Customer Reviews

Mystery of the Wax Museum [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This film had long intrigued me but I only viewed it for the first time last year. I had been familiar with the excellent Vincent Price remake "House of Wax" so I was eager to see the film it was based on.

"Mystery of the Wax Museum" is I feel a superb example of early 30's film making. It has a theme not often used at that time and has assembled a great cast of performers for the story. The always interesting Lionel Atwill is in this instance perfectly cast as the sinister museum owner who has unusual methods of creating his visually "realistic and lifelike" wax figures in his display. Lionel had a way with portraying sinister and deranged characters and I think his best performance was in the superb "Murders in the Zoo" where his character was of a similiar deranged slant as this one.

One of the joys of this film is also seeing a rare (for me) performance by the famed Fay Wray. So often totally identified with her most famous role in "King Kong" it is easy to forget she began in silent films as a child actress and appeared in the famed "Wedding March". Fay can certainly scream with the best of them and is given ample opportunity here to exercise her lungs!! She is the object of Atwill's rather unwelcome attentions here and almost ends up as part of the display dealing with Marie Antoinette. Glenda Farrell is also excellent as the wise cracking reporter who wont "stay in the car" so to speak and is determined to solve the riddle of what actually is going on in the museum. She has some terrific lines and adds a much needed light humour to the proceedings.

The film is unusual for its time in that it uses a very unusual 2 strip technicolour techique , rare for the time which gives the film a rich and quite sinister glow in particular in the museum scenes. The overraul feel created in the film is exceptional and it can be seen that Warners lavished a good budget on it. The museum scenes in particular are beautifully created and have an eerie atmosphere and definately heighten the drama as it unfolds.

Probably the highlight of the film is when in the final struggle Wray "demolishes" Atwill face mask which crumbles away to reveal the hideous scarring underneath. It is still a heart stopper...brilliant makeup work for the time which elevates "Mystery of the Wax Museum" to classic status.A film that should be in every horror fan's collection.

Filmed in a beautfiul two-tone Technicolor in l932, Mystery of the Wax Museum is a fascinating horror film that actually delivers shocks. This is thanks to Lionel Atwill's impressive performance as the warped, evil creator of wax figures for his New York museum. Although Fay Wray doesn't have that much screen time, she looks gorgeous in a brunette bob and shrieks like a real Scream Queen. But stealing the movie with her hilarious wise-cracks and personality is B-actress champion, Glenda Farrell. Snapping her gum, spitting out one-liners, she keeps this dark, gruesome movie racing along. In one scene she tells cops who ask her to describe the human monster she just saw: "I don't know how to describe him but he makes Frankenstein look like a lilly!" Anton Grot and Hans Drier marvelous gothic sets are worth seeing. Even the opening titles,framed against a quaking New York City lit by an eerie greenish glow, sets the tone. Glenda later remembered that it got so hot under the primitive technicolor lights that everyone's makeup melted within 3 minutes after a scene began. Not to mention people fainting now and then from the hellish heat. But this contributed to a genuine horror classic. A must-have for any collection of fantasy or early Technicolor epics. It's also fun to see what the well-dressed reporters of the early 30s wore. The climatic scene when Fay Wray shrieks and breaks away the wax mask of the monster is one of the great fright scenes in movies. A must-have.

Lionel Atwill is the artist and owner of a London wax museum that is torched by his partner to get the insurance money. Years later, having been injured in the blaze, Atwill turns up in New York, preparing a new wax museum for opening. If only he could quickly re-create some of his lost masterpieces. But of course, he's gone a little mad and he comes up with a way .... Enter Fay Wray, the spitting image of his lost Marie Antoinette. Hmmm. I'm sure you get the idea. This is a most unusual Warner Brothers' early Thirties film. Filmed in an early, two strip Technicolor, the film has a remarkable, almost unreal feeling about it, much like the wax figures. It's an unusual subject and genre for the studio to have tackled, but director Michael Curtiz keeps the action moving, so the film never gets dull. Atwill is appropriately creepy, Wray screams with the best of them, and Glenda Farrell, as the wisecracking, adventurous reporter out to expose it all, steals the show with her lively, energetic performance. It's got the thrills and the humour necessary to entertain, plus a few memorable moments.

