Two Hearts in Wax Time (1935) User Reviews

Musicalette

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 19 July 2010]

I guess the only thing you can call Two Hearts In Wax Time as a genre is a Musicalette. I'm sure the paying customers of the movie-going public enjoyed it back in the day.

The film seems mainly to be a vehicle for the talents of Gus Shy who was a vaudevillian of some note and this was his next to last film appearance. Shy rivaled Ed Norton and Vince Barnett for playing inebriates on film. He's a custodian in a department store and while on a toot he sees the mannequins in the window come alive and do a few songs and dances.

Such folks as Shirley Ross, Syd Saylor, and Sam McDaniel who had some substantial film credits are in this as well. It's an easy to take musical short or Musicalette if you prefer.

Interesting display of early Technicolor for a musical comedy short...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 31 October 2010]

Although the musical interludes are on shaky ground, they're a lot better than what usually was done by the '30s Warner "Brevities" at another studio. In fact, a lot of imagination and creativity went into the making of this MGM short about an inebriated custodian of wax window models who sees them all come to life.

GUS SHY is a vaudevillian who does his drunken act well, but the accent here is on what he sees once the window displays come alive. Especially interesting are "The Greatest Villains" featuring a very striking use of the Frankenstein creature, bearing a strong resemblance to Boris Karloff in the old Universal film.

The songs are a weak lot but the imagination goes into the various antics of the live wax mannequins who go from window to window experiencing different settings and interacting with the various characters.

Summing up: Inventive use of early Technicolor makes watching it worthwhile.

At least it's not completely terrible.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 9 May 2017]

This is a short film from MGM that is in very vivid Three-Color Technicolor--the first truly full color film used in movies beginning about 1934. Up until then, color films were two-color varieties-- such as Two-Color Technicolor and Cinecolor...and the pictures looked rather orangey green. So, it's obvious when you watch the film that it is very pretty.

Joe (Gus Shy) works at a department store and apparently spends all his time getting drunk. After getting amazingly drunk, he begins hallucinating...seeing the mannequins all coming to life and then singing and dancing. These are mostly very dull numbers--even the really odd one with evil villains through history (and fiction) coming to life. It's supposed to be funny...but they thought wrong...and it's only passable entertainment.

MGM Production But a Universal Mystery

[Michael_Elliott · 21 July 2010]

Two Hearts in Wax Time (1935)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Technicolor short from MGM is a rather interesting viewing experience but for reasons you might not think of. The story centers around a drunk department store worker (Gus Shy) who has one too many and begins to think that the mannequin's are coming to life and doing music numbers. There are a few pluses here including the interesting set design and of course the beautiful color. The color really jumps off the screen and like many of these early Technicolor shorts you can tell someone went to great trouble to make sure the film was as colorful as possible. The music numbers are decent at best and to be honest I thought the best song as the drunken Shy doing "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows." Now, what makes this short so interesting is a brief appearance of Frankenstein's monster. Why is that interesting? Well, this short was apparently released before BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN yet the monster here is clearly "trying" to look like Karloff did in that film. However, there's actually a lot more because the monster is talking here and even samples some dialogue that would appear in the James Whale film. So, if the release date of this coming out first is true, then this here is the first film to feature the monster not only talking but also in color. It really makes you wonder if someone saw an early preview of the Whale film, if this was just luck or perhaps something else was going on.

Overdone

[boblipton · 6/10 · 2 December 2023]

A man who carries the mannequins around for the window dressers at a department store gets drunk and imagines the dummies come to life.

It's a typically bizarre MGM Technicolor short from this period, starting with a title that suggests 1934's TWO HEARTS IN WALTZ TIME, and goes on to have several musical numbers in the store window. Although the minor players are named, no director was credited. Perhaps the set and costume design, selected to show off three-strip Technicolor was the reason; the copy that plays on Turner Classic movies is bright, clean, and features a lot of lavender tints.

MGM would soon realize that the shorts department was a good place to give aspiring directors a chance to show what they could do. For the moment, though, it often appeared that the stranger the choice, the more likely it was to be made at 20 minutes or less.

Highly forgettable musical

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 21 March 2019]

"Two Hearts in Wax Time" or "The Department Store" is an American live action short film from 1935, so this one is almost 85 years old, maybe more already depending on when you read this review. No director credited here and the cast includes a colorfil mix of actors that have 2 credits and others that have several hundreds. No big names though. Making fun of alcohol(ism) was pretty much a big thing that time and maybe we can learn a bit about (lack of) political correctness from those folks back then. This is a musical by the way and I generally like musicals, but this one here did not do very much for me. Not much either. The singing wasn't all bad, but the songs forgettable and not one bit catchy. The inclusions of famous Asian characters as well as Frankenstein's monster felt very much for the sake of it as a story line is virtually non-existent in this short film. What else can I add. Oh yeah, most notably this is in color, which is really not common for live action (short) films from the 1930s. Don#t think because it happened more and more in animation that it was a thing for non-animated films too now. The consequence is that looks-wise it isn't too bad honestly, could have been from the 50s or 60s too if I hadn't known the year beforehand. But I guess they thought this way they can make up and have people forget about solid omissions story- and music-wise. Not I. Watch something else instead.

Beautiful

[mrdonleone · 8/10 · 19 April 2020]

Without a directory credit, this movie still remains beautiful to see with all those cute musical moments you know and movie references. You should really see it it's beautiful.

Amusing Little Short...

[prezkot · 9 October 2004]

When a department store custodian gets drunk, the short follows a night of hallucinating that the mannequins are alive.

The musical ditty itself isn't very distinguishable from others of the era, although the "Greatest Menace Of Them All" bit is almost surreal it's content. Think of a preemptive to Herman Munster & The Penguin and you've got an idea of the 'menaces'.

At 17 minutes, it's hard to take offense to the short, even if you don't like musicals. But the bookends about the alcoholic department custodian is at least a different approach to the musical genre set-up.

6/10