For Christmas, my buddy, Mel, gifted me a posable, 8" Mego action figure that emblemizes Lon Chaney Jr. from Tin-Tan's la Casa del Terror (The House of Terror), directed by Gilberto Martinez Solares.
The horror-comedy was re-edited by low-budget pitchman, Jerry Warren, into Face of the Screaming Werewolf, who padded it with footage from The Aztec Mummy, which he'd already released in the U.S. as Attack of the Mayan Mummy.
In both versions, Chaney meshes his iconic, Universal characters of the Wolfman and the Mummy (Kharis) into a unique, stand-alone context. For the Mego figure, the resurrected (unbandaged) mummy stands in full, lycanthrope form, which captures Chaney's signature guise.
The figure is packaged on a bubble card, adorned by the Warren poster's graphics. The figure is quite detailed, both in its sculpted head and hands, as well as its clothing, with my version sporting a blue-flannel shirt. (There's a red-flannel counterpart, as well, or so I've discovered.)
This piece complements Mego's 8" Werewolf from its 1970s, monster line, but also the forerunner to such in Ahi's Universal Monsters series. The figure also invokes Paul Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky, a character the actor/writer/director based upon Chaney's Wolfman. (With that in mind, by simple default, this Screaming Werewolf figure could be accepted as the original, Chaney Wolfman, and if so, so be it.)
The Face of the Screaming Werewolf action figure is an unexpected entry from Mego, but as a lover of psychotronic concoctions, I'm as happy as a lark to possess it. To Mel, I offer my sincerest, howling thanks. (Say, I was thinkin', wouldn't it be neat if Mego produced a Chaney Mummy counterpart?)
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