Filmmaker Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood,
Angels with Dirty Faces, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca,
Mildred Pierce, King Creole) only directed a handful of horror
films in an enormous body of work, but two of those horror films (Doctor X, already reviewed on this site, and Mystery of the Wax Museum) were
the last two films made with the two-color Technicolor process, which mixed
red and green dyes to make a reduced-spectrum color image. The heightened,
artificial look of the two-color process fell out of favor with audiences, but
it works well in the context of an expressive horror movie.
Mystery of the Wax Museum begins with an eccentric wax sculptor from
"the old country," Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill, great as the villains in
Doctor X and Murders in the Zoo), working in his London wax
museum/studio late at night. He talks to his sculptures and is a little too
intense, but he seems like an otherwise harmless fella. He's visited by an old
friend who has brought an art dealer with him. The dealer is impressed and
says when he returns from a voyage, he'll recommend Igor's work to the
National Museum. Igor is pleased, but his mood quickly turns sour when his
landlord Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell) turns up and demands the rent. Worth is
pissed because the museum barely makes any money, and Igor is months behind on
the rent. Worth suggests torching the place and splitting the insurance money,
but Igor balks at the idea. Worth sets the place on fire anyway (lots of cool
images of melting wax figures), and Igor and Worth get into a massive
fistfight amidst the burning wreckage of the museum. After Worth knocks Igor
out, he splits and leaves his tenant to die.
Thirteen years later, both men are living in New York City. Worth is now a
whiskey bootlegger, and Igor, who survived the fire with massive burns on his
arms and legs, is about to open a recreation of his London wax museum in the
Big Apple. Unfortunately, he's now insane. Igor, whose burned hands no longer
allow him to sculpt, has a criminal crew kidnap bodies from the morgue and
sometimes even murder people who resemble his former sculptures. He then
preserves the bodies in wax and displays them in his museum.
To present a respectable front, Igor hires an aspiring sculptor who knows
nothing of his plans, the milquetoast nerd Ralph (Allen Vincent), to assist
with the non-cadaver sculptures. Ralph's girlfriend Charlotte (Fay Wray) looks
exactly like Igor's old Marie Antoinette sculpture, and when Igor gets an
eyeful of Charlotte, an evil plan is hatched. Meanwhile, Charlotte's roommate
Florence (Glenda Farrell) is a wisecracking, fast-talking newspaper reporter
whose investigation into the mysterious death of a young woman named Joan Gale
leads her to the wax museum and serious suspicions about Igor. Florence also
has lots of His Girl Friday-style lighting-quick banter with her
equally wisecracking, fast-talking editor Jim (Frank McHugh). (At one point,
she says to him, "I'm going to make you eat dirt, you soap bubble." When she
blows a raspberry at him, Jim replies, "A cow does that and gives milk
besides." Good times.)
An aside about Glenda Farrell. She also played a fast-talking reporter in the
following year's Hi, Nellie!, leading Warner Brothers to decide she
needed her own fast-talking reporter film franchise, which became the Torchy
Blane series. Warners made seven Torchy Blane movies between 1937 and 1939,
promoting Farrell as a woman who could say 400 words in 40 seconds. Damn,
Hollywood worked its talent like dogs in those days. People had enormous
filmographies.
Back to the wax. Will the lovely Charlotte get waxed on, or waxed off? Will
wealthy playboy George (Gavin Gordon) take the rap for Joan Gale's death
instead of Igor? Will Igor get his revenge on his former landlord? Will an
arrested junkie squeal on everybody? Will Florence and Jim slow their
rapid-fire witty banter enough to get the story printed? Will Igor and his
evil henchmen get their comeuppance? Will Ralph get hip to what's going down?
Curtiz, a journeyman director par excellence, gets lots of creepy, eye-popping
images and excellent performances, including two strong female characters when
the norm in genre pictures of the era (and many other eras) was to have only
one. He's good with the comedy banter, he's good with the closeups, he's good
with the fights and car chases and moments of danger, he's good with the
atmosphere building, he's good with the actors. He's good at making movies,
period. Though this film's remake, House of Wax with Vincent Price, is
more well-known, Mystery of the Wax Museum is a good and good-looking
film in its own right. Fans of '30s horror should definitely give it a whirl.
No comments:
Post a Comment