Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, October 16, 2023

All of a Sudden Moved By One I've Seen So Often ...

 


Werewolf of London Attacks on Lots of Levels


Werewolves are largely class-conscious, tending to come of landed gentry, this to enhance tragedy as visited upon a lycanthrope. Dr. Wilfred Glendon is an aristocrat who plays at botany as he can well afford to, a hobbyist whose manor is given over to exotic gardening and a laboratory where he will cultivate the “Mariphasa,” a flower which apart from blooming by moonlight, has little practical application other than to serve as temporary antidote to werewolfery, a benefit Dr. Glendon was unaware of over six month effort he made to locate the obscure plant. Dr. Glendon’s research does not appear to have been peer-reviewed, his inquiries made solo with little interest to share findings with an outside scientific community. He is rich enough not to care if the Mariphasa ever yields a penny or pound, a “Botanical Society” he chairs gathered at his home to admire plant oddities, members less intrigued by Glendon’s research than furtherance of their own social ambitions, several in fact relatives of his.



Dr. Glendon has a looker of a wife he ignores. She is preyed upon less by him in werewolf guise than by former beau “Captain Paul Ames,” (Lester Matthews) also born to status, exploring about in his plane and operating a flight school. Ames is a deeply unsympathetic character trying to snake another man’s wife by telling her how “horribly, miserably unhappy” she really is and pretending to care while wanting to score her because after all she is Valerie Hobson (scroll down), and he knows like everyone that she is neglected. “Won’t you tell an old pal how to help?” he asks, a deft opener line familiar to would-be seducers of married women, Mrs. Glendon giving him the go signal by replying “There’s been no fight in me since the night we broke things off.” These two have got coming whatever lupine assault they are liable to get. Dr. Glendon despite his distractions and humorless nature does not deserve intrusion upon sanctity of his home, what with realizing he is down with something dreaded and cannot seek or expect help. Are we drawn to monsters for how they suffer? Werewolves never arrive at their condition through poor judgment or recklessness. Fate finds them bitten and infected and that is that. Our sympathies are with lycanthropes and depending on one’s mood when watching, project ourselves upon their misery and isolation.



To Glendon impasse comes Dr. Yogami, “student and nurturist of plants,” formerly instructor at a “Carpathian University,” and played masterfully by Warner Oland. Dr. Yogami was the werewolf who infected Dr. Glendon and acknowledges as much. The pair are “lost souls” and nothing can relieve them but the prickly stem of the Mariphasa, which Glendon has and Yogami wants. Oland at one point steps forward to extreme closeup wherein he confides urgency of the crisis he shares with Glendon, gently laying hand upon the other man’s sleeve to indicate where he, in werewolf guise, inflicted the wound. Yogami is an intense melancholic, Oland’s performance beyond mere inhabit of the character. There was much of Yogami in Oland based on what I’ve read of this troubled man who died two years later after much of a lifetime tormented by alcohol and moods that saw him often disappear for reasons unaccounted. Warner Oland for me confers deep sadness upon all his parts save Charlie Chan.



Offscreen travail could and often did enrich what a player brought to parts, benefit that genius derives in compensation perhaps for being a bit mad. English ultra-talent Stephen Fry was once asked, if allowed to push a button that would exorcise demon that was his bipolar condition, would he push it? Fry said no. He recognized a deepest if frightful source of his extraordinary skills, these essential to keep no matter agonies that came with them. Not sure for what reasons Warner Oland suffered, but they ran deep, exhibited if unknowingly for our gratification, and I hope he got at least momentary relief, by performances unique and not capturable by others prior or since. Yogami will do what is necessary to possess the Mariphasa, but we understand his reasons and sympathize with acts needed to postpone damnation. Did Oland reveal himself through vessel that was Yogami? Intensity of his performance suggests so. 



Actor Henry Hull has been called stolid or too theatrical. For me, in this instance, he is neither. Dr. Glendon had problems well before embarking upon eccentric quest for the Mariphasa. Of what possible use was such a plant to mankind? --- yet his pursuit is single-minded, venturing into a “valley filled with demons” against which he is warned, but Glendon dwells in his own valley that is solitude, as do many researchers consumed by their interest, whether it be the Mariphasa or … old films like Werewolf of London? Glendon’s absorption in peculiar plants render him odd to wellborn peers put off by specimen that consume insects and frogs. Could any marriage flourish amidst this? Lisa Glendon married wisely if not well, choosing one of the “black Glendons,” a family of her class, and being practical, Lisa must and will marry within that class. Wilfred surely intrigued her initially, for doesn’t membership among aristocracy permit a man to pursue his own lights without regard to necessaries other men must labor to acquire? Such privilege as Wilfred is heir to gives him time, resource, and license to be the singular person he is, but what becomes of those able to live precisely as they please? We all have it in us to chase after one Mariphasa or another, friends/family to wonder why. Wilfred had the misfortune to find his, but who could have put brakes on him, other than fellow werewolf who is Yogami who understands Glendon more completely than anyone.



