This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

From my favorite movies..

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

When the attempt to discover the secret behind a wax maker's portrayals in a museum is started, the investigators find a much more macabre and sinister reason behind them all, and when it ties into a series of local disappearances the police join in the search and bring the madman to justice.While this one isn't terrible, it's still a pretty lowered film. The biggest factor for this one here is the general look of the film in that there's a rather impressive set of work done on the Wax Museums. They both look incredible, as the realistic-looking sculptures look so much more believable due to the positioning amid the dioramas positioned together. This one offers plenty to like in that regard showing a rather great look and has some fun with all the backstage antics showing how they're created and set-up around the museum that makes them all the better. The other really great feature that impresses is the large wax station at the end, which is a really beautiful set that looks really huge and impressive. Aside from the sets, the one really impressive thing about the film is it's great opening, as this one has one of the greatest, most action-packed openings around as after the rumblings of the insurance, it soon gets the idea going that something big will happen. This one delivers better than expected as there's a rather great brawl amidst a spectacular fire that is full of spectacle, which gets completely over-the-top later on when watching the wax gorily drip away in the blaze which is really fun. This scene is what really makes this movie work, and gives this a great opening that settles into a couple rather enjoyable scenes later on that show the brawling done to find out the truth that also works nicely. Alongside the fine finale in the basement which has some really enjoyable moments during the attempt to rescue the captive, there's plenty to like here that almost makes up for the film's several flaws. The most predominant one is that there's way too much time on the lame investigator angle which is done in a really annoying manner. This one decides to have her find a lead in the story and upon looking into it, they find a way to make it look bad for her, then finds another one and is allowed to pursue it. This happens repeatedly in the film and after so many times, it finally gets to the point where it's too ridiculous to be believable. The second flaw is that it squanders one of the best possible scares in the film, the destruction of the wax mask to reveal the scarred face beneath. Seeing this should've been the greatest shock in the film, since it's set-up to come as a total surprise when it occurs, though here, there are several shots of the face long before the mask breaks, and it does leave a really huge missed opportunity quite apparent. These here really ruin the film's momentum.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.

I have seen the Vincent Price remake HOUSE OF WAX several times and consider it one of my favorite classic horror movies, but I just got to see this original for the first time. I really tried, as a viewer, to be fair to this movie and review it on its' own merits as the original rather than making any comparisons to the de Toth version. However, in put into its' own context, this movie doesn't really come close to the level of the best 30s horror movies.The idea for the story itself, taken from an unpublished short story is excellent and, in the end, is what carries this movie. It seems a little cliché to a modern audience, but the idea certainly originate here. A genius sculptor is content to create works of art, rather than play up the grand guignol for the masses. This puts the museum in financial trouble and his partner's solution is to torch it for the insurance money. Having lost everything important to him, our master artist (played by Lionel Atwill), descends into lunacy and starts casting corpses in wax to rebuild his attraction. The idea of so sinister and clever and just rings of the sort of story popular in the horror pulps of the time.Lionel Atwill is very good as the deranged artist. He's been a role player in probably a dozen period horror movies that I've seen, but tends to play the scientist or police inspector. It's nice getting to see him play the villain here and shows me he should have been given that opportunity more often. His makeup is also excellent when he see his "true face". A withered, burnt up visage that mirrors the twisting of his soul, its' one of the better makeups I've seen in old horror, outside the legendary Jack Pierce's work.The problems with the movie start with the bad script. Like the title implies, this plays much more as a detective mystery than straight horror. The fright scenes are few and far between, spending more time focusing on the whodunit aspect led by a news reporter. This may have been able to work had the plot not meandered all over the place, bringing in unnecessary characters and plot points that only bog things down and slow the pace. The worst aspect of this is our main character, a newspaper gal played by Glenda Farrell. She eats up far too much of the run time playing an annoying character who talks to fast and makes witty quips with her editor that may have been funny at the time, but are not now. Had the writers chosen to spend more time with Atwill and less on our heroine, things might have turned out much differently.The other thing worth mentioning is the two-color technicolor. I have read a bit about this coloring in this movie and it would seem that the version you watch makes a huge difference. Apparently, the stream I saw was from the DVD release, which is not very true to the original coloring and looks very bland and washed out. I'm not, personally, sure where to see the more pastel technicolor that it's supposed to be seen in.Too many times I found myself struggling to keep my attention going, mostly when our intrepid reporter is eating up scene time. The beginning and ending are quite worthwhile, but this is not quite at the level of Universal's work in the same time period.

Opening titles and background look like German Expressionism, as do its frequent use of shadows; film then switches to men in trenchcoats in rain-soaked London streets, giving the film almost a feeling of early film noir.Beautiful Gothic/ art deco sets give the film a wonderful atmosphere. The two-strip Technicolour filming process is very interesting, it gives the film a quiet, subdued feeling. If the colours had been more dramatic, they would have been overpowering and distracting, and the entire affair would have come off as being somewhat comical.I love the tracking shot just before the 12-minute mark, dropping the viewer into the then-present day setting of New Year's Eve, 1933, in snow-covered New York. A simple, basic technique, but it works wonderfully here. Vintage 1930s holiday setting is clever and unusual; had a horror ever been set at the holidays before? The first (or at least, one of the first) horrors to be set in the present day, which was an interesting aspect of it as well- but it also makes it seem quite dated by today's standards.Good enough acting, but nothing too spectacular - truthfully, I think the acting is the only weak link present.

One of the early two strip color features was this horror classic Mystery Of The Wax Museum. This film starts with a prologue where Lionel Atwill gets into a fight with his partner in Paris and the Wax Museum they own there burns down with both sustaining injuries. Like the Phantom Of The Opera Atwill like Lon Chaney and later Claude Rains and Herbert Lom regards his wax statues as a father does a child.Fast forward to twelve years later where after instructing people to work as he did, he's ready to open shop again in New York. But something about Atwill's operation attracts reporter Glenda Farrell who apparently was doing a dress rehearsal for her later Torchy Blane series. Let's say his figures are way too realistic.Fay Wray who is Farrell's friend is put in as much in harm's way as she was with that giant ape on top of the Empire State Building that same year. And speaking of the Phantom Of The Opera the ending of this film was taken right from said source.Atwill like Claude Rains gives a marvelous performance of a man demented by tragedy. He really dominates the scenes he's in. Farrell and Joan Blondell in their time at Warner Brothers played a lot of the same roles. You could have cast Blondell here and it wouldn't be noticed. Fay Wray did well by her part.But despite all in watching Mystery Of The Wax Museum I saw something I never thought I would see in a film. Frank McHugh who plays Farrell's editor actually gets the girl in a film. Now that alone is worth seeing Mystery Of The Wax Museum.