THE WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935)
Article #155 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-18-2001
Posting date: 1-1-2002

Two werewolves battle over possession of a rare Tibetan flower that is the only antidote (albeit a temporary one) to lycanthropy.

When dealing with supernatural creature lore, it is always a good thing to remember that, since such creatures do not exist, any lore involving their habits and/or the disposal of such creatures is artificially conceived. What is generally accepted as the standard werewolf lore is more a result of the popularity of THE WOLF MAN than of any established rules that existed previous to that movie. This being the case, I suspect that our conception of werewolves would be somewhat different if this movie had been Universal’s big hit rather than the later Lon Chaney, Jr. one (which probably wouldn’t have been made had this one hit paydirt). As it is, I find THE WEREWOLF OF LONDON enjoyable enough, with the idea of a flower offering a temporary antidote to the curse to be an intriguing idea, as the conflict between the two werewolves (Henry Hull and Warner Oland, both giving fine performances) adds a lot to this movie. The discovery of the flower in Tibet is for me, the most memorable scene in the movie, as well as some of the stalking sequences in the foggy streets of London. Henry Hull’s makeup was originally supposed to resemble the makeup used by Lon Chaney Jr. in THE WOLF MAN, but Hull blanched at the amount of time it would have taken to apply that makeup; the less elaborate version used in the movie was certainly effective enough, as it apparently scared Valerie Hobson out of her wits, but it just wasn’t as memorable as the makeup in the later movie.