Werewolf of London

(1935) director Stuart Walker
viewed: 10/15/10

Often I dedicate my month of October to watching horror films, but for some reason, it’s taken me a while to get going this year despite having queued up quite a few.  I selected Werewolf of London for watching with the kids as part of their experience with this same theme.

Interestingly, I don’t think I’d ever seen Werewolf of London, which, released by Universal in 1935, preceded the far more famous and iconic Lon Chaney, Jr. film, The Wolf Man (1941).  I was familiar with it from still images in books and magazines, as well as from the Warren Zevon song and the An American Werewolf in London (1981) film that at least took its name a little bit from this film.

It’s actually not a bad film, but it’s kind of funny.  This werewolf is a little less wolfy and quite a bit less wild.  He shares more in common with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) than he does with the more traditional werewolf.   In fact, he puts on his coat before he goes outside to marraud, maim and kill.  And at the end, with a normal bullet in him (silver wasn’t necessary), he even speaks to his wife while still a wolf.  One might posit that an English werewolf maintains more of a gentleman’s qualities than that of pure beast.

One of the interesting parts of the film is the way it all starts, with Henry Hull as a botanist in Tibet, seeking a special flower that only grows in one mountainous valley and also only blooms by moonlight.  No gypsies here.  While cultivating his find, he is attacked by a werewolf, who bites him but that he manages to fend off with a knife.

Upon returning to London with his flower, trying to bring it to bloom with artificial moonlight, he is met by Warner Orland (who was most famous for playing Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu and was typcast as Asian characters despite being Sweedish), who tells him that he was the werewolf that bit him and warns him of what he is about to go through.  In the meantime, he shows jealousy at his wife and an old American beau who shows up.

The kids were pretty into it, but Victoria (7 years old) started to find the scary parts too intense, and when an opportunity arose for her to leave, Clara went with her, proclaiming being too scared too.  But I don’t really think she was frightened.  Felix loved it and we watched the little documentary on the DVD too which was by horror film historian David Skal and was pretty good. 

I hope that we can squeeze another couple flicks like this in before Halloween.