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.
© James Travers 2010
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Next Michael Curtiz film:
Captain Blood (1935)
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...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.