In the early '30s, when Universal were riding high with Frankenstein and Dracula, Warners hunted round for their own horror subject, and found one in the idea of a sculptor who murders his models and embalms them in wax to achieve death-in-life. Bet you didn't know that the "original" House of Wax was a remake! Here's the real original (in fact, it was a play even before this), a 1933 film that is strikingly similar to the Vincent Price horror film, but which also borrows heavily from then-popular vampire movies. Lionel Atwill plays the Price part, but Fay Wray is more memorable as the wannabe gumshoe who's on the case of the local wax museum and why its wax figures have an uncanny resemblance to the recently dead.
It's an interesting Poe-like theme, full of bizarre implications, and has since been remade several times (once in 3-D); but this remains the classic. Filmed in one of the earliest two-tone Technicolor processes, it is beautiful to look at, full of muted green compositions and stunningly modulated color effects. Interesting, too, to note that its tough, wisecracking girl reporter (Farrell) and newspaper setting bear the unmistakable stamp of the Warner house style. There's a slightly cruel, almost fascist streak throughout, especially in the police's handling of things, and the shocks are a little sparse by present standards. But it holds up amazingly well, and its pale, shimmering images linger in the mind.
However, controversy will always continue about which movie version of Charles Belden's play is more effective, the 1933 rendering or the later 3-D version. Mystery of the Wax Museum is set at the time of its making rather than at the turn-of-the-century, taking away a little of the period mood; but it has more strikingly frightening sets, many of them, especially those of the museum's basement, displaying marked elements of German Expressionism in their design.
Both films follow the same general outline, the opening sequence in the two films being almost identical. The professor this time is named Ivan Igor and played Lionel Atwell, who played a whole string of nefarious characters in the thirties and forties. Although Atwell doesn't seem quite as sinister as Price, he's got a great speaking voice. The biggest difference between the movies is in the lead female character. Instead of the relatively helpless young lady of the later film, this older one features a breezy, fast-talking, hard-drinking newspaperwoman named Flo Dempsey, played by Glenda Farrell. In this regard, the movie's quick-paced dialogue makes it a combination The Front Page and Frankenstein, representing two genres picking up steam in the early thirties.
It's an interesting Poe-like theme, full of bizarre implications, and has since been remade several times (once in 3-D); but this remains the classic. Filmed in one of the earliest two-tone Technicolor processes, it is beautiful to look at, full of muted green compositions and stunningly modulated color effects. Interesting, too, to note that its tough, wisecracking girl reporter (Farrell) and newspaper setting bear the unmistakable stamp of the Warner house style. There's a slightly cruel, almost fascist streak throughout, especially in the police's handling of things, and the shocks are a little sparse by present standards. But it holds up amazingly well, and its pale, shimmering images linger in the mind.
However, controversy will always continue about which movie version of Charles Belden's play is more effective, the 1933 rendering or the later 3-D version. Mystery of the Wax Museum is set at the time of its making rather than at the turn-of-the-century, taking away a little of the period mood; but it has more strikingly frightening sets, many of them, especially those of the museum's basement, displaying marked elements of German Expressionism in their design.
Both films follow the same general outline, the opening sequence in the two films being almost identical. The professor this time is named Ivan Igor and played Lionel Atwell, who played a whole string of nefarious characters in the thirties and forties. Although Atwell doesn't seem quite as sinister as Price, he's got a great speaking voice. The biggest difference between the movies is in the lead female character. Instead of the relatively helpless young lady of the later film, this older one features a breezy, fast-talking, hard-drinking newspaperwoman named Flo Dempsey, played by Glenda Farrell. In this regard, the movie's quick-paced dialogue makes it a combination The Front Page and Frankenstein, representing two genres picking up steam in the early thirties.