That was the main thing. That Leon was conceived by rape and born on Christmas. A rather stiff penalty, but that was the thinking among very devout Christians of the middle ages at one time.
I've also heard that Leon was cursed because his spirit or soul was very weak as the result of his cursed conception. Because his soul was weak, an Animal Like spirit was able to enter and fight for domination of the body. If you notice throughout the movie, the stress is that Love will strengthen his human spirit and keep the animal spirit under control. So when he's a child, his adoptive father keeps him safe and shows him love which controls the beast for a while. It's when he becomes an adult, leaves home and ventures out into an unfriendly world, that the beast becomes dominant again. When he finds Love in a woman, her companionship can keep it under control. Remember the time that she spent all night at his side and he didn't change. The tragedy was that all he had to do was live a life with her and he wouldn't change again. Of course he had to be separated from her, the Beast emerges and he has to be killed to be stopped.
So it boils down to a Human Spirit weakened by a cursed conception and birth being subdued by the Spirit of the Beast. I always thought this was a very interesting and somewhat unique treatment of the werewolf legend. It's also a metaphor for how somebody can be abandoned or orphaned and a cruel and unfriendly world can sometimes turn that certain person violent. Love can sometimes conquer, but not always as this story illustrates.
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Sammy2k
17 years ago
See now, I was under the impression that he wasn't born on Christmas Day as the nurse was trying to make his mother go into labour... and succeeded.
They wouldn't have wanted to bring the pregnancy on on Christmas Day.
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possumopossum
17 years ago
I also read in a book somewhere that, not only was Leon cursed by being born on "the same day and the same hour as our Lord", but the original script called for the servant girl to be raped by a priest. The League of American Decency, or some such organization had a fit about that and they had her raped by a beggar in a prison instead. Never thought about the name Leon being Noel backwards. Interesting take.
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Colkitto
16 years ago
Not sure about the Hammer script, but I understand that in the original novel ("The Werewolf of Paris") the child (there called Bertrand) was indeed a priest's son.
The setting was moved to Spain because Hammer had Spanish sets left over from the unmade movie "The Inquisitor". I suppose having abandoned one movie because of the Church's objections, they decided to tread carefully.
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"An inglorious peace is better than a dishonourable war" ~ John Adams
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greenbudgie
8 years ago
To Sammy2k "nurse was trying to make his mother go into labour."
That scene was a bit strange. You would think that with the mother's guardian standing over her, that the nurse was given protection charm movements to the mother and child. I think that this might have been the case. I suppose neither the guardian or the nurse would want to interfere with the natural timing of the birth. As religious people then would have thought that it was God's will if the baby was born on Christmas Day or not.
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RICKW1
8 years ago
The explanation is given by the priest to Leon's father. If the soul is weak due to some condition or circumstance of birth (in this case, a rape) then some malevolent spirit , such as the wolf, can enter the body at birth ( thus the small howl of a wolf...proceeding the baby's crying ). The priest then goes on to say that certain conditions such as despair or solitude allows the beast to emerge.....however those conditions can be remedied by fellowship and love....restraining the wolf. It truly is a wonderfully insightful metaphor to what can produce the beast in all humanity...as well as the remedy to that beast.......love. It is one of Hammer's best.
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