Masques de cire

In the early 1930's Jack Warner was under contract to use the Two-strip technicolor process on a Warner Brothers film. Unfortunately, this primitive form of color cinematography had a limited pallet of colors. Everything had an unnatural pastel look. Warner wisely choose a genre not dependent on reality- the horror film. Their first color horror film was DOCTOR X, a wild and macabre who-dunnit complete with scary murders, truly mad doctors and a cannibal. DOCTOR X, released in 1932, was enough of a success, that Warner Brothers reunited it's director, Michael Curtiz, the two leads, Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, and the two strip Technicolor process for yet another horror film. The new film, simply titled WAX MUSEUM during production was a fast moving creepy chiller that mixed the gloom of Depression era New York with the creepy going-ons of a wax museum. The film begins in 1921. Sculptor Ivan Igor (a bohemian looking Lionel Atwill), so obsessed creating his wax museum, that he ignores that he and his partner, Worth (Edwin Maxwell) are in deep financial trouble. Worth sets fire to the museum to collect on a fire insurance policy. The museum is destroyed, and Igor is left a cripple with useless hands.

Twelve years later, in Manhattan, Igor opens a new wax museum. At the same time, a wisecracking reporter, Florence (Glenda Farrell) tracks a hot case of the corpse of a recently murdered socialite stolen from the morgue. She begins to suspect that creepy wax museum downtown of stealing bodies and posing them as wax statues. What makes things worse, is that her best friend, Ruth (Fay Wray) is dating the most innocent of the questionable wax-workers. THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM is a DVD shelf must-have.

These days, Mystery of the Wax Museum has become best known for the fact that it was the film that spawned the 1953 classic starring Vincent Price. This is somewhat unfair, however, as although this film isn't a brilliant masterpiece, or even genre classic, it has a right to remembered in it's own right. The film is actually quite daring and inventive for the time when it was made; and despite the fact that nothing too bad is graphically shown, for obvious reasons, some of the imagery on display does actually succeed in being quite disturbing. Take the deformed face of the central character for example; it won't keep you up all night, but considering the time when this was made; the effects are good. The two-strip Technicolor style of the film gives it something of a unique feel; and this again is to it's credit as the film has aged really, really well. The plot line will be familiar to anyone who has seen the Vincent Price version, but here, aside from a museum proprietor that gets his life work melted away in an inferno; we've got a press investigation into the affairs as well.

Lionel Atwill takes the lead role as the unfortunate victim of the flames, and while he's certainly no Vincent Price; he does well with what he's got and helps to create a macabre surrounding around his character, which in turn helps the film in the atmosphere department. Joining him are Glenda Farrell and Fay Wray as the heroine's of the story. Wray plays the girl that the unfortunate artist becomes obsessed with, and Farrell gives a slightly irritating, but very lively performance as a journalist. Both do well with their roles, and although this film isn't exactly an exhibition in acting (unlike Curtiz's masterpiece, Casablanca); the cast do well enough. One thing that is unfortunate for this film is that it's seen as a second feature for the Price version, which will harm what some viewers think of it as the plot elements are very similar to the 1953 film, so it can, at times, feel as though you're simply watching the same film again. However, if viewed as a stand-alone product, Mystery of the Wax Museum represents a solid 30's horror movie and I can see why any horror fan wouldn't enjoy it.

A genuinely frightening film from Michael Curtiz, jack of no trades and master of all. Many of the tricks of classic 1930's horror are here, including the opening scene set in a dark, rainy London street, the long shadows on the wall, lengthy periods of silence, and all timed to perfection. Only the faster-than-the-speed-of-sound dialogue of Glenda Farrell truly lets the film down. But other than that it is a gothic masterpiece, an underrated movie probably due to the fact that it lay undiscovered, thought lost, for over half a century. Far more inventive and imaginative than the majority of horror films made today.

She has been so sorely maligned. Despite what has been claimed by others here, Glenda Farrell was not a bad actress. A little broad sometimes perhaps, but not bad. She is a dynamo of live energy, which the film badly needs, for the only other energetic character in the film is Atwill, and only Farrell has the force to bring him down(that the script does not let her do so personally betrays the character). It is not Farrell's performance or even her character which is the problem of the film, but the script which makes that character necessary. Chock Full O' undeveloped characters (only Atwill and Farrell qualify as more than ciphers)whose paths cross coincidentally,Farrell's reporter is the one in the middle bringing the disparate elements together. A reporter or policeman had to be the central character, for only one of those two would be privy to all or even enough of the info needed to solve the puzzle, or to even recognize that the puzzle existed. And only a female reporter could be Fay Wray's roommate, as female police detectives or beat cops didn't exist(at least not in Hollywood). And only a fast-talking, wisecracking, brash and fierce female reporter able to beat the stereotypical fast-talking, wisecracking, brash 1930's male reporter at his own game could find the story AND crack the case before the police. Others have objected to the attention given the comic relief, apparently misunderstanding the term. Comic relief characters are supporting characters, and in this film, despite third billing, Glenda Farrell is the female lead. Fay Wray was a freelancer and able to negotiate better billing even though her role doesn't deserve it. Had she not had a real lead in the companion film DR.X, it's unlikely she would have been asked to take such a small part. Charlotte is needed in the story only for a face, and her face and scream are all Wray is allowed to bring to the role. As outstanding as those two attributes are, they don't add up to a real character. And while Farrell cracks wise, she is doing serious work central to the tale. A role with comedic content is not automatically a comic relief part. The script is a mess, letting down the great concept. HOUSE OF WAX is a much tighter script, more linear, combining ingenue and snoop into one role, and beefing up the part of the disfigured sculptor. It drops the very extraneous playboy character and the loose ends which trail in his wake. But most agree that HOUSE is boring compared to MYSTERY, and in addition to the direction and editing, much of MYSTERY's drive comes from the girl reporter and the crack actress who played her. Even if you do find her grating, Glenda Farrell is never boring.

MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (Warner Brothers, 1933), reunites director Michael Curtiz with his DOCTOR X (First National, 1932) co-stars, Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, in another two-strip Technicolor horror/comedy mystery. A carbon copy of DOCTOR X with a few alterations and improvements thrown in, it ranks the finest and most noteworthy of the Atwill-Fay collaborations (1933's THE VAMPIRE BAT for Majestic was their second), as well as the most eerie and mysterious of them all. While Atwill and Wray had equal status in their initial two outings, Atwill this time dominates while Wray, interestingly, has little to do, not making her screen presence until 30 minutes from the opening titles. She's gone for long stretches and is not visible in the fade-out while Glenda Farrell, the secondary female character, comes close to being the lead, or so it appears. Regardless of Wray's limitations, her character is quite crucial to the story and to Atwill's mentally unbalanced character.

Opening with a prologue set in 1921 London introduces Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) as a brilliant sculptor of wax figures of noteworthy figures as Joan of Arc, Jack the Ripper, Disraeli, and his most favorite, Marie Antoinette, hoping for his museum to become successful once it opens to the public. Because he's invested more money than anticipated, Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell), his partner whom he owes back salary, comes upon a plan to get back some of his investment by burning down the museum and collect on the fire insurance. A fight ensues between the two partners, with Worth breaking away, locking Igor inside the museum surrounded by flames where he's left to burn along with his wax figures. Move forward, New Year's Eve, 1933, in New York City. Ivan, who has survived the burning flames, is wheelchair bound. Unable to recreate his wax figures due to his severely burned hands, he hires assistants, Ralph (Allen Vincent); D'Arcy (Arthur Edmund Carewe) and Hugo (Matthew Betz) to sculpt wax figures for him under his supervision. Successfully reproducing his original creations, Igor is unable to do the same with Marie Antoinette, that is, until he meets her replica, Charlotte Duncan (Fay Wray), Ralph's fiancée. In the meantime, a series of murders have taken place with bodies mysteriously disappearing from the morgue from some figure in a cloak. Millionaire playboy Harold Ritten (Gavin Gordon), who happened to be with Joan Gale on the night of her murder, is suspected and jailed. Florence Parks (Glenda Farrell), Charlotte's roommate and gal reporter for the New York Express, is assigned by her editor (Frank McHugh) to investigate. Following her interview with Harold leading to her constant snooping around Igor's 14th Street wax museum, she discovers something quite startling in connection to the murder, hence "the mystery of the wax museum."

If the story sounds at all familiar, it was reworked more famously as HOUSE OF WAX (Warners, 1954) starring Vincent Price in the Atwill role. Due to the popularity of the remake, the original from which it was based, was virtually unknown, especially since no prints of MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM have survived. Fortunately, an original print was discovered, according to sources, in Jack L. Warner's private vault around the late 1960s. WAX MUSEUM finally turned up on commercial television, notably on New York City's WPIX, Channel 11's "Chiller Theater" on February 10, 1973, where it broadcast annually until 1978, only in black and white format only. It would be another decade before two-strip Technicolor prints surfaced and distributed on home video and DVD, with broadcasts on Turner Network Television (1988-1993) and finally Turner Classic Movies (1994-present).

With Glenda Farrell assuming the wisecracking reporter role Lee Tracy enacted in DOCTOR X, her performance in this venture seems right and warranted, improving over Tracy's lackluster buffoonery. Even if Farrell's character disappoints, the script does not and neither does Atwill. Who could forget his key scenes as the bearded Igor conversing with his favorite wax figure of Marie Antoinette, and his outlook as he witnesses the melting of his "children" in a blazing fire (very realistically done and effective in color), along with his unforgettable confrontation with the screaming Wray as he offers her "eternal life" in the manner that would have done 1925s "Phantom of the Opera" star Lon Chaney proud had he lived to see this.

In some ways, THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM is perfect, in others it's not, but must have been good enough to acquire a remake, find the missing negative for the original and have it displayed as one of the finer horror classics to come out from the 1930s. (**1/2)