Rent The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)

Hot Wax, Cold Shivers - The Mystery of the Wax Museum review by griggs

I watched House of Wax a little while ago and finally caught up with Mystery of the Wax Museum today, and they’ve ended up in the same spot for me. The twist is that this scruffy 1933 original still feels more alive than its glossier descendant.

Michael Curtiz keeps the film moving with a kind of organised chaos: half horror show, half newsroom caper. The pre-Code freedom gives everything a looser, naughtier edge. People drink too much, crack morbid jokes and toss out lines the censors would later suffocate. Glenda Farrell isn’t just comic relief; she’s effectively the lead — a fast-talking reporter who yanks the whole story forward through sheer nosiness. Lionel Atwill lurks in the shadows, but the film belongs to her.

The two-strip Technicolor is still a marvel. It renders skin in that uncanny pink-green palette that looks both vivid and faintly decayed. When the story finally reaches the wax gallery and its fiery climax, with faces softening and wax slumping like candle fat, it’s clear why the film has a cult afterlife.

Technicolor Horror. - The Mystery of the Wax Museum review by Steve

With Dr. X (1932), one of a pair of horror films made by Warner Brothers in the early '30s, shot with mostly the same cast and crew and both in 2-strip technicolor. The greens and browns of this process give The Mystery of the Wax Museum an unusual and exotic look, allied to the striking deco sets (even in the morgue!). Fay Wray gets top billing, but is in a supporting role.

The film is carried by Glenda Farrell as the sort of fast talking girl reporter that got her typecast.  Lionel Atwill plays a waxwork sculptor in London whose creations are destroyed when his partner burns down the gallery in an insurance scam. These statues were the artist's closest confidents, and his face and hands are scorched in the blaze.

He reopens in New York years later and overcomes his disability by ordering corpses that look like his lost works and coating them in wax. Fay Wray looks the image of his long ago favourite, Marie Antoinette. The horror is mostly confined to the last ten minutes, particularly when Wray pulls off the maniac's wax mask to reveal the hideous distorted face beneath.

This is a wonderfully entertaining film. While we're waiting for the exotic horror of the climax, the tough, fast talking dialogue is a delight. Farrell is a blast and establishes a rapport with everyone she shares the screen with. The wax museum premise became a horror staple, but this is the best version and a marvellous swan song for the 2-strip colour process.