Not a bad way to kick off the new year at all! Released in 1935 during Universal's first horror cycle Werewolf Of London centers on a botanist professor who uncovers an extremely rare plant in Tibet before being attacked by someone or more something, and upon returning to London he soon finds he has a strange reaction to moonlight. Now obviously the legend of lycanthropy has been around for some time before this movie and indeed it is a more humble telling than the infinitely more popular Wolf Man film from 1941, but it's still pretty good. Henry Hull as Wilfred has a smidge of the tragic curse that later would be given a much wider breadth with Lon Chaney Jr., but the performance is almost more akin to a Jekyll and Hyde situation where he's a very high class well dressed and spoken man, but when the wolf form takes shape and actually looks pretty awesome I'll say he wears more simple shabby clothes wandering the dark streets of London with a desire to kill yet still walks and acts like a human. It's interesting to see how it began before the trope evolved. Another excellent example of the movie is Warner Oland probably best known to film buffs as Charlie Chan in the early 1930s who plays almost a Van Helsing type character who is familiar with the legend of werewolves and seeks to help the afflicted professor rather than destroy him, he has such a great presence and I find it a crying shame he passed away in 1938 because from what I saw he was a very good actor. Valerie Hobson was a pleasant familiar face to see as Wilfred's wife Lisa, and I gotta say for a 1930s movie she is not at all a damsel or weak willed woman she says what she wants, does what she wants, and is taking no nonsense from man or woman which was great! The look of the film is simple but effective, there's no sprawling sets but each is distinctive and fits that grimy seedy London atmosphere which contradicts nicely with the more swanky socialite gathering homes of the high and mighty. Though mind you it does not take a positive light to any single one of the sharp dressed rich, really painting them as vacuous and idiotic for some light humor. In fact the only real criticism I can give the movie is we spend just a little too long focusing on these ancillary characters instead of say Wilfred or Lisa, the film has brief tangents so I think they were still ironing out their scripts. I mean hell at this point the vast majority of Universal Monster movies were based on literary previously established works that they didn't need to tinker with much, so it's a small complaint. Definitely a minor classic in this catalogue but for lovers of monster movies it's another fine addition to the collection. I give it 2.5 stars, 7/10, and we're jumping 75 years in the future tomorrow so stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment