The Wolfman 1941 Now Spinning On Blu Ray

I've not spent much serious viewing time with the Universal Classic Monsters Essential Collection Blu-ray set since I got it last year.

Great set, came out in late 2012. I paid $72 for it in early 2013, not a bad price for 8 movies, nice booklet holding the discs and a very nice book included.

The DVD's of these I have look nowhere near as good as these blu rays.

I Popped in The Wolfman tonight and got a pizza in the oven.

Pizza done and devouring it, movie spinning. WOW, does it look great. Crisp, clean and clear, the audio is great too. I just hope they release all the classic Universal "monsters" flicks on blu ray soon.

Here's what's on this blu ray set:

• Frankenstein (1931)

• Dracula (1931)

• The Mummy (1932)

• The Invisible Man (1933)

• The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

• The Wolf Man (1941)

• The Phantom of the Opera (1943)

• Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Oddly, They released a nice complete 30 film set a few weeks ago, but only on DVD? WTF??? WHY no blu ray set?

http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Cla...1410601956&sr=1-1&keywords=universal monsters

• Dracula (1931)

• Frankenstein (1931)

• The Mummy (1932)

• The Invisible Man (1933)

• The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

• Werewolf of London (1935)

• Dracula's Daughter (1936)

• Son of Frankenstein (1939)

• The Invisible Man Returns (1940)

• The Invisible Woman (1940)

• The Mummy's Hand (1940)

• The Wolf Man (1941)

• The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

• The Mummy's Ghost (1942)

• The Mummy's Tomb (1942)

• Invisible Agent (1942)

• Phantom of the Opera (1943)

• Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

• Son of Dracula (1943)

• House of Frankenstein (1944)

• The Mummy's Curse (1944)

• The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944)

• House of Dracula (1945)

• She-Wolf of London (1946)

• Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

• Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)

• Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

• Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

• Revenge of the Creature (1955)

• The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)

 

Neat A&C stuck is amongst the other monsters and ghoulies blu rays. I have thee olde universal Bd coffin box, postcards, book.

 

Got Frankenstein 1931 spinning now.

Wow, for an old B&W it sure comes off good on blu ray.

I know many folks diss it because it has no musical score and Bride Of Frankenstein gets more attention, but this flick kicks butt.

It's so dark, moody, atmospheric, and the monster is portrayed fantastic by Karloff. Originally Lugosi was to be the monster in this one but problems arose and he was off the project.

Bride Of Frankenstein to me gets too corny with the miniatures and such. This is so raw, basic and to the point...I love it. Frankly I can't imagine a score working with this, it does not need one.

"How do you do? Mr. Carl Laemmle feels it would be a little unkind to present this picture without just a friendly word of warning: We are about to unfold the story of Frankenstein, a man of science who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God. It is one of the strangest tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation; life and death. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So, if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now's your chance to uh, well, ––we warned you!!"

 

I have the 8 disc blu ray set reissued in 2012 with the postcards. . All of the films have had major restoration work done and look and sound great. A fantastic upgrade from the 2000 DVDs.

 

I think Bride of Frankenstein has several major things going for it:

1) a grand Franz Waxman score; Frankenstein has very little music in it

2) Bride is funny as hell and tons of fun to watch

3) much more pathos and poignancy in Bride

4) the sets are much bigger and more epic in Bride.

5) the overall production -- the editing, the effects, etc. -- are much more impressive, benefitting from Bride's much bigger budget.

I think for all these reasons Bride of Frankenstein is one of the rare sequels that's much better than the original.

I agree with the above comments that the newer transfers are spectacular. The extra documentary materials are entertaining, too, particularly the part about the optical sound clean-up they did on all these old 1930s pictures. They were able to clean up and scrub down these optical tracks better than I ever thought possible, though as the documentary points out, now you can hear the actors clunking around the plywood sets and stuff like that.

Maybe a 30-film Blu-ray box will be out by Xmas. Clearly, Comcast-NBC-Universal needs the money.

 

Bride created awhile new type of horror film one that mixes black comedy with horror in a strange but powerful amalgation.

 

God I hate spellcheck and auto correction. That should read a whole new type.

 

Also, it's amalgamation.

 

I've got The Invisible Man on blu ray cued up for tonight. Should be good.

 

Well there you go! The evils of auto correction! Actually amalgamation was my fault. Didnt catch it I'm so darn tired tonight....

 

One of my favorite of Whale's dark, tragic films with its dark wit. Well made with visual effects that were positively brilliant at the time and hold up remarkably well although its the drama and Claude Rains that really sells it...

 

Agreed, I'm a big fan of Claude Rains.

 

The highlight of Wolfman to me is Maria Ouspenskaya, the old gypsy woman who knows the tragic truth of victims of lycanthropy:


Even he who is pure of heart, and says his prayers by night...
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, and the moon shines full and bright!

 

She certainly fit the role to a T.

 

Well tonight it will be Bride Of Frankenstein on blu ray, I'll try to have more of an open mind watching it, hopefully I can lay aside my bias towards favoring the first Frankenstein, as most generally this is considered vastly superior. I'd better have a really good pizza for this viewing tonight!

 

Guild, are you gonna be able to view Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D?

 

The Invisible Man has a sad demise.

 

Not if it takes a 3D TV.

 

Though different Invisible Men came back a few times... The original is a pretty sly and witty film.

 

Is the 30 film set just a collection of the individual sets released in the early 2000's or a new release

 

Unless I see a blu ray set of these soon, my guess is this is the earlier ones just all boxed together.

 

Enjoyed the TV Series.

 

Man, I have not seen that since I was a kid.

 

Ok, I'm done with Bride Of Frankenstein, man the score to me is just way too overblown in many scenes, it gets in the way of the visual presentation for me too often.

Again, the miniatures scene in the bottles is just WAY to corny to even fit into the overall feel of the movie. It's just plain stupid.

I really have tried to keep an open mind tonight after 4 decades of viewing these, but there's a lot of issues with The Bride for me. I know I'm far from the mainstream view on this, but man, come on!

I'm thinking a good portion of The Bride could've be added to Frankenstein and a longer movie could have been made resolving the end of the original, but culling out the silliness of the Bride.

Discuss.

 

Stop trying to criticize a 1935 movie using 2014 preconceptions and biases. Consider it the way they did when it was released 80 years ago.

I think Roger Ebert had the right idea:

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-bride-of-frankenstein

Even the NY Times gave it a near rave back in '35:

http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9807EEDA1139E33ABC4952DFB366838E629EDE

So you have to put the movie in historical context. I can tell you even when I was a little kid in the 1960s, and they'd show Bride on Shock Theater, I thought it was an amazing, scary, bizarre, and very funny film... and I think that's what director James Whale set out to do.