David Naughton & Griffin Dunne
An American Werewolf in London is a 1981 American-British comedy/horror film, written and directed by John Landis. It stars David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, and Jenny Agutter. The movie won the 1981 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film and an Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. The film was one of three high-profile werewolf films released in 1981, alongside The Howling and Wolfen. Over the years, the film has accumulated a cult following and has been referred to as a cult classic.
Tagline: John Landis – the director of Animal House brings you a different kind of animal.
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Rick Baker
Blending the macabre with a wicked sense of humor, director John Landis (National Lampoon’s Animal House) delivers a contemporary take on the classic werewolf tale in this story of two American tourists who, while traveling in London, find their lives changed forever when a viscious wolf attacks them during a full moon. Featuring groundbreaking, Academy Award-winning make-up by Rick Baker (The Wolfman).
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The film was followed by a 1997 sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, which featured a completely different cast and none of the original crew.
John Landis
John Landis came up with the story while he worked in Yugoslavia as a production assistant on the film Kelly’s Heroes. He and a Yugoslavian member of the crew were driving in the back of a car on location when they came across a group of gypsies. The gypsies appeared to be performing rituals on a man being buried so that he would not “rise from the grave.” This made Landis realize that he could never be able to confront the undead and gave him the idea for a film in which a man of his own age would go through such a thing.
John Landis wrote the first draft of An American Werewolf in London in 1969 and shelved it for over a decade. Two years later, Landis wrote, directed and starred in his debut film, Schlock, which developed a cult following. Landis developed box-office status in Hollywood through the successful comedy films The Kentucky Fried Movie, National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers before securing $10
Beware of the Moon
million financing for his werewolf film. Financiers believed that Landis’ script was too frightening to be a comedy and too funny to be a horror film.
Michael Jackson cited this film as his reason for working with Landis on his subsequent music videos, including Thriller and Black or White.
The various prosthetics and fake, robotic body parts used during the film’s painful, extended werewolf transformation scenes and on Griffin Dunne when his character returns as a bloody, mangled ghost impressed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so much that they decided to create a new awards category at the Oscars specifically for the film – Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. Since the 1981 Academy Awards, this has been a regular category each year. During the body casting sessions, the crew danced around David Naughton singing, “I’m a werewolf, you’re a werewolf…wouldn’t you like to be a werewolf, too” in reference to his days as a pitchman for Dr Pepper.
Blueray DVD
In-Jokes:
The film was produced by Lycanthrope Productions, a lycanthrope being a person with the power to turn himself into a wolf.
The film’s ironically upbeat songs all refer in some way to the moon such as: Bobby Vinton’s slow and soothing version of “Blue Moon”, which plays during the opening credits, Van Morrison’s “Moondance” as David and Alex make love for the first time, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” as David is nearing the moment of changing to the werewolf, a soft, bittersweet ballad version of “Blue Moon” by Sam Cooke during the agonizing wolf transformation and The Marcels’ doo-wop version of “Blue Moon” over the end credits. Landis failed to get permission to use Cat Stevens’ “Moonshadow” and Bob Dylan’s “Moonshiner”, both artists feeling the film to be inappropriate. It was stated on the DVD commentary by David Naughton and Griffin Dunne that they were not sure why Landis could not get the rights to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” – a song that would have been more appropriate for the film (perhaps Landis dismissed the song on the grounds that it didn’t have the word “moon” in the title).
Landis’ signature in-joke of the fictitious film See You Next Wednesday can be seen when the werewolf runs rampant in Piccadilly Circus, playing at the porn cinema and as a poster in the London Underground train station where Gerald Bringsley is attacked by the werewolf.
References to the film have appeared in many of Landis’ other films and most notably in Michael Jackson’s Thriller as the sounds of Jackson transforming into a werewolf are from the film.
Although not part of this film, in the Masters of Horror episode entitled “Deer Woman”, directed and co-written by Landis, when the protagonist mentions “a series of freak wolf attacks in London in 1981″, a brief but clear reference to An American Werewolf in London. According to its trading card insert, “‘Deer Woman’ is a very much a part of An American Werewolf in London canon.”
Cameos and Bit Parts:
In the Piccadilly Circus sequence, the man hit by a car and thrown through a store window, is Landis himself.
As in most of the director’s movies, Frank Oz makes an appearance: first as Mr. Collins from the American embassy in the hospital scene, and later as Miss Piggy in a dream sequence, when David’s younger siblings watch a scene from The Muppet Show that was never shown in the United States.
Actors in bit parts who were already – or would become – more well-known include the two chess players David and Jack meet in the pub, played by the familiar character actor Brian Glover and then-rising comedian and actor Rik Mayall. One of the policemen helping to chase and kill the werewolf is John Altman, who would later achieve fame as “Nasty” Nick Cotton in EastEnders. Alan Ford – later to appear in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch – plays a taxi driver. The policeman in the cinema is played by John Salthouse and the policeman in Piccadilly Circus is played by Peter Ellis. Both Salthouse and Ellis appeared in police drama The Bill.
A radio adaptation of the film was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1997, written and directed by Dirk Maggs and with Jenny Agutter, Brian Glover, and John Woodvine reprising the roles of Alex Price, the chess player (now named George Hackett, and with a more significant role as East Proctor’s special constable) and Dr. Hirsch. The roles of David and Jack were played by Eric Meyers and William Dufris. Maggs’ script added a backstory that some people in East Proctor are settlers from Eastern Europe and brought lycanthropy with them. The werewolf who bites David is revealed to be related to Hackett, and has escaped from an asylum where he is held under the name “Larry Talbot”, the name of the title character in The Wolf Man.
Movie Poster 27x40
Make Up Department
Elaine Baker … makeup effects crew
Rick Baker … special makeup effects
Doug Beswick … makeup effects crew
Kevin Brennan … makeup effects crew
Robin Grantham … makeup artist
Tom Hester … makeup effects crew
Steve Johnson … makeup effects assistant
Beryl Lerman … makeup artist
Shawn McEnroe … makeup effects crew
Joseph Ross … makeup effects crew
Bill Sturgeon … makeup effects crew
Craig Reardon … makeup effects crew (uncredited)
Special Effects Department
Neil Corbould … special effects assistant
Martin Gutteridge … special effects
Garth Inns … special effects
