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Universal Monsters | ||||||||||
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t would be hard to imagine Hollywood, or the 20th century, without images of monsters and creatures chasing scientists and adventurers in chiaroscuro lighting, wreaking havoc to the screams of an appreciative audience. Universal Studios created some of the most endearing examples, with films such as The Phantom of the Opera, The Mummy, The Son of Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein and The Mole People, to name a scant few of many that appeared between the early 1920s and the 1950s, and even later. Names such as Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi remain household names to this day. The fervor for these tales of science fiction and horror knew no bounds, with audiences clamoring to get in to see the next creature feature.
Though the special effects and film techniques of the time seem inelegant by today's standards, and the quality the films varied widely, as a body of work they are highly respected and loved by film buffs worldwide for their stories, inimitable settings and mood. They are undeniably the product of a golden era in film that may never return.
Sideshow has spent several years commemorating its love of the last century's cinematic horror tales. Its current range of Universal Monsters is wide and varying, but this review will look at figures of Boris Karloff's Mummy and Frankenstein's Monster, Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera, Elsa Lanchester's Bride of Frankenstein and a Mole Creature from The Mole People.
The Mummy is wrapped in bindings and comes with an Egyptian box with scroll and ribbon. Frankenstein's Monster is dressed in crude suede-like pants and rough wooly vest, and comes with a book of "Fairy Tales" and an articulated prosthetic arm. The Phantom is dressed in his "Masque of Red Death" costume, complete with a skull mask, a wide-brimmed hat with a flamboyant feather, a red cape and a long skull-tipped serpent staff. Elsa Lanchester's Bride of Frankenstein is dressed in white wrappings and surgical covers and comes with a disembodied heart in a preservation tank with a piece of laboratory equipment. The Mole Creature is dressed in tattered brown clothing and comes with an old cloth sack and six mushrooms.
Each Sideshow figure has an incredible range of articulation, with double-jointed elbows and knees, and wrists that move at almost all angles. Necks crane in all directions, waists and chests are ball-jointed, and even the shoulders move forward and backward to mimic the movement of human shoulders.
Each figure comes in a box reproducing posters from the films, including details and credits from the films.
Monstrously good figures
These figures are, in general, the cream of the crop in 12-inch figures. Their likenesses to their subjects are beyond complaint. Their clothing is well crafted and carefully designed to honor the beloved films they are meant to celebrate. Their accessories are lovingly created to resemble film props.
Of this set, the most gorgeous is the Phantom, in elaborate and rich brilliant red clothing, with a skull mask that fits over an excellent sculpt of Lon Chaney's scarred and ugly Phantom. While he is generally the nicest of these figures, his hat is a hard fit. I could not fit it comfortably on the head even without the mask, but with the mask it is an even tighter fit. Unfortunately, his ankles are fairly weak, which means posing him could be problematic, and he may take a shelf dive unless otherwise supported.
Elsa Lanchester's Bride is an absolutely perfect likeness of the unmistakable actress. Her iconic shock of hair is well crafted and painted. Her wrappings have a satinlike finish, and her surgical overclothes are cotton. Her joints are tight from top to bottom. This is a solid figure.
Karloff's Frankenstein's Monster is top-notch. His only drawbacks are slightly weak knees and no wrist articulation. Rather than go for the standard wrist joints, Sideshow opted for a more sculpted arm up to mid-forearm, which has simple rotational articulation. His face sculpt is perfect, with those scary, staring, half-closed eyes. What's truly remarkable about this set is that Krogh's false arm has its own double-jointed elbow and fully articulated wrist! The arm still wears its sleeve.
The Mole Creature is the most monsterlike of the set. His head is well sculpted, and his hands are large and warted and have long sharp claws. His mushroom sack is realistically aged and is more than large enough to hold the six mushrooms he comes with. While most of these figures have a production run of 5,000 or more, this one has a run of 1,500. Combine that with the fact that this film is hard to find and relatively obscure compared to the rest, and this is quite the collector's item.
The disappointment of the batch is Karloff's Mummy. His scroll of hieroglyphs looks like a simple laser print and doesn't have the quality of some other accessories. The box it is stored in is nicely detailed, however, but again, the painted symbols look too neat and clean. It doesn't look aged enough. The real problem with this figure, however, is that the elaborate and beautiful wrappings are a hindrance to the figure. The face sculpt is very nice, but the figure's excellent articulation is rendered almost entirely unposable inside wrappings that are so tight you can't even correct the misaligned angles into which the limbs are wrapped. The arms angle inward toward the body at an unnatural angle, and they're probably going to remain that way.
The Mummy's movement problems aside, Sideshow's Universal Monster series is an excellent line, lovingly created and gorgeously sculpted and costumed, and it includes appropriate and well-created accessories.
To be fair, the Mummy is a good-looking figure, far better than Hasbro's version from several years back, and its execution is the first misfire in a long line of toys that in general is completely top quality. — Sean
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