Werewolfery thus intrudes into lives of victims already given to addictive or at the least immoderate behavior. We want all of Mariphasas to bloom so both Wilfred and Yogami may find relief, but like with any substance abused, there is knowing that one, even a hundred, such flowers, can never be enough. Lycanthropy compels interest for being a most secret of sufferings, a reason I find werewolves uniquely believable among monsters otherwise fanciful. Wilfred achieves state of poignant grace when, alone and in throes of anxiety, prays “Father in Heaven, don’t let this happen to me again,” panic disorder writ largest, but are episodes we might experience so markedly different? Whatever … it is such moments that distinguish Werewolf of London for me. Wilfred’s powerful exit line is one any of us might summon when curtains descend: “In a few moments, I shall know why all this had to be.” Bravo to whoever penned such memorable farewell for this Werewolf of London.

12 Comments:

Blogger Kevin K. said...

My wife & I were watching the 1966 movie "The Chase" a year or two ago when Henry Hull appeared. "Hey," I shouted gleefully, "that's the werewolf of London!" Then when Miriam Hopkins turned up, I yelped, "Hey, remember her as Temple Drake?" So much for stars Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford.

8:17 AM  
Blogger Ken said...

Thanks for yet another piece of beautifully crafted filmic pondering. You've definitely got me wanting to watch this one again - probably later today. Maybe I'll wait till after dark - for maximum mood enhancement.

8:34 AM  
Blogger DBenson said...

Excellent analysis. Now wondering if the broader Hollywood affliction of living as well as manufacturing fictions figured, with writer, director and cast identifying without quite understanding why.

You might contrast with "The Invisible Ray", where the script sides with the neglected wife and her nice young man against Boris Karloff's obsessed scientist turned luminous strangler. More silly than possibly deep, the film cycles through multiple genres: Gothic horror setup turns into science fiction; followed by polite romantic intrigue on safari; and finally Poe-like murders in Paris.

Also thinking of Dr. Jekyll, no mere hobbyist but an idealist who begins by trying to medically exorcise evil from the human soul. Hyde is less an actual monster than a decadent gentleman writ large, different from the respectable rich men haunting alleys mainly in degree. His Hollywood analogue might be the reform-minded artist who ends up producing pandering garbage.

Hammer's werewolf was cursed by God because he was born out of wedlock on Christmas -- hardly his fault, nor even his innocent mother's (as luridly explained in the first reels). Literary and cinematic curses are usually attributed to evil magic or made-up heathen gods, but here they have the Christian deity laying down a vicious, unjust punishment on babies born on a certain day. Wondering if somebody on that film was dealing with a crisis of faith.

4:30 PM  
Blogger Filmfanman said...

I liked the old ladies providing comic relief in this.

9:28 PM  
Blogger Rick said...

Some Monster Kids have found latter-day worth in WEREWOLF OF LONDON, worth which eluded viewers for decades. I am not among them.

I do find Henry Hull much too stiff and stolid. Oland gives, by far, the film's best performance, but he's barely there.

I find Lester Matthews character just as loathsome as you do, and Hobson's almost as much. And Matthews himself is an unpleasant oafish dandy in my eyes. I fear someday reading that he was a great guy, loved kids and dogs, was generous with charity, took care of an ailing momma. I don't want to read that. I get way too much joy from despising the guy and don't want to lose it.

The writers do give the werewolf a nice, poetic sendoff. Then as "The End" unrolls we see an airplane flying off. Probably this contains Matthews' cad and Hobson's ho. The proper ending for the movie should have had the plane explode as the last frames run through the projector.

Fuhgeddaboudit. Bring on Larry Talbot.

10:26 PM  
Blogger Filmfanman said...

The Larry Talbot Wolfman is an entirely different creature, and so this is a very different story; and that is mostly because Larry Talbot was unmarried when he was afflicted.
The Oland character in this film stresses to Hull that "The werewolf is driven to destroy the things he loves most" - that wasn't made so very clear in the Larry Talbot version, so that the Talbot-Wolfman has an unmotivated, entirely wild (therefore dangerous) and chaotic will to destroy, while Hull's character moves himself into the "bad side" of town to get away from his wife, knowing that she was what he loved most and thus was in the most danger of his directed destructiveness as the Wolfman - for Hull's Wolfman, unlike Talbot's has a compulsive "method to its madness".
I'm now beginning to think that the Wolfman story in this 1930s incarnation was partly based on the guys who came back home from fighting in WW 1 suffering from PTSD and whose problems subsequently ruined their family lives.
But as this "the wolfman is driven to destroy what he loves most" point remains un-emphasized in "The Wolfman" (if it's mentioned at all), Larry Talbot's random violence as the Wolfman by contrast becomes more of a generalized morality tale, warning against the "uncontrolled wild violent side" in all men - I mean all people.

