Waxworks (1924)
Directed by Paul Leni, Leo Birinsky

Film Review

By the time he came to direct Waxworks in 1924 Paul Leni was highly regarded in the German film industry as both a filmmaker and art director, and in each capacity he was a fervent exponent of expressionism.  It is a testament to Leni's reputation that for the last film he made in Germany he was able to attract a cast of jaw-dropping proportions, including no fewer than four of the country's most distinguished actors: Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss and Wilhelm Dieterle.  Waxworks (originally released as Das Wachsfigurenkabinett) was to be a pivotal film for Leni.   Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures, was so impressed by the design of this film that he invited Leni to direct his production of The Cat and the Canary (1927), one of the most influential of all horror films.  After this auspicious Hollywood debut, Leni went on to direct another horror classic, The Man Who Laughs (1928), although his career was cut short when he died from blood poisoning the following year.  Leo Birinsky, who assisted Leni on directing Waxworks, would also have an impact in Hollywood as a screenwriter, his work including the Greta Garbo vehicle Mata Hari (1931).

Although the films Paul Leni made in Germany are overshadowed by his subsequent work in Hollywood, where bigger budgets allowed his creativity to flourish, they are worth rediscovering as they provide insights into not only this talented artist but also the tortured German psyche of the 1920s.  Waxworks is a prime example of German expressionism at its most vivid, comprising fantastic stories set in crazily distorted representations of familiar settings - and it is no accident that each revolves around a murderous tyrant.  Influenced by Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (192) and F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), Leni carves an unsettling dreamscape that is both freakishly absurd and subtly disturbing, the oddly proportioned sets lending a fearful manic potency to each of the villainous protagonists.  The stories contained within this prototypical portmanteau film are far less interesting than Leni's warped visualisation of them.  In common with much German expressionistic cinema, Waxworks expresses a deep-seated neurosis for authority and feels chillingly prescient.  In Conrad Veidt's portrayal of Ivan the Terrible we catch more than a glimpse of the inhuman tyrants that would disfigure the 20th century and dish out death on an industrial scale - Hitler and Stalin.

Waxworks is often classified as a horror film although its horror content is minimal and it actually embraces a wide range of genres, including Arabian Nights style fantasy and sombre historical drama.  The stories that make up the anthology differ not only in length but also in tone, and so the film feels uncomfortably uneven and a tad unfinished.  Part of the reason for this is that Leni was unable to secure enough funding to complete the film and ended up jettisoning a fourth story about the fictional Italian robber captain Rinaldo Rinaldini.  About half of the film is taken up by the first (and least interesting) story in which Emil Jannings gets to ham things up in an uncharacteristically comical role, his Caliph of Baghdad looking suspiciously like a refugee from a Carry On film.  The second, most effectively realised story takes up most of the remaining runtime, with Conrad Veidt at his villainous best as a truly terrifying, and truly demented Ivan the Terrible, his eyes glinting with a manic intensity in every scene.  Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein was supposedly influenced by Veidt's characterisation of the monstrous tsar for his subsequent cinematic epic Ivan the Terrible (1943).

The film ends on a creative high with its all-to-brief coda, a brilliantly realised dream sequence in which Werner Krauss is metamorphosed into the most terrifying ghoul of the imagination, Spring-Heeled Jack (a bogeyman of Victorian folklore).  Linking these three ill-fitting segments is a pretty limp framing story involving a young poet played by Wilhelm Dieterle, who would later forge a successful career in Hollywood (under the name William Dieterle) as a director of such films as The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935), The Life of Emile Zola (1937) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).  It is worth mentioning, en passant, that the owner of the waxworks museum is played by John Gottowt, the original 'van Helsing' in Murnau's Nosferatu.

Despite its narrative and structural imperfections, Waxworks is a fascinating example of German expressionistic cinema.  The design work is of a higher order than that found on the far better known Caligari and Nosferatu, more subtly evocative of the fears that impregnate and shape the subconscious mind.   Ultimately, what sells the film most are its full-bloodied, totally unhinged performances from Germany's greatest actors.  It is hard to know which provides more entertainment value - Emil Janning's salivating fat lecher ("I don't mind that you don't have any clothes on") or Conrad Veidt's bloodcurdling psychopath ("The Tsar is mightier than death!").  One will make you laugh, the other can hardly fail to pep up your nightmares.  Farce and terror - the two faces of fanatical despotism that have 'Nazi Germany' written all over them.

Film Synopsis

A young writer is hired by the owner of a waxworks museum to write a short story for each of the exhibits in his collection.  These include the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, Tsar Ivan the Terrible and London serial killer Jack the Ripper.  The writer's imagination first takes him to 8th century Baghdad, where the Caliph orders his Vizier to execute a baker for putting him off his game of chess.  The Vizier is distracted from his duty by the baker's beautiful wife and persuades the Caliph that she will make an attractive addition to his harem.  Whilst the Caliph is busy seducing the baker's wife the baker is on his way to his palace, to steal a fabulous ring that can grant wishes to its wearer...