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70 reviews in total

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29 out of 33 people found the following review useful:
Poor Glenda Farrell, 22 April 2001
Author: (mlhouk9@cs.com) from Springfield, Missouri

She has been so sorely maligned. Despite what has been claimed by others here, Glenda Farrell was not a bad actress. A little broad sometimes perhaps, but not bad. She is a dynamo of live energy, which the film badly needs, for the only other energetic character in the film is Atwill, and only Farrell has the force to bring him down(that the script does not let her do so personally betrays the character). It is not Farrell's performance or even her character which is the problem of the film, but the script which makes that character necessary. Chock Full O' undeveloped characters (only Atwill and Farrell qualify as more than ciphers)whose paths cross coincidentally,Farrell's reporter is the one in the middle bringing the disparate elements together. A reporter or policeman had to be the central character, for only one of those two would be privy to all or even enough of the info needed to solve the puzzle, or to even recognize that the puzzle existed. And only a female reporter could be Fay Wray's roommate, as female police detectives or beat cops didn't exist(at least not in Hollywood). And only a fast-talking, wisecracking, brash and fierce female reporter able to beat the stereotypical fast-talking, wisecracking, brash 1930's male reporter at his own game could find the story AND crack the case before the police. Others have objected to the attention given the comic relief, apparently misunderstanding the term. Comic relief characters are supporting characters, and in this film, despite third billing, Glenda Farrell is the female lead. Fay Wray was a freelancer and able to negotiate better billing even though her role doesn't deserve it. Had she not had a real lead in the companion film DR.X, it's unlikely she would have been asked to take such a small part. Charlotte is needed in the story only for a face, and her face and scream are all Wray is allowed to bring to the role. As outstanding as those two attributes are, they don't add up to a real character. And while Farrell cracks wise, she is doing serious work central to the tale. A role with comedic content is not automatically a comic relief part. The script is a mess, letting down the great concept. HOUSE OF WAX is a much tighter script, more linear, combining ingenue and snoop into one role, and beefing up the part of the disfigured sculptor. It drops the very extraneous playboy character and the loose ends which trail in his wake. But most agree that HOUSE is boring compared to MYSTERY, and in addition to the direction and editing, much of MYSTERY's drive comes from the girl reporter and the crack actress who played her. Even if you do find her grating, Glenda Farrell is never boring.

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32 out of 39 people found the following review useful:
Remember this forgotten masterpiece, 10 June 1999
Author: Stephen Butler from London, England

A genuinely frightening film from Michael Curtiz, jack of no trades and master of all. Many of the tricks of classic 1930's horror are here, including the opening scene set in a dark, rainy London street, the long shadows on the wall, lengthy periods of silence, and all timed to perfection. Only the faster-than-the-speed-of-sound dialogue of Glenda Farrell truly lets the film down. But other than that it is a gothic masterpiece, an underrated movie probably due to the fact that it lay undiscovered, thought lost, for over half a century. Far more inventive and imaginative than the majority of horror films made today.

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24 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
Thirties Art Deco Masterpiece!, 16 February 2001

Author: (csdietrich@hotmail.com) from West Hollywood, CA USA

The beauty of two-strip Technicolor rendering sensual pastel tones and settings in London (1921) and New York (1933), art direction by legendary Anton Grot, Orry-Kelly gowns, Lionel Atwill at his maddest and Fay Wray in all her splendor, make this one of the finest horror films of not only the 30s but of all time. The pace of this film is fast, the comedy relief enjoyable but not detracting from its story. Atwill imbues his character of Ivan Igor with all the menace and evil he could muster (and that was calibrated in tons!) So far superior to its remake (HOUSE OF WAX with Vincent Price) that it leaves its competitor in the dust. Easily my favorite film to look at after New Year's Eve parties. Fantastic fun and candy for the eyes with all that streamlined Art Deco grandeur!

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26 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
A Minor Classic, But Fun, 27 May 2005
Author: Doghouse-6 from Glendale, CA

This film, which was remade as "House Of Wax" 20 years later (as if you didn't know), might not enjoy quite the reputation it does today had it not been the basis for the better-known later film and, more importantly, believed lost for over 30 years, which made it something of a legend for many people who'd never even seen it. Legendary status can be rather difficult to live up to, and unless a viewer is approaching it with no advance knowledge of its history, MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM may not be quite what one expects.

It is, nevertheless, an energetic and entertaining amalgam of genres: horror film meets newspaper crime drama. Dropping a rather Gothic tale of body-snatching, a mad sculptor and a museum of wax-covered corpses into the streamline-moderne milieu of fast-talking, wise-cracking reporters on the trail of a hot story makes for interesting contrasts.

Lionel Atwill, as Ivan Igor, the artist driven to insanity and murder by the destruction of his wax "children" in an arson fire, was an immensely enjoyable performer whose best work came a bit later (see "Son Of Frankenstein" for his portrayal of the one-armed Insp. Krogh). His natural screen presence carries him through, though he never quite generates either the pathos or the smooth menace that Vincent Price displayed in the remake. But from the moment of her entrance, it's Glenda Farrell as Florence Dempsey, the reporter out to save her job by bringing in a scoop - barreling onto the screen with a full head of steam - who propels the story all the way to its finish.

There's an awful lot going on here beyond the basic premise; bootlegging, a "dope fiend," a suicide and a falsely implicated millionaire playboy are thrown into the mix, packing quite a lot into the 77 minute running time (the remake improved the story by eliminating extraneous characters and subplots). A pre-"King Kong" Fay Wray (in her naturally red hair sans the "Kong" blond wig) is the damsel in actual distress, but despite her billing, she's basically a supporting player and has little to do - beyond enduring roommate Florence's snide comments about her penniless boyfriend - until the climactic confrontation between all the bad guys and good guys (and girls).

MYSTERY is well-served by the direction of Michael Curtiz ("Adventures Of Robin Hood," "Casablanca"), who was something of a jack-of-all-genres, and there's plenty of snappy dialogue, some of which (Florence asking a cop, "How's your sex life?") wouldn't have made it to the screen a year later under the newly re-written Production Code. Depending on one's point of view, it could be said that the very effective production design either benefits, or suffers, from the pale pastels of the two-strip Technicolor photography. For my part, I'm guessing that the subdued tones we see today result from the lack of first-rate film elements available. Having seen far superior two-strip from years earlier, I'll wager that the original prints were much more vivid.

If you're any kind of a fan of the remake, you do owe it to yourself to see this one, if only once. There are many things to enjoy in MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, not the least of which are the fabulous ensembles worn by Farrell. Just how does a newspaper reporter one step away from the breadline afford a wardrobe like that?

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14 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Colorful Horror Film, 23 January 2000

Author: Ron Oliver (revilorest@juno.com) from Forest Ranch, CA

London after dark. A gallery of life-like wax figures. An argument, a fight & a fire. A man left to die in the flames. And as they melt, the figures seem to weep at their own destruction.

So starts MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, credited as the first horror film with a modern urban setting - New York City. Glenda Farrell is the brash, blonde reporter trying to help her pal Fay Wray discover the secrets of a new wax museum just about to open, and those of its director Lionel Atwill, who is confined to a wheelchair due to a past accident. Murder & mayhem & wax-covered flesh will all figure into the plot before the mystery is solved.

This was one of Atwill's best roles, playing an artist driven to dementia by the destruction of the only things he ever really loved. His is a very special, nuanced performance.

Like DOCTOR X the year before, MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM benefits from wonderful Anton Grot sets (especially the wax bath) and from having been filmed in early two-strip Technicolor, which makes all the ghastly figures seem to come alive...

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14 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Landmark horror film that should not be missed, 9 February 2004
Author: Glenn Andreiev (gandreiev@aol.com) from Huntington, NY

In the early 1930's Jack Warner was under contract to use the Two-strip technicolor process on a Warner Brothers film. Unfortunately, this primitive form of color cinematography had a limited pallet of colors. Everything had an unnatural pastel look. Warner wisely choose a genre not dependent on reality- the horror film. Their first color horror film was DOCTOR X, a wild and macabre who-dunnit complete with scary murders, truly mad doctors and a cannibal. DOCTOR X, released in 1932, was enough of a success, that Warner Brothers reunited it's director, Michael Curtiz, the two leads, Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, and the two strip Technicolor process for yet another horror film. The new film, simply titled WAX MUSEUM during production was a fast moving creepy chiller that mixed the gloom of Depression era New York with the creepy going-ons of a wax museum. The film begins in 1921. Sculptor Ivan Igor (a bohemian looking Lionel Atwill), so obsessed creating his wax museum, that he ignores that he and his partner, Worth (Edwin Maxwell) are in deep financial trouble. Worth sets fire to the museum to collect on a fire insurance policy. The museum is destroyed, and Igor is left a cripple with useless hands.

Twelve years later, in Manhattan, Igor opens a new wax museum. At the same time, a wisecracking reporter, Florence (Glenda Farrell) tracks a hot case of the corpse of a recently murdered socialite stolen from the morgue. She begins to suspect that creepy wax museum downtown of stealing bodies and posing them as wax statues. What makes things worse, is that her best friend, Ruth (Fay Wray) is dating the most innocent of the questionable wax-workers. THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM is a DVD shelf must-have.

