Movie review – “Werewolf of London” (1935) **1/2

The best known werewolf classic is The Wolf Man, but several years earlier Universal had a stab at the genre. It starts with an expedition in Tibet, led by two white men. They come across an isolated cave, out of which jymps a werewolf who bites on of the men. This triggers werewolf shenanigans, with the joker in the pack being a special flower which stops werewolves killing people.

The lead is played by Henry Hull, an actor whose bombastic style makes him hard to forget and often saw him cast as loud newspapermen (eg Jesse James, Objective Burma). Lon Chaney Jnr’s Wolfman was a genuinely tragic figure – he only got bitten because he was trying to help out. And this is what strikes a chord in the character. But no one really cares about Hull’s driven, nasty botanist. He’s more like Dr Jekyll or Dr Frankenstein – indeed like Colin Clive in the first Frankenstein, Hull is such a devoted scientist he neglects his wife, so she flirts with a childhood friend. (Indeed, his wife is played by Valerie Hobson who played Mrs F in Bride of Frankenstein – she’s really wet, though not as wet as the senior citizen who plays her childhood sweetheart).

Hull clearly doesn’t think much of his wife – he neglects her for long periods of time, and during the opening scene in Tibet has a pal who seems to be his boyfriend. So you don’t really care later in the film when there’s all this stuff about “the werewolf always tries to kill the person he loves”. Especially as the wife doesn’t seem to particularly like him, but is more interested in flirting with her ex. You’re not likely to care about these two either – indeed the only character in the whole film who’s really sympathetic is Warner Oland (in a role surely meant for Bela Lugosi) who plays a fellow werewolf. Also Hull is a pretty whimpy werewolf – even when he gets his hands on his wife while in wolf-mode he fails to kill her… then her boyfriend actually knocks him out.

There is fun stuff though – the werewolf make up is fascinating, Spring Byington adds a dash of class as a silly society lady, the two old boozing crones who are Hull’s landlady are a hoot. And it's quite touching at the end when Hull thanks the cops for shooting him. Flawed, but enjoyable.