Lon Chaney wasn't the first cinematic werewolf, even though The Wolf Man established the folkloric monster as a box office star in 1941. Six years earlier, Universal Pictures introduced lycanthropy to movie audiences in Werewolf of London. It starred Henry Hull as a botanist who goes to Tibet to find the world's rarest flower, which only blooms under moonlight. It is also supposedly a cure for "lycanthrophobia," a condition that causes a man to turn into a wolf -with the urge to destroy that which he loves most. He comes back with three buds, but also with a case of lycanthrophobia himself. Warner Oland stars as the werewolf that bit him.
Werewolf of London was a box office disappointment, for reasons that are spelled out at Inverse. But Universal learned some lessons from Werewolf of London and brought the werewolf to greater things in The Wolf Man a few years later.
You can watch the entire movie here. -Thanks, Andrew Dalke!