Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

June Lockhart is the prettiest little werewolf you'd ever hope to see - or is she? She-Wolf of London rekindles the old horror spirit by breaking ranks with its Universal predecessors and recasting the werewolf legend in a framework of psychology and suspense. Most of the comments I read about this movie tend to give the whole idea of the film away, and that's a shame. I went into the movie with no preconceptions, and while I was able to figure out what was going on about halfway through, the film kept me guessing until the very end as to the exact details of the story.

Phyllis Allenby (June Lockhart) should be a happy young lady; she is well off financially, engaged to be married to the man she loves, and enjoys the companionship of her aunt and first cousin in the spacious Allenby house. Unfortunately, there is a curse hanging over her head; for reasons unexplained, the "Allenby curse" casts a shadow on her future and, as far as we are told, led to the deaths of her parents when she was young. A series of vicious murders in a nearby park points to a big dog or, as one Scotland Yard detective hypothesizes, a werewolf as the culprit. When Phyllis awakens one morning to find her shoes muddied and her hands bloodied and then, at breakfast, learns that a child was killed in the park during the night, she is sure that the Allenby curse has finally struck her and that she has become a she-wolf. She tries to hide herself away in her house, but her fiancée can only stay away so long before he demands the explanation he deserves. The story does a masterful job of building suspense and keeping the ultimate truth about the chronicled events a mystery.

Many fans find this film rather boring, but I thought it was a wonderfully crafted and very enjoyable film. By 1946, audiences had already seen Henry Hull and Lon Chaney, Jr., transform into werewolves on several occasions, and it was nice to break away from that mold momentarily. You don't have to show the audience the actual horrors on the screen in order to make an effective horror movie; without a bunch of special effects to fall back on, such a film requires a tight and efficient script, convincing performances by the players, and the manufacture of an increasingly suspenseful atmosphere. She-Wolf of London fits the bill perfectly, and I think it is a true classic.

Ultimate waste of time in this forgettable Universal horror film. I suggest that you watch Werewolf of London(35). Do not be fooled by the title or by the fact that this was from the masters of the horror genre, Universal.

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...

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.

"London at the turn of the century---The legend of the Allenby Curse was almost forgotten until---"

This is more of a psychological thriller on the line of "The Curse of the Cat People", where everyone waits for fuzzy creatures so bad that they miss the whole movie.

Don Porter is not bad himself as Barry Lanfield, the suitor of the maybe fuzzy Phyllis Allenby (June Lockhart.)

Out There [VHS]~ June Lockhart

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.

Mention a werewolf, and you immediately think of the afflicted Larry Talbot played by Lon Chaney, Jr., in the classic monster films of the 1940s. Not only was Chaney not the first Wolf Man, he was not even Universal's first Wolf Man - that distinction goes to Henry Hull, who played a werewolf in Universal's 1935 classic Werewolf of London. This film, residing as it does in the shadows of Chaney's memorable werewolf films, is often overlooked; it is also unduly dismissed by some reviewers and horror fans. This is a much different type of movie than 1941's The Wolf Man, but it is really quite an enjoyable viewing experience.

Forget gypsies, wolf bane, pentagrams on the hands of victims, and the other werewolf staples Curt Siodmak put into his script of The Wolf Man. In Werewolf of London, botanist Wilfred Glendon (Hull) sees his troubles begin in - of all places - Tibet, where he traveled in search of a very special flower, the "Marifasa Lupina." This particular flower grows only in Tibet, and it blooms only in moonlight. He gets his flower, but he also gets a nasty bite from a werewolf for his troubles. Back home in London, he is hard at work trying to get the flower to bloom under artificial moonlight - apparently, it would make for some sort of major scientific discovery, but the flower takes on new meaning after a certain Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland) pays him a visit and expresses his own interest in the plant. Glendon doesn't believe Yogami's wild tales about werewolves - not until, that is, he turns into one that very night.

This isn't your ordinary werewolf. After his transformation, Glendon goes looking for a bloom of the flower (which, while not a cure for his affliction, would prevent him from killing those he loves the most) and then, before heading out into the streets, stops to put on his coat, hat, and scarf; he is relatively conscious of what he is doing, although he is powerless to stop the blood rage pumping through his veins. The actual transformations, several of which are shown in the film, are rather impressive for such an early film. He's not overly hairy, but there is a definite look of evil intelligence in his eyes.

