I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Classy And Classic Hollywood

The Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933)

That's right my readers - this movie was made in 1933, a couple of generations before you even came to exist. A couple of interesting facts about this movie (other than the movie itself is great) is that it was made the same year as the classy and classic original King Kong and, like that movie, costars Fay Wray. How's that for a slice of fried gold? The movie is quasi-color - see instead of filming it in black and white they tried the two-strip color technique made of red and green. The colors 'blurred' so much that it didn't really become popular - until a couple of years later when they made the three-strip color technique and boom - you had technicolor movies. It and a movie made just the year before (with a lot of the same cast) named Doctor X were the last two movies to use this two-color process. They remade this film in 1953 which starred, of course, Vincent Price. That's still before I was born by the way - but it is the first version I watched.

This movie is great on so many levels. You get the jargon of the 30's (girls that are trouble are called 'twists'), dated but still funny humor, a great story and enough suspense to keep you going to the end which is, I admit, very puzzling. But then I'm no expert on the 30's era. And so here we go:

In 1921 London a man named Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill, terrific in so many ways) operates a wax museum whose figures are so beautiful but go largely unnoticed since people want to see the gory type of figures - murderers, monsters and the like. The place is losing money. His business partner, a man named Worth, tells him that they have a 10,000 pound insurance policy (I tried to find out how much that's worth today but got a bunch of stupid investment ads instead) and so he wants to torch the place. Ivan refuses but Worth overpowers him and sets the place on fire anyway, knocking Ivan out.

Skip ahead to 1933 New York on New Years Eve. Ivan, who survived but is in a wheelchair, is opening a wax museum since he has 'trained' his sculptors to duplicate his figures - except for Marie Antoinette, who he hasn't found the perfect 'model' for. Enter a 'twist' of a reporter, Florence who's going to get fired from her job unless she comes up with something interesting. She says, "I've got to get a story if I have to bite a dog." Whatever that means... oh well. Her roommate Charlotte (Fay Wray) thinks she needs to settle down like she's going to with her fiance Ralph, who works at the was museum. She scoffs at this, she's a modern woman who doesn't need a man to have a life - pretty forward thinking for the 30's. Maybe that's why she's a 'twist'. I like that term better than some of the others of that era - babe, dame, broad, doll, kitten, frail or muffin. It's also hilarious to listen to her talk to her editor Jim - it's like they're talking in fast forward, and they sound like they're fighting when they're really just exchanging information.

Anyway, Florence is sent out to investigate the supposed suicide of a beautiful model named Joan Gale - problem is her body has disappeared from the morgue. NOW she's got a story. They've arrested a rich guy named George Winton but he's quickly cleared and released and since he's got the time and a car, she enlists him to help her find out what's going on because while snooping around the museum she notices that the Joan of Arc character looks a whole lot like the missing dead model. Now either these are really good actors or it's real wax, I didn't notice even a single twitch. Oh and when George hesitates at helping her at first she tells him to 'go to a nice warm place and I don't mean California.' What a 'twist'.

Ivan employs several shady characters: Prof. Darcy, a drug addict (they don't say which drug), and Hugo, a deaf-mute. Darcy, at the same time, is working for Worth, who by coincidence is in the US now working as a bootlegger in the city, among whose customers is none other than Winton (he admits it freely to the police who don't seem to care when they find the house and stash). Darcy is seen running from the house and is caught by the police. When brought to the station, he breaks down and admits that Ivan is in fact the killer and that he has been murdering people, stealing their bodies, and dipping them in wax to create lifelike statues.

Charlotte, going to visit Ralph at the museum, is trapped by Ivan. When Charlotte tries to get away, she pounds away at his face, breaking a wax mask that he has made of himself, and reveals that he had been horribly disfigured by the fire. He also shows her the dead body of Worth, on whom he's finally got his revenge. When she faints, he ties her up and sets her on a table, preparing her to become his lost Marie Antoinette when she is doused with wax (wouldn't that mess up her hair and... oh sorry, even classics don't necessarily have to follow logic). Florence leads the police to the museum just in time: Charlotte is saved, and Ivan is shot and falls into a boiling vat of wax.

Now George Winton had told Florence he's in love with her and wants to marry her. However when she turns in her story, in their fast-speak her editor Jim also proposes and she accepts - and they shake hands on it (?!?) and kiss. Why? Maybe George just couldn't talk fast enough.

Regardless, this is a true classic that I've enjoyed several times - if it pops up on your schedule or you find it online, I highly recommend it.