The Wolf Man (Robert Florey)

The first version of what would eventually morph into the 1941 film with Lon Chaney Jr. actually started just a decade earlier, as a potential vehicle for then-overnight-sensation Boris Karloff, and written and directed by Robert Florey ("Murders in the Rue Morgue"). Instead of a Welsh aristocrat named Larry Talbot who transforms under the light of the autumn moon after being bitten by a wolf, this early treatment instead revolves around Christoph, a young boy in the Swiss-Tyrolian [sic] Alps who was nurtured by a she-wolf who's pack had slaughtered his mother. When he grows to be an adult, he transforms into a Werewolf during times of anger, stress, and grief. However, the ensuing story, including a scene in which Christoph transforms during a confessional and murders the priest and Christoph later unknowingly falling in love with a prostitute, made Universal worry about upset reactions from the Catholic Church, causing this to be shelved for nearly a decade, until Curt Siodmak reworked the idea from scratch into the film we know and love today.