MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33) in Golden Age Horror Forum

0 Points

Forum Jump

MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)

Author	Comment
Laughing Gravy	MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	Lead	[-]
Aug 8 03 11:40 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Can you believe that Michael Curtiz's horror classic is thrown in as a freebie with the (inferior) HOUSE OF WAX on DVD? A lot of horror fans complain that too much screen time is given to Glenda Farrell's wisecracking sob sister, but I think she's a hoot 'n' a half. Atwill's post-fire makeup is scary as hell, it's got a good plot (identical to the remake), and moves briskly. The ONLY reasons this one isn't up there in the pantheon of horror greats are its one-time rarity (considered all but lost for awhile, a color print finally showed up in Jack Warner's vault) and the fact that it is in color -- scenes are garish and too well lit for a spooky horror story. But how great to have it at all. I smiled all the way through it. And man, could Fay Wray scream, or WHAT??!?
	Remove this ad
Count Gamula	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#1	[-]
Aug 8 03 1:57 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM was a bit of a dissapointment to most people when it finally turned up again after all the years it was lost. It had become almost legendary and just couldn't live up to the expectaions. It made a big impression on Forry Ackerman when he was a kid and he built it up as one of the scariest movies ever and much better than HOUSE OF WAX. After you get past the letdown of the first viewing and all the dated "snappy patter" from Glenda Farrell and Frank McHugh, etc., there's a lot there to like, including the impressive make-ups and the overall creepiness. If it had been on TV in the 50s and 60s along with all the other classic horrors it would probably hold a much warmer spot in the hearts of monster kids. Great to have it on DVD though and, yes, it is surprising that it's tossed onto the HOUSE OF WAX disc as a freebie. Count Gamula
Unregistered(d)	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#2	[-]
Aug 8 03 2:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* . . . yes, it is surprising that it's tossed onto the HOUSE OF WAX disc as a freebie. They should have had MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM and DOCTOR X on a dbl DVD! (2 color Tech., of course!)
paleoguy	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#3	[-]
Sep 1 03 10:02 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Taking nothing away from HOUSE OF WAX, which I've always loved, I have an equal affection for MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM. HOUSE had Vincent, true, but MYSTERY had Atwill (masterful, as always, and actually playing a genuine monster!) and lovely Fay Wray. What more could any monster fan want?
JimPV	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#4	[-]
Sep 1 03 3:08 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* Taking nothing away from HOUSE OF WAX, which I've always loved, I have an equal affection for MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM. HOUSE had Vincent, true, but MYSTERY had Atwill (masterful, as always, and actually playing a genuine monster!) and lovely Fay Wray. What more could any monster fan want? Yeah, House is fun, but I actually prefer Mystery by a wide margine. Price is terrific, but Atwill's final "ranting" to lovely Fay Wray really sounds as if he actually believes he's offering to her a wonderful thing--to be encased in wax forever! Plus, the bryle-creamed hero and cops in House really get on my nerves. Ditto for the women in the wax museum tour, one of whom faints at the sight of not only a scary wax tableau, but the paddle ball man as well! I'd just as soon see Price and Bronson encase all those schmos in wax! It's interesting that House, made 20 years later, is so much tamer than Mystery. Can you imagine someone in House asking another character, "How's your sex life?", as Glenda Farrel does a cop in Mystery--?! "If I had a hidden microphone inside of my heart, I would turn the power on..."
SFfilmfan	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#5	[-]
Oct 10 03 4:56 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Perhaps this way, they can now release DR. X with the long MIA black and white version of DR. X (which was shot by a different cameraman and features some different compositions). Of course, Warners now has a huge back catalog of classic movies to put out. Given that they just got around to CASABLANCA and TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, I expect it will still be some time before they reach their classic horror films.
mikedecay	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#6	[-]
Mar 26 04 1:59 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	really... the black and white version is a totally different film?! very interesting! :) well, I am honestly not such a fan of House of Wax while Mystery of the Wax Museum I think is wonderful! Glenda Farrell's comic banter or wise cracks or whatever other dated term you want to use for the back and forth comic elements in the movie work very well as opposed to Lee Tracy in Dr. X who I think ruins or severely derails his film. I really enjoy the niche Michael Curtiz dug for himself, the art deco 30's modern gangster horror genre! As opposed to Universal's vague somewhere in Europe in some distant but not too distant time... While Curtiz's films, if viewed upon their initial release, I wonder if they had a different effect on the audiences at the time? Unlike a far off Count, Atwill's (or Karloff's since Walking Dead fits into this subgenre aswell) demented character could very well be sitting next to the film goers in the theater or passing them on the street or worse! Just a thought, I dunno! ahahahha Come to think of it, Murders in the Zoo fits into this sub category aswell I guess even though it's not a Curtiz production.
SFfilmfan	Re: DR. X	#7	[-]
