MovieChat Forums > Werewolf of London (1935) Discussion > Good werewolf film but...

Good werewolf film but...

posted 17 years ago by krakhouse
6 replies | jump to latest

...the doctor's wife abandoned her husband and started hanging with her "friend" a little prematurely. (Even though the audience knew) She didn't know that the doctor was a werewolf yet and she thought it was OK to hang out with her ex-lover friend. I was rooting for the docor/werewolf to murder them both but to no avail.

I guess the production code saw no problem with the abandonment of the husband since he was part-monster and they didn't actually show any infidelity on the part of the wife.

The way I see it, is that we weren't retreating, we were just attacking in a new direction.

[–] Bumblejeep44 16 years ago

This is an old thread, however I couldn't agree more with the OP; a tragic reckoning of vengence would have improved the film significantly. As it stands, the ending rewards the presumptious and fickle.

Glendon's werewolf should have killed the meddlesome Miss Coombes, the impudent Paul Ames and finally, his faithless wife Lisa Glendon. For myself, the best horror films are the most tragic such as Cheney's 1941 Wolf Man.

[–] CromeRose 16 years ago

This is indeed an old OP but I agree that the wife bailed on her husband a little too "modernly" - I think in those days the woman would have stuck with her husband to the bitter end whether she wanted to or not or risk becoming a social outcast. And in no wise would another man have "courted" her while she was married unless he was an out and out scoundrel, and therefore, societally unworthy. But hey, people were people back then too and women and men will always be unfaithful to each other... it's the nature of the "human animal". But yeah, I agree - it would've been nice to see the werewolf rip the cheating wife and the scoundrel to shreds.

On the comedic side... I think Mrs. Whack and her friend were a hoot, but the funniest scene IMHO (and one which wasn't even meant to be funny) is the one where the Dr. turns into the werewolf in his room and then puts his scarf and hat on before he goes out! Can you imagine a werewolf worrying about dressing properly before going in a rampage? Now that's comedy!

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] fritz_fraugman 15 years ago

Also it has been mentioned that both Dr Glendon and Dr Yogami are a subtext representing homosexual undertones. I don't know. Dr Glendon just may be a edgy man upon acquiring his curse (the beast rising to the surface already) and the poorly timed arrival of his wife's ex-squeeze after months in Tibet.

She makes a beautiful zombie doesn't she?

[–] westsalemcongress 13 years ago

I always thought the ending to this film was a little strange. The final shot of the airplane implies that Lisa and Paul leave for America together. So this woman has the traumatic experience of being attacked by her husband who is now a werewolf and is subsequently shot and killed right in front of her and the first thing she does is traipse of to American with her old childhood crush? The husband ignoring his wife all the time is pretty crummy but the wife parading around with her new boy toy right in front of her husband is not only crummy but totally lame. The end of the film seems to be justifying her behavior, I mean it's perfectly okay to cheat on someone as long as they are a werewolf right? The end of the film also has Dr. Glendon apologizing to Lisa for not making her happier as if he deserves to die because he was such a neglectful husband. But hey, now that the husband is dead and out of the way, they can finally enjoy the life together that they've always wanted. Ah, the true romance of a Hollywood ending!

[–] tali1 13 years ago

the love triangle was rather caricatured and contrived - but then so were quite a fair few bits of the film with massive hole scripts.

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