Yet Another Peter Haining Fraud

Recently I came across a reference to a long lost silent film, The Werewolf (1913), reportedly the first werewolf film. It was short, a two-reeler (18 minutes long, according to IMDB),  with a script by Ruth Ann Baldwin, based on a short story (supposedly) by "Henry" Beaugrand. The film was lost in a studio fire in 1924.

I was curious to read the story. The first place I found it was in Peter Haining's Werewolf: Horror Stories of the Man-Beast (1987). In his introduction, Haining wrote:

Henry Beaugrand (1855-1929) was an American magazine writer with an abiding interest in American Indian history and folklore, and he contributed stories and essays on these subjects to various periodicals of the day, including The Century Magazine, which published "The Werwolves" in its issue of August 1898. It has never been collected in book form, a fact which is all the more surprising because the Canadian film director, Henry McRae, used it as the basis for his silent movie, The Werewolf, made in 1913. This pioneering film starred Chester Graves as an Indian brave who changes into a wolf to persecute the soldiers, trappers and settlers who are intruding on his tribal lands. Though the short film was very unsophisticated by today's standards--the transformation taking place through a quick camera dissolve from the man to a live wolf--there is no denying its position as the forerunner in a whole genre of popular movies. 

I know better than to take anything Haining says at face value (and have previously detailed another of his frauds from this specific book here). In brief I find two major problems with his above statements, and one larger problem with the story itself as he reprinted it. 

 

The first problem is with the authorship Haining cites. The original publication, which is indeed in the August 1898 issue of The Century Magazine, is signed only as "H. Beaugrand" (see above), a byline which is otherwise and authoritatively identified as the Canadian soldier, newspaper owner, politician and author, Honoré Beaugrand (1848-1906),  A full description of his life can be found in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, here, including the mention of this specific story. Haining's attribution to the erroneous author is currently repeated all over the web, exhibiting another instance of the lasting effect of his frauds.

The next problem with Haining's account is over his synopsis of the lost film. His account does not match contemporary descriptions. (Of course he gives no source for his account of a film lost since 1924!) Chester Graves did not star in it at all--and there is no "Indian brave who changes into a wolf" The werewolf in the film is not a man but a native American woman. Did Haining invent his description merely to sound more authoritative, figuring no one would call him out?  The 1913 poster for the film (seen at right) describes the film as follows: "A beautiful story, based on an Indian legend. Watuma, daughter of a wronged Indian squaw, is turned into a wolf. She returns, years later, as a 'wolf-woman' to wreak vengeance on Clifford, reincarnated as a prospector." The plot of the silent film, as it survives, can seem a  bit confusing.  I refer the reader to the "official synopsis" of the film as cited by Brad Middleton at his blog, My Bloody Obsession. Scroll down here.

Haining's worst crime is in how he mis-presents the text of the story.  In its Century Magazine appearance (pp. 814-823), it is a story in three parts, the third of which is larger than the first two combined. Haining prints only the first two parts (pp. 814-818), and omits the rest of the story, which curiously, given that it covers the native woman's vengeance in the form of a wolf against her unfaithful husband, is actually the part of the story which supplied the basis for the 1913 film.  An accurate description of the full story is given by Jess Nevins here, in his Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana.