Horrorfest 30: Werewolf of London

WEREWOLF OF LONDON was the first of the Universal werewolf films, but it's not the most famous -- that honor goes to THE WOLF-MAN, which has a remake set to come out in the near future.

I've seen THE WOLF-MAN a bunch of times, but never saw WEREWOLF OF LONDON until the other night. I remember I had a book when I was a kid that told the stories of both movies, and WOLF-MAN always seemed more exciting. Now that I've seen both movies, I can say I prefer WOLF-MAN, but WEREWOLF OF LONDON is still interesting.

In many ways, WEREWOLF OF LONDON is more similar to the other Universal horror films than THE WOLF-MAN is. It focuses on a mad scientist. As always, his work is keeping him away from his love, in this case his wife, and there's always a boring douchebag in the sidelines just waiting to swoop in and take the wife away, in this case, his wife's childhood friend.

This time around the scientist is Dr. Glendon (Henry Hull), a botanist searching for a rare flower that only blooms under the light of the moon and only grows in Tibet. During his search in the foreign land, Glendon is attacked and bitten by a werewolf. He returns to London with the flower and attempts to make it bloom with an immitation-moonlight machine but gets mixed results.

A mysterious Asian scientist shows up, Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland) who seems to know quite a bit about werewolves and moon-flowers. He also seems to know Glendon has been bitten by a werewolf. Hmmmm.

The story surrounding this film tells us it was originally conceived as an answer to Paramount's popular DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE films. This is clear as the story unfolds -- once Glendon makes the transformation from man to werewolf, he is clearly more man than wolf. He has the presence of mind to don his cap, overcoat and scarf before going out on the prowl for victims, for instance. He lurks in the shadows of London city streets, cape over his face, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting women. He's even able to speak plain English while he's in wolf-mode.

Later, THE WOLF-MAN took a more supernatural and less pseudo-scientific approach to the material, including plenty of folklore (created for the film). The whole werewolf thing was treated as more of a magical curse, the werewolf was more of a wild animal, stalking forests at night.

The undercurrent of WEREWOLF OF LONDON seems to be about the very British idea of keeping a stiff upper lip. Even as Glendon is clearly afflicted with the curse of the werewolf, he spends most of his time attempting to keep his shit together and deal with his problem secretly without asking for help from anyone else. Meanwhile, his wife's childhood friend is clearly making his move, but Glendon seems to allow it to happen, to a point, almost as a way of calling some kind of bluff, attempting to "stay the course" as a way of combatting this intrusion.

Anyway, in the end, you can see why Universal decided to take another stab with THE WOLF-MAN, though this movie isn't bad by any means. Just not as spectacular as the movies it followed and not as memorable as the ones it inspired.