Of course, you have to have a leading lady in this type of film, and that role is filled quite well by the lovely Valerie Hobson (1935 was quite a year for Hobson, as she played Dr. Frankenstein's wife in Bride of Frankenstein as well as a werewolf's wife here in Werewolf of London). Warner Oland gives a memorable performance as Yogami, but I must lavish special attention on three older ladies. Spring Byington is quite a hoot as Glendon's rich lush of an aunt, but Ethel Griffies and Zeffie Tilbury absolutely steal the show as Mrs. Whack and Mrs. Moncaster. These two ladies deliver a comic tour de force as inebriated best friends who take a great interest in Glendon when he comes asking to rent a room from one of them. Back in the old days, movie studios (or more likely, censors) didn't think audiences could withstand all of the frights and chills of a harmless monster movie like this without a few stiff doses of comedy thrown in to the mix - oftentimes, such comic relief failed miserably, but here it is spot on indeed.

Despite the fact that Glendon is as unsympathetic a character as you can find (the antithesis of Lon Chaney, Jr.'s Larry Talbot), I have to give this movie five stars. The plot has a level of complexity to it that adds to its impact, the makeup and special effects are quite impressive, and it has that unidentifiable something that a good horror movie has to have to succeed. Werewolf of London isn't as entertaining as Universal's Wolf Man films of the 1940s, but it is definitely worth watching.

O.k., I'm not a big fan of old monster movies, but 30 bucks for four, oh yeah. The extras are definately good too, giving a good deal of information on the Wolfman, and monsters in general. Here are my thoughts on the movies individually:

The Wolfman: Reasonably good, although like all these movies it's very short and the guy doesn't even become a werewolf until it's half over. It becomes incredible to explain about the making, and tell alot of information about the various versions of the movie's script (there were three; one in 1932 that wasn't made because it would have offended Catholics, one that was the script until weeks before shooting and would have left the question of whether or not Larry (Gill not Talbot in this version) was turning into a wolf open (you only saw the wolf as a reflection through Larry's eyes), and the one that was made. He also points out the plotholes (probably left-overs from script changes). There are a good number of holes to laugh at, but I don't blame them since this was probably done on the budget of two or three "Twilight Zone" episodes.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man: This is actually better in some ways than the original. While the idea sounds rediculous, and the excuse for the final battle seems silly, the opening is actually spookier (I won't say "scarier" because nothing in any of these movies are truly scary in our world) than the original.

She-Wolf of London: This is not a Werewolf movie. It's a murder-mystery in which the murderor is trying to convince a girl she's turning into a Werewolf because the girl believes her family is cursed. While I suppose the various instances in which it was implied she was a werewolf could be explained as part of an elaborate scheme, I can't help but think this was suppose to be more along the lines of the second aforementioned "Wolfman" script until the end when you saw the She-Wolf (or maybe even only saw it as a reflection), but the studio got cheap and wouldn't buy the make-up. I can't prove that, but I suspect it. I did not like this movie, but I don't blame them for having a filler(the only movies with the actual Wolfman are either in this set, in another Monster Legacy set, or "Abbot and Castello mee Frankenstein" which both doesn't have the Wolfman name in the title and was a comedy; the only real other black-and-white Werewolf movie I guess they had was "Werewolf of London").

Werewolf of London: Not much to say about this, it was OK, but I never really got into it.

Great classic stuff here. In my mind Lon Chaney Jr. was always my favorite Wolfman. You really feel sorry for Lawrence Stewart Talbot being cursed with lycanthropy. In this set you get:
1) The Werewolf of London (1935)
2) The Wolfman (1941)
3) Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (1943) By the way is actually
a sequel to both The Wolfman (1941) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), continuity wise.
4) She-Wolf of London (1946)
5) a 45 minute documentary, Monster By Moonlight. Pretty much a

history of Universal's Wolfman mixed with actual Werewolf lore.
6) Tom Weaver does commentary on a separate audio track of The Wolfman (1941). Extremely interesting P.O.V..
7) A neat peek at Van Helsing's homage to Universal's classic
Wolfman.
All in all I really enjoyed this set. I just can't wait until
Universal raids their Atomic Age Monster vaults like this. Til'
then, ENJOY.

...there was the "Werewolf of London," staring Henry Hull and Valerie Hobson, who is better known for her role as Elizabeth in "Bride of Frankenstein."

Although George Waggner's "The Wolf Man" seems to always steel all the credit as the definative classic werewolf film, "Werewolf of London" is an underrated jem and the origional werewolf film and a true classic. Although the plot is very "Frankenstein" like, it has a great cast, great looking werewolf for a first time ever, great atmosphere, great music, and great lighting.

All in all, though "The Wolf Man" gets all the credit, "Werewolf of London" is just as good and worth the watch.