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15 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
A Thirties Movies Made for the 30s., 14 September 2003
Author: pfeinman from Indianapolis, Indiana

Considering the fact that this 1933 movie was produced during the depression, when moviegoers expected pure entertainment, the results were exactly what they wanted. Glenda Farrell's hard-boiled Florence Dempsey was what filmgoers were looking for. Please note that many of the movies of the period had male and female stars who were fast talkers and wise-crackers. Such stars as Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, Rosalind Russell, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Mae West, W. C. Fields, William Powell, Myrna Loy, etc. were the norm and not the exception.

This wonderful movie was way ahead of its time. It's two-color look was also something very different for the 1930s and its washed-out looked helped give it a more sinister appearance. The later "House of Wax" used 3-D and having seen it in the movies I can tell you it was probably the best of the 3-D movies. Even better than "The Creature from the Black Lagoon".

Fay Wray was pure candy and she practiced her scream well for the upcoming "King Kong". I have seen most of Lionel Atwill's work and I believe the underplaying of Ivan Igor helped make him a more credible monster. The movie was well cast and one can not help but notice the uncanny fact that most of the actors in "The House of Wax" were chosen because they looked like the earlier actors except for the difference between Charles Buchinsky (Bronson) and Matthew Betz as the loyal mute assistant.

Although enjoyable, "The House of Wax" was no match for the earlier edition. It's understandable that "The House of Wax" did not use the characters of Florence Dempsey and Gavin Gordon. Sidekicks didn't work as well as in the 50s.

I wonder what the movie critics of the 30s thought of the "Mystery of the Wax Museum?"

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8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Enjoyable Horror Mystery, 7 November 2002

Author: Space_Mafune from Newfoundland, Canada

This film is full of unexpected twists and turns as should be any good mystery. When bodies begin disappearing, a desperate reporter finally hopes to get the break she needs to keep her job by attempting to unravel the mystery. She soon finds herself investigating a new wax museum which just happens to have a woman figurine of Joan of Arc which greatly resembles one of the missing bodies named Joan Gale. From there things continue to unravel and conclude in surprisingly horrific fashion for the time and era.

The Horror is there in terms of the mysterious burnt figure we see snatching the bodies as well as many other strange figures often seen only in menacing shadow.

The acting is superb. Lionel Atwill is outstanding in the role of Ivan Igor-the owner of the new wax museum who is trying to recapture his past loss. Fay Wray is stunningly beautiful in her short role as Charlotte who finds herself in a whole lot of unexpected trouble. Glenda Farrell also adds considerable energy as the female reporter--a character which unfortunately became much too common and stereotypical in this period of film. Nonetheless Farrell is quite competent in the role and definitely adds her own stamp to it.

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9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Blood, Wax and Insanity, 6 January 2008

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In 1921, in London, Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) is an artist, sculpting masterpieces in wax and exposing them in a small and non-profitable museum. When his partner proposes a criminal fire to receive the insurance, Ivan does not accept and fights with him, but he is knocked out and left in the burning place. In 1933, in New York, the crippled Ivan Igor reappears in a wheelchair and with hands destroyed by fire, preparing the grand-opening of his London Wax Museum. Meanwhile, the snoopy reporter of the New York Express Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) is investigating the death of a woman, and finds that many corpses had vanished from the city morgue. She suspects that Ivan is stealing the bodies and covering them with wax for the museum.

"The Mystery of the Wax Museum" is a creepy and funny classic horror movie, with a great story of insanity of a passionate artist that loses his ability to sculpt statues of wax, and decides to cover corpses with wax to expose in his museum. The creepy make-up of Lionel Arwill is very impressive and the art direction is awesome. This practically unknown film is better and better than the 1953 remake with Vincent Price. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Os Crimes do Museu" ("The Crimes of the Museum")

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8 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
A horror and color masterpiece. . ., 7 August 2003
Author: bekayess from Orlando, FL

But one must consider its time period. 1933. Not a really sophisticated period in our history, nor particularly graphic. But the cast does a wonderful job, and the script is good--again, considering the year it was made. One cannot compare this movie to anything made even at the end of the 30s (SON OF FRANKENTSTEIN, for example.) It's a product of its time, and it succeeds as such. For my taste, it is far superior to any number of the no-plot slasher pics made in the past 25 years, the original HALLOWEEN being the exception. MYSTERY is not for everyone--but for fans of genre films of years past, this one ranks right up there with FRANKENSTEIN, KING KONG, and DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE--all of the same era.

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