The Mystery Of The Wax Museum

They Mystery Of The Wax Museum, released in 1933, is the film that the classic film House Of Wax was based upon. The Film starred film icon Lionel Atwill, and Fay Wray (who is best known for her role as Anne in King Kong). The Mystery Of The Wax Museum is also noted as being the last movie filmed in 2-colour Technicolor. Due to Technicolor destroying most of their original prints, this film as thought for many years as a lost film, but the original print resurfaced. The film also never had its own home release, and but is available on the DVD and Bluray copies of House Of Wax, which I was fortunate enough to find at a thrift store. The film tells the story of a brilliant wax sculpture artist by the name of Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill), whose business partner burns down his wax museum in London, with him in it. Years later Igor moves to New York City and starts a new Wax Museum, though his sculptures are a little too life-like. After a famous woman who commits suicide disappears from the morgue, spunky reporter Florence Dempsy (Glenda Farrell) discovers while accompanying her roommate/friend Charlotte Duncan (Fay Wray) to the wax museum where she is meeting her boyfriend for lunch. Igor meets Charlotte and sees in her the spit and image of his original sculpture of Marie Antoinette. Florence continues to dig deeper into the wax museum leading to the thrilling climax. One of the major critiques of the film is that its conclusion is very sudden, with no scene to explain everything. Other critics sited that the film is too shocking and one critic even stated that it is "too ghastly for comfort". I quite enjoyed this film, and though at the time many audiences were losing interest in the novelty of 2-colour technicolor, as new techniques have at this point been created. I kind of like the look of the 2-colour technicolor, it has this certain quality to it that I find beautiful. The film is fairly well written, with a decent script, and cast. The story is enough of a mystery to keep the viewer interesting, though maybe because of the fact that we are so familiar with the remake House of Wax, the mystery was no longer really mysterious, as I knew the truth all alone, but that didn't spoil it for me at all. I have seen this film a couple of times, and still enjoy it every time I re-watch it. This is honestly a quite decent classic horror movie, and one that I am quite fond of. Would I recommend this film? Yes, maybe it isn't for everyone as I get that some people don't appreciate classic horror, but this film is definitely worth viewing if you can track down a copy. This is definitely a film i will revisit from time to time in the years to come. This is another classic film from my favourite era of horror films.