Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Directed by Michael Curtiz

Film Review

In the early 1930s, Warner Brothers clambered aboard the horror bandwagon which had been set in motion by Universal Pictures and offered something new: horror in colour!  Shot in the new two-negative Technicolor process, Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) were Warners' attempts to steal at least some of Universal's thunder, although the public reaction was less enthusiastic than had been hoped for and the technique was subsequently abandoned.

In the mid-1940s, the colour negatives and prints of Mystery of the Wax Museum were lost.  It wasn't until a quarter of a century later that the film resurfaced when a colour print was unearthed from Jack Warner's private collection.  This print suffered further deterioration until it was restored in the 1980s.    The film is better known today by its 1953 remake, House of Wax, which also attempted a cinematic revolution of its own, introducing the short-lived stereoscopic 3D process.

Mystery of the Wax Museum was directed with flair by Michael Curtiz, who would go on to become one of the most highly regarded and prolific filmmakers in Hollywood, his works ranging from Errol Flynn classics such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) to the Bogart-Bergman masterpiece Casablanca (1942).  On this film, Curtiz had the benefit of working with a particularly talented crew of designers and technicians.   Anton Grot's cavernous Gothic-like sets bring more than a touch of German expressionism, contributing a creepy atmosphere which is further enhanced by Ray Rennahan's suitably moody cinematography and some remarkably fluid camerawork.

Whilst the film's design is certainly impressive, its narrative structure is much less so.  The already complicated storyline is rendered virtually incomprehensible by the insertion of an extraneous screwball-like subplot involving Glenda Farrell and Frank McHugh.  This tedious wise-cracking romance provides an unwelcome distraction from the film's more macabre elements and Farrell's Nancy Drew-style exploits risk reducing the film to the level of a banal murder mystery.

Fortunately, strong performances from Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray redeem the film in its final stunning act.  In the sculptor's underground lair, which looks like a kitchen in Hell with its bubbling vats of molten wax, Atwill is at his most terrifying, bringing just the right note of sinister menace to make Wray's simulated terror appear utterly genuine. 

The scene in which Wray shatters Atwill's face to reveal the disfigured monstrosity beneath is the stuff of movie legend, even more nightmare-inducing than the famous de-masking in Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera (1925).  Whilst it may have its imperfections, Mystery of the Wax Museum offers plenty of spine-tingling chills and is compulsive viewing for any true horror aficionado.

Film Synopsis

London, 1921.  Ivan Igor may be the most talented wax sculptor in the world but his museum fails to attract enough visitors to be commercially viable.  His business partner Joe Worth offers to split the insurance money with him if he agrees to burn the museum down.  When Igor refuses, Worth starts the fire anyway, and flees, leaving the exhibits to fry, along with their creator.  Twelve years later, Igor is about to open a new wax museum in New York.  Disfigured by the fire which he narrowly survived, he relies on his assistants to create the exhibits, which have a striking lifelike quality, as though they were once living people.  Investigating the disappearance of missing socialite Joan Gale, reporter Florence Dempsey visits the museum on the eve of its opening.  She is surprised to find that one of the exhibits is a perfect likeness of the missing woman, whose body was recently stolen from the city morgue.  What she doesn't know is that, far from being a helpless cripple, Igor has been busy stealing dead bodies and converting them into waxworks by spraying them with wax in his secret processing chamber.   Igor's ambition is to recreate his masterpiece, Marie Antoinette.   When he sees Florence's roommate Charlotte Duncan, he realises that she will be the perfect subject for this, the crowning achievement of his collection.  Such a pity she will not be able to appreciate his handiwork...