The Wolf Man - The Legacy Collection (The Wolf Man / Werewolf of London / Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man / She-Wolf of London)

I HAVE THE OTHER 2 LEGACY COLLECTIONS ON DVD, FRANKENSTEIN AND DRACULA AND I WAS DETERMINED TO HAVE 'THE 'WOLFMAN' DVD, AT LEAST. I HAVE A VHS COPY. I AM ECSTATIC TO HAVE FOUND THIS ACTUAL 'WOLFMAN LEGACY COLLECTION'. I HAVEN'T SEEN 'THE WOLFMAN" IN FOREVER BUT LOOK FORWARD TO FAKE CRINGING TO IT. TEE HEE.I ALWAYS LOOK FOR THIS SELLER WHEN PURCHASING BECAUSE THEY SEEM TO ADHERE TO HIGH STANDARDS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. THE DVD CASE IS CLEAN AND NEAT AND I DO NOT ANTICIPATE ANY PROBLEMS WITH PLAYING THE DVDS. THEY ARRIVED IN A TIMELY MANNER ALSO SO I AM A HAPPY CUSTOMER.

Among Universal’s gallery of “Classic Monsters,” one of the strangest figures is the Wolf Man. Only the Creeper, who might well have been invented by Charles Addams, could rate as a stranger one, but then he only showed up in one film (House of Horrors). The Wolf Man, as horror film buffs know, is the nom de loup of Lawrence Talbot, who in the first movie returns to his ancestral home and soon afterwards contracts what Wilfred Glendon (The Werewolf of London) calls the “medieval unpleasantness” of werewolfery. Moreover, he contracts this affliction almost accidentally, when he tries to save a young woman from the ravages of a gypsy werewolf (Bela Lugosi), a bit like the guy who is supposed to have caught VD from sitting on an infected toilet seat.The Wolf Man (1941) marks a minor turning point in the history of American horror films. First, its success at the box office convinced Universal to go over to the production of programmers, inexpensively produced movies whose short length—usually not much over an hour—made them ideal for filling out a double bill. Even more importantly, as far as horror connoisseurs go, The Wolf Man’s grosses stimulated RKO to get into the act with a horror unit headed by Val Lewton, who presided over the making of some of the real masterpieces of the genre, like The Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim. But that is another story.Secondly, The Wolf Man is possibly the first horror film to feature a monster as victim. This innovation appears to have been the brainchild of writer Curt Siodmak, who worked on a number of Universal screenplays in the early 1940s. Although two famous monsters, King Kong and Henry Frankenstein’s creation, can arouse pity in us, they are clearly more terrifying than anything else. But poor Lawrence Talbot who never wanted to be a werewolf was doomed to stagger through a series of movies, seeking a cure for his rare ailment while leaving in his wake a trail of wolfbane and dead bodies. While this was a peculiar fate for a monster, a similar if more mundane scenario—in which the protagonist seems to be losing his or her identity—was quickly going to become a staple feature of the psychological thriller, just beginning to come into vogue when The Wolf Man came out.Probably it was the interest in psychoanalysis, triggered off by the arrival of a number of prestigious refugee analysts in the United States, as much as anything else that fueled the rise of the psychological thriller in the war years. Dramas of dual identity had played a conspicuous role in German horror pictures like The Student of Prague (1913; 1926) and Orlac’s Hands (1925), but the theme had mainly cropped up in the United States in two versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, both made by Paramount—one in 1920, and the other in 1931. In retrospect, both The Wolf Man and MGM’s tony 1941 remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman, can be seen as prelusive to an important body of movies including George Cukor’s Gaslight, Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, and Robert Siodmak’s Dark Mirror.Sadly, the Wolf Man role belonged to Lon Chaney Jr., one of the most inept performers in the annals of the horror film. The bearer of one of the great names of the silent era, Chaney inherited little of his father’s estimable talent. As Carlos Clarens pointed out in An Illustrated History of Horror and Science-Fiction Films, it is most often supporting players like Lionel Atwill or George Zucco who stand out in Universal’s 1940s celluloid Grand Guignol. The Wolf Man is no exception to this rule. Maria Ouspenskaya is quite entertaining as Maleva, but Claude Rains insufferably smug as Talbot père, while a memorable fading star of the 1930s, Warren William, makes a marginal contribution to the action, and Bela Lugosi makes an even more marginal one as the cause of all of Talbot’s subsequent lycanthropic travails. Nevertheless, the real stars of such latter day Universal horror productions were the highly talented technicians who collaborated on them like the cinematographers Joseph Valentine and George Robinson, the special effects wizard John Fulton, and makeup artist Jack Pierce.Among the films in this set, I would single out for attention Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the work of Roy William Neill, who did a more than competent job of directing most of the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The movie ultimately degenerates into utter nonsense—Lugosi, outrageously miscast as the Frankenstein monster, is not horrifying, just plain horrible—but it opens with a wonderfully eerie sequence in which two grave robbers unwisely decide to desecrate the Talbot family crypt. For an instant, in an establishing shot of the Llanwelly churchyard, Universal itself returns to life from the schlock Hades into which it had descended—and into which it was about to fall again in the following reels.Viewers who want to pursue the further vicissitudes of the Wolf Man—in The House of Frankenstein and The House of Dracula—will have to invest in two other sets. Here, he shares the stage with a pair of rival lycanthropes, one real, the other only a ψευδολύκος. These are The Werewolf of London and The She-Wolf of London, for which I have written an Amazon review posted elsewhere. The first of these is a respectable, although by no means great horror film with Henry Hull—whose pained look suggests he needs cascara more than the moonflower that cures werewolfism—in the lead role, abetted by Warner Oland as a rival damned soul from the U of Carpathia. The second is the most negligible of the efforts in this set, scantly saved for indefatigable horror addicts by a couple of effective nocturnal compositions courtesy of Maury Gertsman.

