Director: Stuart Walker
Year:  1935
Rating: 7.0

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The Werewolf of London was another solid addition to the Universal series of monster films of the 1930's. Think about it. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Invisible Man, the Mummy and the Werewolf all came out of this studio in a few short years. All classics. The Werewolf films starring Lon Chaney Jr are the best known but this one came first and was one of the first major films with a werewolf character. It runs at only 75 minutes but covers a lot of werewolf territory. As werewolves go this one is one of the most guilt stricken and least powerful - once being felled by a knock on the head. But doing his best not to kill his loved ones - but fate had another idea.


The werewolf is portrayed by Henry Hull a very accomplished actor in the theater at the time who would go on to a distinguished career in film but generally as a character actor. His character flies off to the mysterious land of Tibet in search of a rare flower only found there and in the full moon he finds it - but also finds a werewolf that bites him. Back in London he begins to realize that the bite has turned him into a werewolf. In any werewolf film one of the most vital tricks is the transformation from man to wolf. In the first such event it happens as Hull is walking and columns intervening between him and the camera. With each column hiding him for a second, he turns into the monster. In future conversions it is just the camera facing him - though apparently it was actually a model head of Hull!


A doctor Yogami mysteriously appears telling Hull that a werewolf will always try and kill the one it loves most. Yogami clearly knows more than he speaks. He is played by Warner Oland who though of Swedish heritage nearly made a career of playing Asians - from Charlie Chan (16 times) to Fu Manchu (4 times) and a few others. Initially this role was to go to Bela Lugosi but a few days before shooting Oland took over. It is a well shot film with a great soundtrack but none of the characters are particularly sympathetic - with Hull being an obsessed scientist with no time for his neglected wife (Valerie Hobson who was one of England's finest actress's in Great Expectations, Kind Hearts and Coronets and Rocking Horse Winner. She later married John Profumo who was in the center of a huge scandal that rocked England in 1963).


She isn't sympathetic as well being on the verge of having an affair with an old boyfriend (Lester Matthews) who though in theory is the hero of the film is a bit of a bounder. Two delightful character actors (Ethel Griffies and Zeffie Tilbury) are given a surprising amount of time playing two besotted elderly women who are quite amusing. It seems an odd film choice in the middle of a tense horror film but I quite liked them. Ethel lived to be 97 years old and appeared in The Birds. Zeffie made it to 86 and was Grandma in The Grapes of Wrath.