Draw Blood!

Werewolf of London (1935) is another classic we never got around to. Now we have.

It starts in Tibet (near Vasquez Rocks, where Kirk fought the Gorn). Botanist Henry Hull is searching for a rare flower that grows on moonlight. As his bearer's all desert him, he is attacked by a beastly creature. But the next scene has him back in England, so I guess it was all right.

He is spending all of his time in his lab. His wife, Valerie Hobson, is always on him to help her host her society parties, but he just wants to fiddle with the plant he brought back from Tibet. He's trying to get it to blossom under artificial moonlight. 

But one of their guests is uninvited: Warner Oland as the mysterious Dr. Yogami. He gives Hull the spiel: If you are bitten by a werewolf, you become one yourself. You have to kill each night (of the full moon? Unclear). Only the moon-flower's blossoms can temporarily hold the desire to kill at bay.

Hull doesn't believe him, but soon finds himself becoming... hirsute... under the rays of his moonlamp. When the moon comes up, he is only able to quell the transformation with a blossom. The next night, he's out with his wife at Spring Byington's party, and has to rush home to get the antidote - but Oland has stolen all the blossoms. There's only a bud left. And so the werewolf kills.

So Hull tries to get himself locked up, either by a slum landlady or by J.M. Kerrigan, his cockney assistant. Meanwhile, his wife is getting romanced by an old flame, Lester Matthews. 

We weren't really expecting this movie to be so funny. There is a whole drawing room and tea parties movie going on (Spring Byington!) while Hull is either botanizing or wolfing. The landladies he looks to to lock him up, Mrs. Whack and Mrs. Moncaster are always soused on gin and try to eat through their hat's veil. Then there's the mysterious "Oriental" Dr. Yogami, sneaking around stealing flowers. And Henry Hull obsessing and suffering through it all. 

Very enjoyable, although they never went to Soho in the rain, or had pina coladas at Trader Vics. A wasted opportunity.