WEREWOLF OF LONDON
(director: Stuart Walker; screenwriter: John Colton; cinematographer: Charles J. Stumar; editor: Russell F. Schoengart; music: Karl Hajos; cast: Henry Hull (Dr. Wilfrid Gendon), Warner Oland (Dr. Yogami), Valerie Hobson (Lisa), Lester Matthews (Paul Ames), Lawrence Grant (Sir Thomas Forsythe), Spring Byington (Aunt Ettie), Zeffie Tilbury (Mrs Moncaster), Ethel Griffies (Mrs. Whack); Runtime: 75; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Stanley Bergerman; TCM/Amazon Videos/Universal Pictures; 1935-in B/W)
“Well-crafted and suspenseful.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Stuart Walker (“The Mystery of Edwin Drood”/”Great Expectations”) directs and John Colton scripts this well-crafted and suspenseful furry monster pic from Universal.
This was the first feature length werewolf movie. But the first werewolf movie was “The Werewolf,” an 18-minute short from 1913.
In Tibet, the English botanist Dr. Wilfrid Gendon (Henry Hull) discovers a rare flower, the Mariphasa, that blooms in the moonlight, but he’s also bitten by a werewolf.
Back in London a few months later, Wilfrid shows off to invited guests his exotic plant collection kept in his greenhouse. But the unpleasant chap upsets his young wife Lisa (Valerie Hobson) by becoming more reclusive than usual since his return from Tibet.
The sinister Japanese botanist Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland) tells the dull Wilfrid they met before in Tibet where he’s been infected as a werewolf and will go on a murder spree during the full-moon, and the only werewolf antidote is the Mariphasa.
Wilfrid leaves home to live in isolation when realizing he’s a werewolf and his wife is in danger (“The werewolf instinctively kills the thing it loves best”). The botanist tries to get rid of the curse with the help of his botanist werewolf pal, Yogami, as they try to get the curative flowers to bloom under indoor lighting in his greenhouse.
REVIEWED ON 6/15/2024 GRADE: B