Another novelization from the Universal Horror Library, and another one written by Walter Harris (?). And it's much better than his
Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Much.
English botanist Wilfrid Glendon sits alone in his bedroom with a gun. He is contemplating killing himself. As he tries to decide whether or not to it, he thinks back over the events of the last several months of his life...
Glendon and his friend Hugh Renwick go adventuring in Tibet, where they hope to find the rare flower known as the Mariphasa, which blooms by moonlight. Along the way, they have an amusing discussion about the possible existence of Yetis. Although Glendon finds the plant, he is attacked and bitten by a creature he thinks is a Yeti. He survives and fights the mysterious creature off.
He returns home to England where he and his assistant Cuthbert Haskins try to coax the Mariphasa buds to bloom by way of a machine Gleondon invented which generates artificial moonlight. They're partially successful, managing to get two of them to bloom. He then attends a garden party with his wife Lisa where he meets (and instantly dislikes) her childhood friend Paul Ames. The bite on his arm bugs him from time to time, but, Paul aside, things are going rather swimmingly for Dr. Glendon until he receives a telegram from a visiting Japanese botanist named Yogami.
Excusing himself, he goes to the house Dr. Yogami is renting where his fellow scientist reveals he is a werewolf. He's heard of Glendon's success at acquiring the Mariphasa and wishes to share it with him, as it is an antidote for lycanthropy. Without it, he explains, both men will become werewolves and seek to hunt and kill human beings. Yogami explains that in that particular valley in Tibet there lives a colony of werewolves who wish to keep the Mariphasa all to themselves and look upon normal, uncursed humans who enter their domain with hatred and will attack them without provocation, which is what happened to Glendon.
Glendon however refuses to share the plant with Yogami, not believing his story. Over the coming days, though, Glendon notes a change in the tone of his voice, the fact he is becoming increasingly more tempermental, even towards his friends and family, and, interestingly, begins to feel "unclean," and furthermore that by touching others he is somehow contaminating them with his uncleanliness. As a result, he takes to avoiding Lisa for fear of angering her with his unintentional short temper or "contaminating" her with his imagined (and possibly spiritual) uncleanliness, which of course only makes himself look like a jerk. He is still skeptical, though.
In desperation, on the night of the full moon Yogami steals the two flowers that have already bloomed from the plant in Glendon's lab. Without any usable flowers, Glendon finally learns Dr. Yogami's story is true the hard way - he transforms into a werewolf and kills his first victim. Afterwards, he reverts to human form and is horrified by what he has done, and he realizes the other scientist was telling the truth. He is doomed to repeat the cycle over and over again, unless he can successfully cultivate the Mariphasa plant.
Other ways Glendon's ailment affects his mind - and consequently makes his scientific work difficult - is that he begins to have a considerably more wolfish thought process. He starts longing for the company of others like himself, but his practical mind keeps trying to focus on staving off his transformations. When they
do happen, he tries to either find a way of either avoiding killing anyone, or killing someone as quickly as possible to just get it over with. His attitude towards Yogami is a mixed one. On the one hand, he is angry with Yogami for stealing the flowers, and views him as competition for the remaining ones, but the wolfish part of him sees in Yogami a kinship, and on more than one occasion has fantasies of the two, once fully transformed, on the hunt together.
Trying to think like a scientist, Glendon attempts to find a means of curing himself, and seeks help from a colleague named Dr. Payne. Glendon confides in Payne about his condition, but never actually calls it lycanthropy, dancing around the issue for fear of sounding insane. Payne notes the odd symptoms and can't deny that there is something terribly, terribly wrong with his patient, but can find no way of helping him, so he sends him to a "specialist," a man named Sir James who maintains a psychiatric hospital. But Sir James turns out to be a total condescending asswipe of a man that he winds up being the only character in the novel Glendon actually deliberately kills - of course, technically, he deliberately kills every one of his victims, but what I mean is, he becomes a different person once wolfed out, and while still human and in control of his emotions he'll do everything he can to get away from someone before transforming - he even considers arming Haskins with a pistol, so Haskins will have protection against his boss should Glendon encounter him while transformed, which was a nice touch. However, he takes such an intense dislike to Sir James that Glendon actually convinces the guy to come over to his house on the full moon so he'll kill him once transformed.
Yogami approaches Glendon again with an offer of cooperation between them. However Glendon's Mariphasa has inexplicably died, so he and Yogami agree to return to Tibet to get more. They can't leave just yet, though, as the next full moon is upon them by this point, and neither wants to transform while on board a plane full of innocent passengers, so they try to come up with a way of preventing themselves from killing anyone until then. Glendon then hits on the idea of hypnotism, so he and Yogami visit a hypnotist and have him put them into a deep sleep on the night of the full moon, hoping they'll remain asleep when transformed.
It doesn't work, and upon transforming they both awake. Yogami kills the hypnotist, then he and Glendon fight to the death, both in werewolf form. Glendon wins and kills Yogami. He then returns to human form and goes home, taking the hypnotist's gun with him. The novel then concludes with Glendon alive, but contemplating shooting himself rather than continue living a life under the constant threat of transforming without being able to get to a Mariphasa flower in time...
A definite improvement over Harris'
Creature from the Black Lagoon, as I said. The story is told entirely from the point of view of Wilfrid Glendon, which of course allows for absolutely no cutaways to other scenes involving other characters, therefore very nearly the entire structure of the story had to be redone, and the concept of the flashback was a good one. Another side effect of telling the story entirely from Glendon's point of view is that characters like Paul Ames and Colonel Forsythe, major supporting characters in the film, are pushed to the sidelines. Paul exists merely as someone for Glendon to glower at occasionally, and Forsythe appears in only one scene, at a dinner party.
The subplot involving Dr. Payne is based on a deleted scene from the movie. Actor Reginald Barlow was scheduled to play a character named Dr. Phillips whom Glendon seeks help from. I'm unsure if the Sir James character appeared, or is entirely Harris' invention. But it was felt that reaching out for help violated Glendon's solitary nature, so the Phillips character was excised (Barlow does appear in the film, though, albeit in a different role). Harris' novel restores this subplot, but for some reason changes Phillips' name to Payne.
All in all, a good read.