As a fan of all manner of movies and someone interested in the old Universal Horror characters, I must say I am pleased that the new VanHelsing movie did one good thing in getting all these old film series on DVD. As someone who's always preferred werewolves to vampires and who finds there aren't anywhere near as many good werewolf movies as there are good vampire movies, I chose this set first. The extras on this set are very much worth it, giving the history of the character and other fun facts that can add depth to your viewing experience. After all, the Wolf Man was the only one of the classic Universal monsters to always be played by the same actor, Lon Chaney Jr.As for the films themselves, while hokey compared to today's horror films, they have a good deal of style of their own. Chaney doesn't quite come across as the son of the English lord (in fact, he's not a particularly good actor for the dramatic parts compared to some of his co-stars), but his watery eyes and pathetic demeanor show a man who is really haunted by the fact that for a couple days a month he turns into a ferious beast-man.That said, there is one stinker in the set, the "She-Wolf of London". Starring a very young June Lockhart, this movie doesn't even have a werewolf in it (preventing me from making the obvious, "She also played Lassie" joke). About the only good thing about "She-Wolf" is it's short, barely over an hour. Otherwise, it's predictable (I figured out who did it and how before I was told), overly melodramatic, and not particularly scary even by the standards of the other films.As for the rest, "Werewolf of London" was actually very good, complete with a couple comic relief old ladies with drinking habits that were actually somewhat funny, and a good plot. "Frankenstien Meets the Wolf-Man" worked well aside from Chaney's delivery of some of his lines, and Bela Lugosi had his only turn as Frankenstien's monster. And the main feature, "The Wolf Man", still packs the punch it's always had.

"The Wolf Man" is among my favorite Universal horror movies. It was an "A" film all the way - great cast, great script, great production values. Lon Chaney Jr. gives his all to the role. Other than his role of "Lenny" in "Of Mice And Men", this is his best performance."Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman" is the sequel to "Wolf Man" and is pretty good except for the miscasting of the great Bela Lugosi as the Monster. It's odd that Lugosi turned down the role of Frankenstein in the original film and Boris Karloff took the role and became a major star. Yet here is Bela walking stiffly with arms outstretched, grunting his way through the role."Werewolf Of London" was the original Universal foray in lycanthropy and the difference between this film and the later ones is quite striking. Seldom seen, this film is well worth watching."She-Wolf Of London" is a werewolf picture without a werewolf! And let me tell you, for a suspense film, it's pretty uneventful. Mercifully it only runs for about an hour!My only complaint with this set is that they took the cheap way out and used a double-sided DVD for one of the disks. Would it have broke the bank to use 3 single-sided DVDs? I don't think so!But if this doesn't bother you, go ahead and give this set a full 5 Stars, the films themselves certainly merit it.

This is called The Wolf Man legacy collection however Werewolves legacy collection probably would have been a more fitting title because only 2 of the 4 movies included feature The Wolf Man, the others are unrelated to The Lon Chaney Jr series though are about werewolves. Overall a decent set but one of the weaker legacy collections, She wolf of London doesn't even have a werewolf in it. Werewolf of London is the original Wolf Man but the Lon Chaney Jr remake is a lot better. Frankenstein meets the Wolfman is okay but there's not much battle time which was a bit disappointing but it's definitely better than Freddy vs Jason. xD

Great set!

The movies are fun to watch. I knew I was purchasing a "Used-Like New" product. With the exception of the slip cover missing, it is in like new condition as stated.

Recommended for the entire family, this classic remains to be a wonderful movie to watch. I'm a huge fan of the horror classics, such as these movies. I find it absolutely remarkable how well these movies were made, even back then.

Good item,Bon item.Very well packed,Tres bien emballé.Sended fast,Livré vitement