of your own." Plus The Dauph�s favorite: �Go now and heaven help you.�

And who can forget the immortal: �Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the moon is full and bright.� Now that�s poetry!

Alas, The Howling, a modern day werewolf saga, is short on poetry and long on the kind of dumb humor that has characters reading Allen Ginsberg�s Howl and making gleeful references to Wolf�s Chili and Wolf man Jack, it�s amazing they left out the J. Geils Band and Look Homeward, Angel.