The latest issue of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN has just dropped and my article on Universal's WEREWOLF OF LONDON is included. Since its revival a few years ago or so it's developed into a very fine looking magazine and I recommend it, not only because my article is in it, but the rest of the features are well-worth taking a look if you aren't a regular reader already. Editor and publisher Don Smeraldi and his wife Vicki put together a fine publication.
You can find it at Barnes & Noble or order it direct HERE.
Here's a sample of my article:
Moon, Madness and Murder
A Look Back at Werewolf of London
By John M. Navroth
“We gave it all the shock and goosepimples
we could jam into it.”
– Carl Laemmle on Werewolf of London
In 1935, actor Henry Hull said in a newspaper interview that he would never take a “pretty man” part. Instead, he wanted “strange” roles he “could sink his teeth into”. When Universal came calling in search of the lead for their newest picture, Werewolf of London, Hull literally got his wish.
Universal’s initial idea for a werewolf picture began in late 1931. A script with the working title The Wolf Man was completed and Robert Florey was slated to direct with Boris Karloff in the title role. An article in Hollywood Filmograph (January 23, 1932) broke the news: “Jack Pierce is creating a remarkable make-up for Boris Karloff, who will, in the very near future, appear as the star in ‘The Wolf Man’. From what we learn, it is to be another character even greater than ‘Frankenstein’.”
For some reason, the production was shelved and after having been unceremoniously removed as the director of Frankenstein in 1931, Florey would miss out on yet another chance at a career-booster.
The first known werewolf film was an 18-minute Canadian two-reeler released as The Werewolves in 1913. It is now considered lost after the only known print was destroyed in a fire at a storage facility in 1924. The second, Wolf Blood: A Tale of the Forest was a 68-minute feature released in 1925. Neither film bears any resemblance to what audiences recognize today as the werewolf legend. As a result, Werewolf of London has the distinction of being the first full-length feature film of its kind and the only werewolf film made in the 1930s.
Universal resurrected their idea that had been languishing on a shelf somewhere in the script morgue, gathering dust for over three years. John Balderston, the scriptwriter for Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy (as well as an unused script for The Invisible Man), was otherwise occupied with working on The Mystery of Edwin Drood and The Bride of Frankenstein. With their veteran of horror films unavailable, Universal turned to a relatively unknown playwright.
Fresh off co-writing the screenplay for MGM’s box-office bomb, Laughing Boy, starring Ramon Navarro and Lupe Velez, John Colton was helped off the floor and hired to compose the new script for Werewolf of London for which he was paid the princely sum of $8,500. Never missing a promotional opportunity, and at least partly—if not entirely—made up, Universal printed a puff piece on Colton in the April 20, 1935 issue of their in-house magazine, Universal Weekly: “In making his preparation to do the script Colton spent a month in public and private libraries in research on the subject. He conferred with the psychiatrists and physiologists attached to Universal’s medical staff in order to build the screen character of Henry Hull for the werewolf part according to the latest scientific tenets. He studied hundreds of paintings by Goya and other masters on this mysterious subject before putting a line of dialogue or description on paper.”
As for casting the lead, Boris Karloff was already signed to star for the second time as Mary Shelley’s monster in The Bride of Frankenstein so it was not feasible for him to also play a werewolf, especially for the time it would take him to sit for both makeups.
Enter Henry Hull.