8:35 AM  
Blogger Filmfanman said...

Took the time to re-watch the Lon Chaney Jr. Wolfman, and it's a great film; but Larry Talbot is not only unmarried, he's actively breaking up an engaged couple at the time he's bitten by the werewolf, and there's no mention at all in the film of the werewolf "being driven to destroy the ones he loves" - they really are each their own films, with only the fact there's a werewolf as the central character in common between the two.
They're both great; but perhaps the quality of the supporting cast in the Chaney film gives it the edge.

2:25 PM  
Blogger Reg Hartt said...

This was my favourite Werewolf make-up when I first saw it pictured in James Warren and Forrest J (no period after the "J" please) Ackerman's wonderful FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. The movie, when I first saw it (like DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN) took me awhile to appreciate on its own terms.

Warner Oland's Fu Manchu, which thanks to Kino Lorber I can now see in terrific quality, may have a touch of sadness but I have yet to see it.

Great post. I especially love the two old biddies from one of whom Glendon rents a room.

10:10 AM  
Blogger Randy Jepsen said...

Whenever I see the scene where his wife turns on him near the end, I wish his werewolf would have torn her throat out & her lover`s as well.

1:20 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Dan Mercer considers the melancholy of Warner Oland's character in WEREWOLF OF LONDON:


There is wonderful insight in noting the melancholy of the Warner Oland character. So often among ourselves this aspect is found in a secret sadness, that were people to truly see us as we are, they should turn away. It may be that we have a certain perspective or other interests, other desires or appetites, or something that disfigures us inwardly. It sets us apart and that is often enough. Yet we yearn to be loved for just who we are, even as we realize, as they do not, that we never can be so loved. Consequently, every relationship is fraught with the risk of revelation, that the more closely another approaches us, the more likely it is that that person will realize who we are. The tragedy for us is that, as the distance closes, our hearts may open to the possibility of loving and being loved. It is a temptation difficult to resist. The inevitable rejection must be felt all the more keenly for that. The element of lycanthropy in this story, then, becomes a metaphor for that inner disfigurement which must be kept hidden, if the afflicted party is to live among men and enjoy at least the hope of being loved. What he fears, however, must be given expression apart from his desires. The lights set in the heavens for signs and portents ceaselessly turn, and with each cycle comes that which destroys all which had been sought.

The last line, "In a few moments, I shall know why all this had to be," is powerful not merely for its application to the dying protagonist, but to all of us who wonder at the purpose of our lives. Our faith may suggest, however, that in Divine Providence all things are bent to a good end.

1:50 PM  
Blogger Dave K said...

I'm a little late jumping in here, but had to comment - this one is an all-time favorite and my gateway drug to golden age Universal horror films. Twelve year old me had already visited select 50's era Sci-Fi delights, but the Shock Theater stuff was hidden away in weekly Saturday midnight airings. Using all the powers of adolescent persuasion I finally brokered a deal with my parents - two back-to-back weeks of late night viewing, then four weeks of abstinence (or something like that. Hell, this was sixty years ago!) Anyway, WEREWOLF OF LONDON was my maiden dip into Universal horror and it was love at first bite. Unretouched photos suggest the controversial make-up was probably one of Jack Pierce's quickest applications, but for me it remains one of his most brilliant designs. This is MY werewolf, and I can never pass up an opportunity to watch it one more time. To this day I drive my wife nuts shouting "Turn out those lights, those beastly lights!" at moments even vaguely appropriate. And if she ever makes mention of a full moon for any reason, I'm just as likely to make a noise that supposed to be the little three note signature from Karl Hajos' wonderful score. Love this one and will always prefer it over later, arguably better wolf-guy presentations.

4:21 PM  
Blogger Kevin K. said...

One more comment. My wife and I watched "Werewolf of London" on Halloween evening. Her first time, while I hadn't seen it in many years. Our take on Hull's wife and her ex-bf are quite different than those expressed here. It's pretty clear from the get-go that Henry Hull is so involved in his work -- he was on that search for the flower for six months! -- that he has no time for his wife. Of course she's miserable. Of course her ex misses the woman she used to be. Even if Hull hadn't been attacked by Oland, he still would have been a lousy husband. If anyone is to blame here, it's Hull -- why did he get married to begin with when his work would always come first?

4:38 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024
  • April 2024
  • May 2024
  • June 2024
  • July 2024
  • August 2024
  • September 2024