Universal’s first feature-length foray into lycanthrope theater, Stuart Walker’s Werewolf of London, presents a taut suspense thriller fraught with meaning, while transforming Charles Dickens’s London into a frothing, hairy nightmare realm of terror. Abound in anxiety and atmosphere, makeup effects artist Jack Pierce sharpens his teeth so to speak in what is debatably one of the most effective depictions of the titular character onscreen.
Doctor Wilfred Glendon (Henry Hull), while on a botanical expedition in Tibet in pursuit of the Mariphasa lupina lumina, a rare flower which only blooms in the moonlight, is attacked by a strange creature. Upon returning to London with his specimen, a rash of victims of heinous murders begin appearing as Doctor Yogami (Warner Oland) steadily pursues Glendon, insisting the latter release the prize flower into his hands for unspoken reasons.
What is delightful about Walker’s film is the unrepentant manner in which he casts his central figure of Wilfred (the character’s name being phonetically as well as visually akin to “wolf”), despite the fact that the character unwillingly succumbs to becoming a werewolf atop the director positing, not one, but two lycanthropes, of which, the evidence of multiple murderers is alluded to but not confirmed until the film’s climax. Even though there are two killers at large, Walker refuses to exploit this feature but instead restrains visually depicting, not only Glendon’s doppelganger personage en masse, but entirely withholds the actions and direct consequences of his undisclosed secondary villain, thus permitting his audience to witness the mental torment of Glendon as his overly rationale mind futility contends with the non sequitur called, in the film’s terms, “werewolfism.” For example, Glendon retains his mental fortitude during a full moon as we watch him pause to put on a jacket and hat prior to entering the streets of London as he obviously remains cognizant of the immortal nature of murder but is nonetheless unable to deny his new homicidal drive, which further contributes to the character’s chillingly bestial yet humanistic temperament, a quality which, throughout almost the whole of lycanthrope cinema since, has not be utilized to such a masterful effect.
Relating and aiding the complex, creative presentation of the central character is Jack Pierce’s makeup in that it is arguably more menacing in its minimalism in that is allows the essence of a human to remain, whereas he almost completely veils the humanistic element of Lawrence Talbot’s alter ego in George Waggner’s The Wolf Man, the latter of which permits the director’s audience to completely disassociate themselves from the monster as opposed to forcing an uncomfortable proximity to his creature in the former.
Walker–much in the same manner that many horror directors would establish their metaphorical import when depicting haunted house pictures–aligns the struggling marriage of Glendon and his wife, Lisa (Valerie Hobson), as well as the infidelity witnessed with the night watchman at the zoo, Alf (Jeffrey Hassel), to the social upheaval caused by the werewolves (at one point during the film, Glendon tells Moncaster, played by Zeffie Tilbury, the owner of a brothel, that he is “singularly single”). This theme is further complimented by Lisa describing her recent irritability in animalistic terms, thus foreshadowing her husband’s transformation.
Rewardingly, Walker’s film also pauses to offer a criticism of the elitist pomp and circumstance of British high society of the time, epitomized by the character of Ettie Combs (Spring Byington) quipping that Botticelli is sung. She is the same character who merrily brags, fully enjoying the safe distance of her otherwise risqué circumstance, that her newest locale is near the “sweetest slums” with murderers on one side and pubs on the other. Such criticism lends to the atmosphere as we sneer at such pretentiousness, the audience knowing that the faux danger which the upper crust is generically enjoying is, in all actuality, retributively awaiting at their doorstep. Perhaps the most imaginative sequence of the film in this regard occurs when Glendon–at the thought of killing more people due to not being able to promote the Mariphasa, whose bloom thwarts lycanthropy during a full moon, to bloom in time–envisions a slew of newspaper headlines announcing the slayings of loved ones. Furthermore, Walker utilizes every opportunity to further plunge his viewers into uneasy apprehension as we watch one of Glendon’s botanical projects, a Lovecraftian plant which seems to have been crossbred with David Cronenberg’s anus beetle in Naked Lunch, eat a frog whole. This, combined with the prophetic depiction of a home surveillance system devised by paranoid Glendon (prior to his contraction of lycanthropy), further lends to the film’s vastly effective efforts to be more than escapist horror.
As with any film, Walker’s picture does have its faults, foremost of which is his esteeming to capture the regional and class dialect of his characters, which has unfortunately succumbed to time as heavy accents further obfuscate the dialogue. In this respect, Walker could have easily taken out the colloquial idioms or standardized his characters’ speech, thus permitting his character’s diction to be more readily accessible to his latter-day audiences.
Stuart Walker’s creation of Wilfred Glendon is one of the most unnerving creatures in all of horror cinema. However, not content to merely bring his monster to life, Walker creates a well-crafted film which comments upon the unstable nature of humanity, focusing specifically upon marital instability and faux societal clicks. Ultimately an understated cautionary tale, Werewolf of London is a vastly overlooked masterpiece in lieu of the fact that many critics have cited it as being one of the most imaginative, articulate films issued during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Conversation piece: Not surprisingly, one of the contributing screenwriters to the project was Edmund Pearson, an uncredited pen partially responsible for the script for James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
