Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)

As Good As It Gets

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

On a dark and stormy night in 1921 London, "Wax Museum" sculptor Lionel Atwill (as Ivan Igor) shows potential investors his incredibly lifelike wax figures (played by real people). He hopes for a major exhibit, but Mr. Atwill's partner says they can't pay the rent on their museum and burns the place down. Tragically, Atwill is believed to have gone up in flames, while partner Edwin Maxwell (as Joe Worth) takes the insurance payoff. Twelve years later, Atwill turns up in New York City. He has decided to recreate his beloved wax museum. In a wheelchair and unable to sculpt due to injuries sustained in the fire, Atwill resorts to highly unethical methods to recreate his waxworks. When dead bodies mysteriously disappear, snoopy blonde reporter Glenda Farrell (as Florence Dempsey) begins to investigate...Early "Technicolor" gives this Monster "Mystery of the Wax Museum" a distinctive look. With Ms. Farrell's enterprising reporter, this version also has a stronger female lead, and famed "King Kong" (1933) screamer Fay Wray (as Charlotte Duncan) also appears. The women have a sexy scene, after about a half hour of running time. Watch for Ms. Wray to show off her legs in shorts and stockings while roommate Farrell slinks around in bed. Anton Grot's stylish sets and Ray Rennahan's photography, as directed by Michael Curtiz, enables this version to hold up well against the re-make "House of Wax" (1953). Interestingly, both "houses of wax" successfully employed visual gimmicks to entice viewers. The 1953 revision (starring Vincent Price) appeared in "3-D" while this 1933 version employed Technicolor.******** Mystery of the Wax Museum (2/16/33) Michael Curtiz ~ Lionel Atwill, Glenda Farrell, Fay Wray, Allen Vincent

I have seen the Vincent Price remake HOUSE OF WAX several times and consider it one of my favorite classic horror movies, but I just got to see this original for the first time. I really tried, as a viewer, to be fair to this movie and review it on its' own merits as the original rather than making any comparisons to the de Toth version. However, in put into its' own context, this movie doesn't really come close to the level of the best 30s horror movies.The idea for the story itself, taken from an unpublished short story is excellent and, in the end, is what carries this movie. It seems a little cliché to a modern audience, but the idea certainly originate here. A genius sculptor is content to create works of art, rather than play up the grand guignol for the masses. This puts the museum in financial trouble and his partner's solution is to torch it for the insurance money. Having lost everything important to him, our master artist (played by Lionel Atwill), descends into lunacy and starts casting corpses in wax to rebuild his attraction. The idea of so sinister and clever and just rings of the sort of story popular in the horror pulps of the time.Lionel Atwill is very good as the deranged artist. He's been a role player in probably a dozen period horror movies that I've seen, but tends to play the scientist or police inspector. It's nice getting to see him play the villain here and shows me he should have been given that opportunity more often. His makeup is also excellent when he see his "true face". A withered, burnt up visage that mirrors the twisting of his soul, its' one of the better makeups I've seen in old horror, outside the legendary Jack Pierce's work.The problems with the movie start with the bad script. Like the title implies, this plays much more as a detective mystery than straight horror. The fright scenes are few and far between, spending more time focusing on the whodunit aspect led by a news reporter. This may have been able to work had the plot not meandered all over the place, bringing in unnecessary characters and plot points that only bog things down and slow the pace. The worst aspect of this is our main character, a newspaper gal played by Glenda Farrell. She eats up far too much of the run time playing an annoying character who talks to fast and makes witty quips with her editor that may have been funny at the time, but are not now. Had the writers chosen to spend more time with Atwill and less on our heroine, things might have turned out much differently.The other thing worth mentioning is the two-color technicolor. I have read a bit about this coloring in this movie and it would seem that the version you watch makes a huge difference. Apparently, the stream I saw was from the DVD release, which is not very true to the original coloring and looks very bland and washed out. I'm not, personally, sure where to see the more pastel technicolor that it's supposed to be seen in.Too many times I found myself struggling to keep my attention going, mostly when our intrepid reporter is eating up scene time. The beginning and ending are quite worthwhile, but this is not quite at the level of Universal's work in the same time period.

Michael Curtiz directed this first version of the story about mad and disfigured wax sculptor Ivan Igor(played by Lionel Atwill) who has just reopened a wax museum after his first one was destroyed in a fire. There have been mysterious disappearances of local citizens, and Ivan has taken a particular interest in his assistant's fiancée Charlotte(played by Fay Wray) whose roommate Florence(played by Glenda Farrell) is a reporter on the case. Does Ivan have anything to do with the crimes? Despite a good cast and director, this film has not aged well, being far too talky, and that wisecracking reporter is overbearing. Mostly overshadowed by the 1953 remake.

This movie was remade 20 years later as "House of Wax," with Vincent Price in the role of the wax artist played in this original by Lionel Atwill. Interestingly - because (a) I don't usually care that much for remakes, and (b) I'm not big on Vincent Price - I thought the remake was the stronger of the two movies. Many won't agree with me on that, of course, but "House of Wax" was one of Price's better performances, and I found this version somewhat lacking in both atmosphere and suspense. The story is the same with only a few adjustments, but I felt it was pulled off better in '53.The cast didn't really blow me away. The most interesting thing about the cast was probably the opportunity to see Fay Wray in a movie other than "King Kong." But as Charlotte, her role was - similar to "Kong" - not a substantive acting performance. She looked both beautiful and vulnerable, so you hope she's going to be OK (and she does get to do a Fay Wray scream toward the end!), but I didn't find her performance particularly powerful. And, of course, she wasn't the lead actress. That would have been Glenda Farrell as Florence, the hard-nosed female reporter for the New York Express newspaper. Farrell was probably the strongest member of the cast. She pulled off the role well, and was quite believable for the most part.A major problem with this movie was the last scene. The ending of a movie (which I won't give away, although it's not all that important to the overall story) has to somehow connect to the rest of the movie - otherwise it just leaves me scratching my head. I was left scratching my head after this was over. I thought the writers made a very poor decision in coming up with a final scene that seemed both forced (between the actors) and artificial (between the characters.) I won't say more, except to say that it left me dry, which is not the way you should be left after watching a movie. (5/10)