The Wolf Man (1941 film) rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A handsomely told tale with an affecting performance from Lon Chaney, Jr., "The Wolf Man" remains one of the classics of the Universal horror stable." Author and film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it "One of the finest horror films ever made". In his review, Maltin praised the film's make-up effects, atmospheric music, and Chaney's performance. The Wolf Man is the only Universal monster to be played by the same actor in all his 1940s film appearances. Lon Chaney Jr. was very proud of this,
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Wolf Man" and "The Ghost of Frankenstein". Immediately following his success in "Dracula", Bela Lugosi had been the first choice to play the Monster in Universal's original "Frankenstein" film, but Lugosi famously turned down the nonspeaking, heavily made-up role: as conceived by the original director Robert Florey, the Monster was nothing more than a mindless killing machine and not suitable for Lugosi's rising stardom and career as a leading actor. After the change of directors to James Whale, along with a major script and conceptual revision, the virtually unknown Boris Karloff was then cast in his star-making role. (Florey later