I first saw this on KTUL-TV(Tulsa,Ok)The Plenty Scary Movie back in 77, and thought that this was, naturally, a gem from Universal(all the other films, except Kong, they showed were of the Universal genre). Early two-tone technicolor process is interesting to see. The atmoshpere is effective contemporary(for the time) urban setting. There is a lot of comic relief in this one, but it does not detract from some genuine chills.The scene where Fay Wray beats the dried wax off Atwill's face is still horrific! Glenda Farrell is fun as the spunky reporter("He makes Frankenstein look like a lily!")Warner Bros. probably made this to catch up with Universal, because by this time that studio already was already reeling in the bucks from Dracula, Frankenstein, Invisible Man, and Mummy!

Mystery of the Wax Museum easily stands up sixty years after it was made as a truly unique piece of film. Possibly quite thrilling in its day though it was, it has effectivly materialized to the contemporary audience as a thickly amusing black comedy. It boasts priceless performances by Fay Wray as the darling tenderfoot (soon to be preserved in wax) Charlote, and her alter ego the narcissistic, over zealous pure gem of a character Florence; a failed reporter who seeks only justice and a rich husband.
Beyond the classic characters of Charlotte and Florence (the latter played by Glenda Farrel) and her two potential suitors the millionare charged with murder and the gruff, insulting newspaper editor with a heart, are the strange collection of people in the museum itself; the unfazed caricature deaf-mute artist, the junkie perfectionist, Charlotte's besotted, albeit wimpy fiance Ralph and of course Igor himself, a wheelchair bound, burned, pitiful but passionate wax master condemned to instruct 'soulless people with hands' to recreate the beautiful wax figures that were melted in a fire twelve years earlier.
Filmed to brilliant use in early two-color technicolor, this film is full of atmosphere both dark and funny. It flows hauntingly with that uncertain but intriguing sense there hides in all dark corners things unseen and the eye is drawn, almost magnetized to the blackest purple shadows in every shot, just awaiting something hideous that may be lurking. Somehow this atmosphere so effectivly lingers below without pretense while the quirky, fast unfolding mystery and the quaint 1930s wit plays straight up to the front... this film really deserves six stars.

Generally overshadowed by its more famous remake ("House of Wax" featuring Vincent Price), "Mystery of the Wax Museum" is a more than respectable horror vehicle in its own right. The story of a newly-opened New York wax museum and the strangely lifelike figures that its bizarre owner populates it with, this was a highly original entry into the 1930's horror scene. It was probably intended to compete with the Universal bumper crop of horror staples (Dracula, Frankenstein, et al) and if it cannot quite equal those masterpieces it is nonetheless distinctly more realistic and retains its own unique charm. Surprisingly racy for its day, "Mystery" may be more credible in modern horror fans' eyes than similar films from the same period. The film's cast is excellent, with Lional Atwill as the deranged sculptor to whom art is more precious than life, Fay Wray as the alluring damsel in distress, and Glenda Farrell in a superbly convincing role as the fast-talking, wisecracking reporter who discovers the wax museum's terrible secret. The whole is photographed in a rare two-strip early tecnicolor process which lends a unique, eerie air to every scene. There's some effective comic relief (especially from the aforementioned Farrell) and the infamous "face-cracking" scene is a real shocker, especially for a viewer who has never seen either version of the story before. A relatively slow pace that should've been spiced up a bit is the only reason I don't give this gem four stars, though the climax is certainly exciting and a great wrap-up. An overall quality production that is miles ahead of most of the drudgery that passes for horror today. Recommended to any fan of vintage screamers or classic cinema.

Bodies disappear from the morgue and coincidentally, wax figures are added to the local wax museum which resemble the missing corpses. I have never forgotten this film since the first time I saw it. It's really amazing how creepy this film is. You can tell this movie has had some influence over some of the movies from the past 20-25 years. All the acting is great, the script is suspenseful and the way this movie was shot just adds to the terror of the whole picture. Highly recommended.

A lively mix of gothic melodrama and fast-talking Warner Bros. verve, "Mystery of the Wax Museum" is great fun. Strikingly filmed in two-strip Technicolor, the 1933 production benefits from Michael Curtiz's directorial craftsmanship and Anton Grot's impressive set design. Some truly horrific moments build to a serial-style climax. Lionel Atwill's classic villainy is complemented by fast-talking Glenda Farrell and the inimitable Fay Wray. Decidedly superior to Warner's 3-D "House of Wax" (1953).

The Mystery of the Wax Museum was the first film that spawned two remakes titled House of Wax. The story revolves around a reporter who suspects that the bodies that have been disappearing at the morgue are finding themselves inside a museum molded as famous characters from history.

