Mystery Of The Wax Museum

[Foxbat]

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Starring Lionel Atwill, Glenda Farrell, Fay Wray

Region 1 DVD

Made in 1933 (colour)

London, 1921 Ivan Igor (pronounced eye-gor) played by Atwill, fights with an arsonist in an attempt to save his Wax Museum, but his life’s work is consumed by flames.

New York 1933. Crippled by the fire all those years ago, a wheelchair-bound Igor uses Professor D’Arcy as his hands in his effort to rebuild his collection of wax statues.

Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) is a go-getting reporter looking for a story. She is working on the murder of Joan Gael when the body disappears from the morgue. Charlotte Duncan(Fay Wray) is a friend of Dempsey’s and romantically linked to an employee of the about-to-open Wax Museum. Upon meeting Igor, she is somewhat taken aback when he compares her to his once-famous Marie Antoinette – his greatest creation.

As Dempsey delves deeper into the mystery, Igor offers Charlotte a chance of immortality….in wax.

With a colour scheme that is subdued by today’s standards, what we have here is a fine movie from 1933 which is both atmospheric and intriguing. Much more subtle than its more famous remake, this film is less a horror and more a thriller. There are some fascinating sets – particularly staircases and cellars. This, along with the lighting, would lead me to hazard a guess at a strong influence from early German cinema. There are slanted doorways and twisted stairwells – all lit in that brooding Teutonic fashion made famous by films like The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari.

Glenda Farrell is the lynchpin of this film and I have to admit that, initially, I found her up-and-at-em bravado somewhat annoying. However, this was merely an inaccurate first impression. She drives the movie along with a strength that would comfortably place the character of Dempsey high on the list of any debate on strong female characters.

Fay Wray does what she does best – screams and looks beautiful. My favourite Wray line: Aaargh! You Fiend!

Not as sophisticated as many movies today but I would imagine audiences of its time would find it particularly creepy – and this is the manner in which this movie must be viewed to gain full appreciation of the strong cast and direction.

In conclusion, anybody who like House Of Wax or is interested in just seeing where that movie came from should enjoy this.

7 out of 10 – I’d definitely watch this one again.

[steve12553]

I'll have to watch for this. I really enjoyed the first remake although the ads were enough to prevent me from looking at the the recent remake. Some really interesting movies were made in the thirties.

[j. d. worthington]

Steve... When the recent remake was released on DVD, they also put out a new edition of this one, so you should be able to spot it in either a video rental store, or find it online fairly easily. And, yes, it's a delightful piece of melodrama, more subdued than The House of Wax with Vincent Price, and with Curtiz's usual quirky direction (which definitely aids the sometimes surrealistic feel of this one); two-tone technicolor (same as was used for the Lon Chaney Phantom of the Opera) gives this one a very moody visual texture. I'd been waiting to see this since I was a kid, and when I saw it for the first time about 5 years ago, I was not disappointed. I've watched it several times since, and for me the charm just continues to grow. An interesting note is that this was pre-Hays office, so there is a drug addict who plays a fairly prominent part in the film, whereas in the Price remake he was made an alcoholic (of course, the same office had several scenes cut from King Kong, not to mention the nude swimming in Tarzan Finds a Mate.....)