Stubs - The Mystery of the Wax Museum

The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Screenplay by Don Mullaly, Carl Erickson. Based on “The Wax Works" by Charles S. Belden. Producetarring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh. Directed by Michael Curtiz. r Uncredited. Run time: 75 minutes. Color. Pre-Code. Horror.

Capitalizing on the success of Doctor X (1932), Warner Bros. brought back the director, Michael Curtiz, as well as several of the stars from that film, Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, in another horror film, The Mystery of the Wax Museum. They also added to the cast Glenda Farrell, who was a rising star at the studio, and the reliable character actor Frank McHugh.

The Mystery of the Wax Museum was the last film to use the two-strip Technicolor process and was considered lost for a number of years. Color was still a bit of a novelty in the early 1930s and Technicolor was an expensive process. The process required extremely bright lights, resulting in hot temperatures on the set and even eye damage to many actors during that period. In The Mystery of the Wax Museum, the enormous heat generated by the lights needed for the two-color process made the wax figures melt, so in most scenes, the figures were played by actors.

The film was considered lost for a time. It was never re-released in the US after its first theatrical run. In 1936, when Technicolor put out the last call for two-strip movies, many studios junked those negatives. Warner Bros. kept their two-color cartoons but not their live-action product. By 1950, The Mystery of the Wax Museum was considered lost as there were no negatives to service.

Negatives and prints were found, including in 1970 when Jack Warner found the studio reference print in his own personal collection. Several attempts were made to make a new negative from that print, but none were successful. It wasn’t until 2019 that a successful restoration was made, marrying the Jack Warner print with a French workprint that UCLA had in its PHI collection. The Film Foundation sponsored the digital 4K restoration by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding from the George Lucas Family Foundation. Missing audio was picked up from other Warner Bros. movies, including a line of Glenda Farrell's that was pulled in from Life Begins (1932). It was this version that we recorded from TCM on October 30, 2020.

Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) shows off his favorite piece, Marie Antoinette.

The film opens in 1921 London. Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) is a former stone sculptor who has switched to wax modeling because he feels more satisfied that he can reproduce "the warmth, flesh, and blood of life far better in wax than in cold stone." He explains while giving a late-night private tour to a friend, Dr. Rasmussen (Holmes Herbert), and an investor, Mr. Galatalin (Claude King). He shows them his sculptures of Joan of Arc, Voltaire, and his favorite, Marie Antoinette. Mr. Galatalin is so impressed by his sculptures, he offers to submit Igor's work to the Royal Academy after he returns from a trip to Egypt.

Igor is left to die in the fire.

However, Igor's partner, Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell), doesn’t want to hear about the praise. Business at the museum is failing. People are attracted to the macabre, which a nearby wax museum caters to, not to Igor’s artsy and historical figures. Worth proposes they burn the museum down for the insurance money of £10,000. Igor protests and doesn’t want to go along with such a travesty, but Worth starts a fire anyway. Igor tries to stop him and the two get into a fight. As they fight, the fire melts the wax masterworks around them. Worth knocks Igor unconscious and leaves him to die in the fire.

Professor Darcy (Arthur Edmund Carewe) is one of the
assistants who makes the wax sculptures for Igor.

Twelve years later in New York City, on New Year’s Day, Igor, who survived the fire, reemerges and is opening a new wax museum. Badly crippled in the fire, his hands and legs have been deformed and Igor must now rely on assistants to create his new sculptures.

Spunky reporter Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) spars
with her impatient editor, Jim (Frank McHugh).

Meanwhile, spunky reporter Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) is on the verge of being fired. Her impatient editor, Jim (Frank McHugh), sends her out to investigate the New Year’s Day suicide of a model named Joan Gale (Monica Bannister).

When Joan Gale’s body is brought to the morgue, a hideous monster steals it, slipping it out an open window to accomplices below. Investigators are starting to doubt the suicide story and suspect George Winton (Gavin Gordon), son of a powerful industrialist and the last person known to have seen Joan Gale alive. When Winton is in jail, Florence goes to visit him and leaves convinced of his innocence, even though Jim is not so sure.

Florence's roommate is Charlotte Duncan (Fay Wray), whose fiancée Ralph Burton (Allen Vincent) works at Igor's new wax museum. While visiting the museum, Florence notices an uncanny resemblance between a wax figure of Joan of Arc and the dead model.

The wax figure of Joan of Arc resembles the dead model Joan Gale (Monica Bannister).

At the same time, Igor spots Charlotte and remarks on her resemblance to his sculpture of Marie Antoinette. Igor employs several shady characters: Professor Darcy (Arthur Edmund Carewe), a drug addict, and Hugo (Matthew Betz), a deaf-mute, who models most of his sculptures after himself. Darcy also works for Joe Worth, now a bootlegger, and one of his clients happens to be Winton.

Hugo (Matthew Betz), a deaf-mute, models most of his sculptures after himself.

While investigating an old tenement where Worth keeps his contraband, Florence discovers what she thinks is Joan Gale’s body. The police come to investigate and Darcy is seen running from the house and caught by the police. What Florence thinks might be Joan Gale turns out to be illegal liquor Worth has smuggled in.

Darcy gets arrested.