This film is filmed in an early form of Technicolor, a much more faded tone than was used later mostly in frivolous films. However, although a horror/drama film is the last place one would expect to see color, it is done well and is another reason to see the film.

Lionel Atwill plays the sinister owner of the museum. His character had his own display in London, but after a fire, he was unable to sculpt out of wax. Although his character is obviously mentally disturbed, he is strangely easy to empathize with and one feels sorry for him. His character is the epitome of a role suited for Lon Chaney, but sadly, he was dead by this time.

Fay Wray plays a girl who is dating an employee at the Wax Museum. She is discovered as being an exact look-alike of the owner's statue of Marie Antoinette back in London. She is obviously the victim with very little to do or say with much meaning. Wray is used as decoration and a pair of lungs in this film.

Glenda Farrell is a riot as the snappy reporter, the true star of the show. She looks older in color than in her black and white films, but she is loads of fun.

The horror aspects of this film run a little slowly and had the pace been sped up a bit the film could have been much scarier. As it stands, this movie is more like, as the title suggests, a mystery than a horror film.

This movie was made before the production code which restricted many things that could be in scripts. This one gallivants nude sculptures which is risqué because of the assertion that there are real bodies underneath. Sex is mentioned, and so is bootlegging.

The print is slightly damaged and the soundtrack occasionally jumps so that it is incongruent with the action in the scene, but it fixes itself quickly. It would be nice to see this film cleaned up and released on DVD.

Look for a scene in the wax museum where one of the statues of an old woman blinks in the background.

I came to "Mystery of the Wax Museum" the way I suspect most people do. You watch Vincent Price in "House of Wax" (if you are lucky, which I was not, in 3-D), and some time later on you learn that director André De Toth's 1953 film was based on a film made twenty years earlier entitled, "Mystery of the Wax Museum." That might not be enough to persuade fans of horror movies involving dead bodies covered in wax to go back and check out director Michael Curtiz's 1933 film, but I bet I can tip the odds in favor of doing so by pointing out that not only is "Mystery" slightly better than "House," but that it also has the advantage of Fay Wray in the cast. She is not really the female star of this film, but she should be enough of a hook for those who have never seen the film she did right before "King Kong," when Wray was most definitely a scream queen having made "Doctor X," "The Most Dangerous Game," and "The Vampire Bat" for Warner Bros.

"Mystery of the Wax Museum" begins in 1912 London, where Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill, who also did "Doctor X" and "The Vampire Bat") lovingly creates his wax figures. However, the museum is losing money and his business partner torches the place for the insurance money and Igor is caught in the inferno (Igor as a last name just seems so wrong to me). Then we jump ahead to 1933 New York City, where Igor, confined to a wheelchair and unable to use his hands because of the fire, has opened a new wax museum. On New Year's Eve beautiful socialite Joan Gale (Monica Bannister) dies from an overdose (pre-code movie, obviously) and her rich boyfriend George Winton (Gavin Gordon) is arrested for murder. That is when acid-tongued reporter Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) becomes involved in the case. She thinks Winton is innocent and when Gale's body disappears, Florence starts snooping around the wax museum. Meanwhile, Igor has taken a fancy to Charlotte Duncan (Wray), whose fiancé Ralph Burton (Allen Vincent) is working as a sculptor there. This cannot be a good thing and while the cops think she has a screw loose, Florence is going to figure to find out what is happening at the wax museum.

Granted, "House of Wax" is a much better looking film with its rich and vibrant colors making "Mystery of the Wax Museum" look like its colors have been bleached out. But that just represents the improvement of color technology over two decades. Whichever film you see first the second will obviously hold no suspense since the story is essentially the same from start to finish (unlike the 2005 splatter flick version of "House of Wax" which appropriates the name but not the plot). Ultimately the key difference between the two is the character of Florence. Wray has the gams but Farrell has the gums in this one, shaving at least five minutes off the running time by how fast she talks with Jim (Frank McHugh), her editor. Farrell had been in "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and would go on to appear in a whole bunch of films as Torchy Blane, in which I assume she plays the same sort of tough broad she plays here as she steals the movie from the two stars.

"Mystery" has a screenplay by Carl Erickson & Don Mullaly, based on a play by Charles Belden, and the idea of watching a play where there might have been wax statues coming life is intriguing (I know nothing about the play, but my imagination is running away from me at the thought). Anyhow, the whole creepy idea of corpses becoming art that we see in films like "Bucket of Blood," "Blood Bath," and "Nightmare in Wax" gets traced back to this film and that stage drama.