Cheap The Wolf Man - The Legacy Collection (The Wolf Man / Werewolf of London / Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man / She-Wolf of London) (DVD) (Claude Rains, Warren William) (George Waggner) Price

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

Wolfman: The Legacy Collection
First of all, the credit given to Claude Rains is incorrect. Lon Chaney Jr. is the actor to whom the credit is due. Although Henry Hull made the transformation first in "Werewolf of London" (1935), almost everyone agrees that Chaney's 1941 version "The Wolf Man" is the true origin of the film iconization of the character. The deep tragedy in Chaney's portrayl is nothing short of brilliant.
Frankenstein meets The Wolfman is a moderate film, save Lugosi's performance of the Frankenstein monster, whose facial expressions so closley mimic that of his Dracula (1931), that it seems as though the two characters have merged in a shorter less vivid one.
She-of London is probabaly my least favorite of the four, but all-in-all the performances are fairly solid.
The DVD collection is a must-have for fans of the period and genre. It is beautifully packaged and has cool and interesting extras.

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The Hairy Guy Gets His Due...
Another great collection from Universal! This time, it's the Wolf Man who gets the star treatment. In the original WOLF MAN, Lon Chaney jr. is Lawrence Talbott, son of sir Jonathon Talbott (Claude Raines). Larry gets bitten by a werewolf (Bela Lugosi) and starts the whole full-moon-rampage-thing. A classic. Next up is FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. Lon jr. returns as lycanthropic Larry Talbott, trying to find a way to be destroyed, thus ending his torment. Ends in the legendary battle between the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster! Third, we have SHE WOLF OF LONDON, starring June Lockhart as a woman who is either a murderous beast, or is being framed in a hideous plot to drive her insane. Lockhart is great, showing a charm and innocense that make SWOL more than just another gothic mystery. Lastly, we get WEREWOLF OF LONDON, about a botonist attacked by a werewolf while attempting bring a rare tibeten flower back to London. This flower only blooms at night, during the full moon, and can keep a man from tansforming into a werewolf. This should help our hero, but alas, the werewolf who bit him is now in London too, seeking to have the flower for himself! Not a bad entry in the wolftale anthology. Buy this now, before Universal gets stingy again! Highly recommended...

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An impressive set of four Universal werewolf classics
I had never really thought of The Wolf Man as being in the same league as Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster - I was wrong. Watching Lon Chaney, Jr.'s portrayal of Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man has opened my eyes. Chaney's Wolf Man is by far the most sympathetic of Universal's three major monsters. Dracula loves being Dracula, Frankenstein's monster is a full-time monster made out of dubious body parts, yet Larry Talbot is a victim of cruel fate. Rushing in to help a damsel in distress, he sustains a bite from a werewolf - hardly the type of reward a hero deserves. Doing the things a werewolf does is bad enough, but Talbot knows he is a werewolf and has to spend all of his normal waking hours wallowing in mental agony, knowing he can do nothing to contain the hairy monster lurking within. Beginning with his resurrection in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Talbot's overriding ambition and sole wish is to die and be freed from the curse forever, yet he now knows he can never die- not by conventional means, anyway. He truly is a lost soul trapped in a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape. This was the role Chaney was born to play, and he delivered one amazing performance after another in his five werewolf films. The Wolf Man Legacy Collection contains only two of them, the original The Wolf Man from 1941 and the sequel/monster crossover film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1942). Chaney's Wolf Man also appears in House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, each of which can be found on the Frankenstein and Dracula Legacy Collections, respectively.

The Wolf Man has exerted a huge influence on the art of horror for over six decades now, thanks to the heralded make-up prowess of Jack Pierce, the tight and powerful script of Curt Siodmak, some impressive photography work, a moving musical score, and wonderful performances from a truly stellar cast of actors and actresses (including Claude Raines in the role of Larry Talbot's father, Maria Ouspenskava as the gypsy woman and surrogate mother figure to Larry, and the great Bela Lugosi in a somewhat minor yet crucial role). Chaney's Wolf Man appearance is amazingly vivid and, one supposes, somewhat frightening to moviegoers of the early 1940s. His emotional performance adds to his character's tragic status; his strange and slightly awkward manner, tempered by a sort of gentle slowness always leaves me mesmerized.
With the success of The Wolf Man in 1941, it didn't take Universal long to trot out a sequel; the following year, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man not only capitalized on the success of everybody's favorite werewolf, it also brought in Frankenstein's monster, thus becoming one of the first Universal monster cross-over films. Lon Chaney, Jr., returns as the ill-fated Larry Talbot, and the legendary Bela Lugosi dons the makeup of the Frankenstein monster - this fact alone makes the film intriguing. Talbot, now afraid he cannot die, longs to be killed and put out of his misery. He ends up at the castle of Frankenstein, where a helpful young doctor promises to help him and destroy Frankenstein's monster in the process - things don't quite work out that way, and the film ends with a monster grudge match between the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster.

Werewolf of London (1935) and She-Wolf of London (1946) could not be more different, and both are unmistakably distinct from the Universal werewolf films starring Lon Chaney, Jr., yet I think they both work marvelously. Many fans don't care for them, especially She-Wolf in London, but I find both films quite compelling. They differ significantly from the storyline running through Chaney's Wolf Man films, but these two films have a great deal of their own to offer fans. Often overlooked and unduly dismissed by some reviewers and horror fans, these are two classic werewolf films.

In terms of extras, you get trailers for three of the four films, a truly excellent commentary of The Wolf Man by film historian Tom Weaver, a well-made 1999 documentary called Monster By Moonlight, and comments on the Wolf Man character by Van Helsing director Stephen Sommers. With only four movies and relatively few extras, The Wolf Man Legacy Collection falls a little short in the value department compared to the Dracula and Frankenstein Legacy Collection sets, but nothing can change the fact that this is must-have material for fans of classic horror movies.