When brought to the station, Darcy eventually breaks down and admits that Igor is, in fact, the killer and that he has been murdering people (including a missing judge whose watch was found on Darcy's person), stealing their bodies, and dipping them in wax to create lifelike sculptures.

Igor reveals his plans to Charlotte (Fay Wray).

Early one morning, Charlotte goes to visit Ralph at the museum, but ends up trapped by Igor. He is anxious to make her into Marie Antoinette. She doesn’t understand at first that he plans to dip her in wax.

Charlotte breaks his wax mask to reveal Igor's disfigured face.

Igor, who has been wheelchair-bound, reveals that he can indeed still walk and that his hands aren’t as useless as he claims. When Charlotte tries to get away, she pounds away at his face, breaking a wax mask that he has made of himself to reveal that he had been horribly disfigured.

He also shows her the dead body of Joe Worth, whom Darcy had been tracking down for some time.

Charlotte is prepped to be covered in wax.

When she faints, Igor straps Charlotte onto a table, intending to douse her with molten wax and make her his lost Marie Antoinette sculpture.

Florence, who has come to the museum to do more investigations, is let in by Ralph and they hear Charlotte’s screams.

Ralph tries to save Charlotte but Igor, for a man who was supposedly crippled by a fire, moves with strength and agility, managing to knock Ralph unconscious.

When the police arrive to arrest Igor, Florence leads them to where Charlotte is being kept. Igor again successfully fights them off, but is finally gunned down by one of the officers. He falls into the giant vat of molten wax that was intended for Charlotte.

Charlotte is saved when Ralph, who regains consciousness, pushes the table to which she is strapped away just before the wax is to pour onto her.

When Florence reports her story to her editor, Jim, he proposes to her. She’s not sure what she wants to do. However, when she looks out the window and sees Winton getting out of his car in front of the building, she chooses Jim.

The ending does seem a bit forced, but what are you going to do?

Shot in the fall of 1932, the film was released on February 18, 1933. Made on a budget of $279,000, the film would make $1.1 million at the box office, garnering an $80,000 profit, according to reports.

Reviews were sort of mixed. Time magazine apparently felt it was a good mystery film, but was disappointed with the abrupt ending and lack of an explaining-it-all scene.

Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times felt it was a “Gruesome Narrative.” He wrote, “Its ghastly details accentuated by being filmed in Technicolor, there is at the Warners' Strand a new shocker bearing the title of 'The Mystery of the Wax Museum.' In it the producers appear to have sought to outdo all the horror perpetrated by those old masters—Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau and the redoubtable Dr. X—and the result is too ghastly for comfort.” He continues, “It is all very well in its way to have a mad scientist performing operations in well-told stories, but when a melodrama depends upon the glimpses of covered bodies in a morgue and the stealing of some of them by an insane modeler in wax, it is going too far.”

Some of the gruesomeness of the film has apparently faded in the nearly 90 years since it’s release. The color’s greenish overtones do make it seem unworldly but there really is no shock value left. That is not to say that the makeup isn’t done well, but it is tremendously harder to shock audiences nowadays. There is nothing in this film that rivals films like the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre if that’s your standard. But it wasn’t made to rival future films, but rather the horror films coming out of Universal, Frankenstein (1931), and Dracula (1931).

Compared to them, this is not as fun to watch. That is not to say that there is no humor in the film. That is provided by the fast-talking reporter Florence Dempsey, played by Glenda Farrell, and her likewise editor Jim, Frank McHugh. The tone of their banter seems more at home in a Screwball Comedy than a horror film. Hall seemed to find them welcomed comic relief, “As an antidote to the abhorrent scenes, there is some good comedy afforded by Glenda Farrell, as a girl reporter, and by Frank McHugh, as a newspaper editor.”

Glenda Farrell plays reporter Florence Dempsey.

Farrell is a bit of fresh air in the film. Perhaps this was a test of sorts for her most famous role as Torchy, the wise-cracking reporter in a series of films beginning with Smart Blonde (1937).

Frank McHugh seems to be a surprise bit of casting. A memorable character actor, he seems to be an odd match for Farrell and his Joe to her Florence. It’s hard not to like McHugh, but I keep thinking another actor might have played the role better.

Lionel Atwill’s Ivan Igor is downright creepy. He may start out as the misunderstood artist with a Marie Antoinette complex, but he ends up a mad man. Atwill does well in the part, managing to give any modern audience the creeps.

This film doesn’t really showcase Fay Wray as much as her billing might suggest. She may be the woman in danger, but Farrell has more screentime and is more central to moving the story forward. If Wray might have been short-changed, she would make it up in her next, and best-known film, King Kong (1933).

Michael Curtiz was a director who could pretty much direct any genre, though I’m not as fond of Dr. X or this film. He was obviously successful in making horror films that stand apart from the milder ones coming out of Universal, it’s just that they are perhaps more intense.

This is not a horror film for everyone. Despite its quick runtime, it does seem to drag in places. The ending is quite quick and you don’t need Time magazine to tell you that there is no scene that explains it all to the viewer. While I’m glad that the film was rescued from being lost forever, I don’t see myself watching it again. This one will not become a Halloween tradition in my house.