The Mystery of the Wax Museum

Director: Michael Curtiz Michael Curtiz

Overview

In this film, New York City is plagued by several disappearances -- not only of live people, but of recently-deceased corpses from the morgue. Hard-boiled girl reporter Glenda Farrell browbeats her long-suffering editor Frank McHugh into investigating these disappearances.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/12/2020
UPC:	0883929715503
Original Release:	1933
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:18:00
Sales rank:	27,894

Special Features

Documentary Remembering Fay Wray ; Audio Commentary by author/film historian Alan K. Rode; Audio Commentary by Scott MacQueen , head of preservation, UCLA Film & Television Archive; Restoration featurette

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Lionel Atwill	Ivan Igor
Fay Wray	Charlotte Duncan
Glenda Farrell	Florence Dempsey
Frank McHugh	Jim
Gavin Gordon	Harold Winton
Edwin Maxwell	Joe Worth
Holmes Herbert	Dr. Rasmussen
Arthur Edmund Carewe	Sparrow
Allen Vincent	Ralph Burton
Monica Bannister	Joan Gale
Matthew Betz	Hugo
DeWitt Jennings	Captain of Police
Thomas Jackson	Detective,Detective
Bull Anderson	the Janitor
Pat O'Malley	Plainclothesman
Claude King	Mr. Galatalin
Frank Darien	Autopsy Surgeon (uncredited)
William Davidson	Detective (uncredited)
James Donlan	Morgue Attendant (uncredited)
Perry Ivins	Copy Editor (uncredited)
Edward Keane	Doctor (uncredited)
Robert O'Connor	Joe the Cop (uncredited)
Lon Poff	Thin Man (uncredited)
Guy Usher	Detective (uncredited)
Robert Homans	Desk Sergeant (uncredited)
Cliff Hess	Composer

Technical Credits

Carl Erickson

Don Mullaly

Henry Blanke	Producer
Michael Curtiz	Director
Rex Wimpy	Special Effects
Carl Erickson	Screenwriter
Don Mullaly	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

One of the talkies' early horror classics, The Mystery of the Wax Museum is a crackling good thriller that's a great deal of fun. Wax Museum has its flaws: the identity of the villain is not especially hard to figure out, and the actors employed to impersonate wax figures (because real wax would have melted under the hot lights) do tend to move, which is certainly distracting. But on the whole, Wax Museum is tremendously effective. Some object to its odd mixture of comedy and horror, but this mixture contributes greatly to the film's unique appeal; rarely in horror films of the period does one find a wise-cracking, gin-slinging girl reporter like Glenda Farrell, whose cynical, hardboiled performance is a delight. Lionel Atwill is even better in what is perhaps his finest screen performance, and there's also good work from Fay Wray and Frank McHugh. Michael Curtiz directs stylishly and atmospherically, aided greatly by the stunning, dizzyingly impressionistic sets by Anton Grot, which are an orgy of distorted angles and contorted surfaces. Throw in some surprising pre-Code frankness in the area of sex and drugs, and you've got a horror flick with a real kick.