The story revolves around hapless botanist Dr. Glendon, whose search for a rare moonflower leads him to the slopes of Tibet. In true horror movie fashion, Glendon fails to heed the warnings of the creaky old man who counsels against going into the mountains, and is attacked by a savage beast while securing his prize. Upon returning to London, he begins transforming into a werewolf during the full moon. His only salvation is the juice of the flower he sought in Tibet, a rare concoction that can temporarily halt the metamorphosis between man and wolf. Unfortunately for Glendon, the mysterious Dr. Yogami is also in pursuit of the cure and will stop at nothing to get his hands on it...
The original Wolf Man may be the best loved of Universal’s werewolf pictures, but for my money, Werewolf in London is its best. For a film knocking on eighty years old, it’s a surprisingly cynical film, with a somewhat antiheroic main character. Whereas Wolf Man’s Lawrence Talbot was selfless, picking up the curse in the act of trying to save another, Glendon is a victim of his own greed, ignoring the warnings of others to satisfy his own ambition. Despite this, it’s hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for the old boy as the curse begins to take hold and his life starts to unravel. To make matter even worse, one of his wife’s old beaus arrives on the scene and starts making passes at his wife.
Another surprising aspect of this movie is how its draws a line between the curse of werewolfery and drug addiction. During the film, we see that the moonflower containing the cure is like a kind of organic hypo, the juice administered by breaking the stem and popping it into the nearest vein. For a film from the fun-loving thirties this is quite a stark and arresting image. Yogami even behaves like an addict, stooping to deceit and trickery to get his fix, and screeching at his maid when she touches his stash. As far as I can tell, the idea of werewolves as a metaphor for drug addiction was something that would not crop up again until more than sixty years later in Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, making Werewolf of London -intentionally or not- a film ahead of its time.
Sadly, the film hasn’t aged as well in other areas, with some performances feeling entirely stiff and unnatural. It must be said, though, that the main players are mostly excellent, especially Warner Oland as Doctor Yogami, who gets to deliver many of the movie’s best lines in his inimitable nordic drawl. The plot, too, offers very few real surprises and the humorous interludes featuring a pair of gin-soaked old ladies are more miss than hit.
Still, the film is well paced with plenty of action and good, old fashioned melodrama. The look of the creature -which partly inspired the design of the werewolf in Penny Dreadful- is effective, too, with some excellent early transformation sequences that still look great today. It might not impress anyone raised on the FX-work of Rick Baker and Stan Winston, but I think the simple make-up looks great, those sinister eyebrows and widow's peak enriching, instead of overshadowing, Henry Hull’s tortured performance.
All in all, this is one of the better creature features from the thirties and a must-see for anyone with a taste for werewolf movies. It may not be as enduring or influential as The Wolf Man, but Werewolf of London stands on its own thanks to its unique spin on werewolf lore and some pioneering effects work.
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