Figures de cire (1912)
Directed by Maurice Tourneur

Film Review

One of Maurice Tourneur's earliest films, Figures de cire is a minor but unsettling work which tangentially prefigures his later, and probably best known, film, La Main du diable (1943). The most memorable sequence from that later film shows an enlarged shadow of a hand projected onto the back of the set, and Figures de cire uses shadow play just as effectively to convey a sense of unremitting terror in the mind of the character who sees it.  Tourneur's use of shadows to suggest menace and exteriorise the fears of the protagonist pre-dates the German expressionistic filmmakers by a decade, (F.W. Murnau directed Nosferatu, famous for its shadow of a vampire, in 1922). His later films - including Au nom de la loi (1932) and Justin de Marseille (1935).- have a stark visual style which relies on shadows to create an oppresive mood that is recognisably an early form of the film noir aesthetic. The moody lighting brings a nightmarish quality to the sequences set in the waxworks museum - it's no wonder that the same creepy setting would be re-used in later horror films, including Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and André de Toth's House of Wax (1953).

Film Synopsis

At a party one evening, Pierre and his friend Jacques get into a heated discussion about the nature of fear.  Rashly, Pierre accepts a bet from his friend that he can spend an entire night in any place, and he is undaunted when Jacques chooses a waxworks museum.  In a deserted gallery populated by immobile, sinister wax figures, the night passes slowly for Pierre, and he begins to feel afraid.  Then he sees a shadow of a man coming towards him.  Pierre attacks the ghostly vision with a dagger, not realising that it is Jacques, who has slipped into the museum to frighten him..  The next morning, Pierre has lost his mind, and the museum has gained another motionless body...