Mystery of the Wax Museum
by Michael Curtiz
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Product details
Actor: Allen Vincent, Fay Wray, Frank McHugh, Glenda Farrell, Lionel AtwillDirector: Michael Curtiz
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: PAL
Audience Rating: Unrated
VHS Movie Reviews of Mystery of the Wax Museum
Movie Review: A Gem of 30s Film
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Movie Review: "You can go to some nice warm place and I don't mean California!"
Summary: 4 Stars
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 risqu? 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.
Movie Review: Interesting!
Summary: 3 Stars
House of Wax (1933) is an interesting pre-code movie and one of the earliest color movies! It's not the best movie ever made and is definitely a B movie but it's interesting and entertaining.Movie Review: The original house of wax with Fay Wray and Glenda Farrell
Summary: 4 Stars
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 Andr? 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 fianc? 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.
Movie Review: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (original 1933)
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Summary of Mystery of the Wax Museum
Not at all a musty relic of the early-sound era, this lively thriller (shot in a soft, trial version of Technicolor) is saucy, pre-Code fun. As corpses disappear from the morgue, Lionel Atwill's wax museum adds to its displays. Coincidence, or the work of the hideously deformed fiend stalking the Manhattan night? Most of the snappy dialogue comes courtesy of reporter Glenda Farrell, a vintage wisecracking dame. It was remade in 1953 as House of Wax. --Robert HortonThrillers Video
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