Mar 26 04 12:56 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The black & white version of DR. X is a different film, but not totally different. What we have here is the same script, actors and director, but the performances, takes, and even angles are different, much like the 35mm version and the 65mm version of THE BAT WHISPERS are different. The black & white was not a print of the color version of the film in black & white, which is part of what makes it interesting and its disappearance a bit troubling. I agree that the humor in MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM works much, much better than the humor in DR. X. Two-color technicolor was interesting, but no match for the brilliant hues of three-color technicolor. The depression era world looks awfully brown and dull in the film.
JimPV	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#8	[-]
Mar 26 04 6:25 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM was a bit of a dissapointment to most people when it finally turned up again after all the years it was lost. After you get past the letdown of the first viewing ... there's a lot there to like, including the impressive make-ups and the overall creepiness. Yeah, I was very disappointed with Mystery the first time I saw it. It just seemed like a gab fest to me. But now I really like it! The first time I saw it I expected an out-and-out horror film, but it's really a mystery film (I know, duh - it's called Mystery of the Wax Museum) with the solution to the mystery being a horrific one. It kinda' plays on the idea that you're 'sposed to think it's a mere mystery movie going in, but at the end-surprise!-it's a horror film after all. At least, this has helped me enjoy the movie quite a bit more. Plus, I guess knowing a little more depression era history makes me a tad more savvy to the humor and plot contrivances in this. "If I had a hidden microphone inside of my heart, I would turn the power on..."
blackbiped	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#9	[-]
Apr 26 04 10:09 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	When this film turned up on TV after being lost so many years, I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. Any chance to see classic horror from that era that I hadn't seen a million times already was welcome (same goes for "Jekyll and Hyde" when I finally got to see that as well). And a two-color Technicolor Fay Wray in all her glory -- be still, my beating heart. Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way.
Doctor Lamont	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#10	[-]
Apr 29 05 4:21 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I wasn't disappointed either. Not long after seeing this film I stumbled on a Wax Museum on a side street in the French Quarter. Oddly, I have never been able to find it since.
	Remove this ad
Bill Warren	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#11	[-]
Apr 29 05 5:26 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* Yeah, I was very disappointed with Mystery the first time I saw it. I wasn't. I had the great good fortune to be invited to USC when the 35mm Technicolor print was unearthed. We were shown a double bill of MYSTERY and DR. X, both in color. I'd seen DR. X before, but not in color. I wasn't disappointed in either of them, mostly, I think, because it was such a rare opportunity. In fact, it's never come up again. The color in both films looked much better and more interesting than in any subsequent viewings.
Chesterbelloc	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#12	[-]
Apr 29 05 6:49 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I loved MYSTERY the first time I saw it, very late one Thanksgiving night on KYW TV 3 in the late seventies. One thing that irked me on that first viewing was that the color was turned off on the broadcast at the "Happy New Year 1933" scene, but it didn't detract from Atwill's performance or the pure excitement of seeing a 1930's horror classic for the first time. I'm thrilled to be able to own this title on DVD, even as a so called "bonus" feature.
Southern Beau	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#13	[-]
Apr 29 05 10:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	How timely, I just happened to watch this movie tonight. It's a fun film. As for comparing it with the remake, we are talking apples and oranges. I was a bit shocked at the "sex life" bit. But Glenda Ferrell was quite entertaining. I can image she was probably quite popular with the guys too. ;) Atwill was wonderful. A true actor, he was able to convey conflicted emotions. Here was a man horribly burned and suffering from fits of psychosis, yet there he knew what he was and not at all proud of it. Fay Wray was, as always, an impressive screamer. I had not seen her in anything other than King Kong. So to see her as a brunette was interesting. I like the color. No, it doesn't have that spooky quality due to the bright, if not washed out, look. At times, though, it's almost like watching a dated post card from another era come to life.
Bill Warren	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#14	[-]
Apr 30 05 11:15 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* No, it doesn't have that spooky quality due to the bright, if not washed out, look. The washed-out quality is a result of the film being imperfectly "restored." The original nitrate print does NOT have that look.
ryanbrennan	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#15	[-]
Apr 30 05 1:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The washed-out quality is a result of the film being imperfectly "restored." The original nitrate print does NOT have that look. When MYSTERY was first televised here locally the color was quite rich. I don't know if this was due to the print or something the TV station might have done to boost the color but I have never seen it again with such saturated color. The film programmer at the time was Mark Lamberti who, coincidentally, had been one of several convention directors who brought MYSTERY to Dallas soon after the color print was discovered. It was quite a thrill to see the film on a big screen with an audience.
DrCaligari666	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#16	[-]
Apr 30 05 4:17 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I owned "Mystery" on VHS and was thrilled that they chose to include it on the "House" DVD. Bravo!
Cadaverino	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#17	[-]
May 1 05 12:28 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It's not hard to artificially saturate the color of a television image with the simple turn of a knob. Maybe that's what the station engineer did to boost the color palette.
Unregistered(d)	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#18	[-]
May 5 05 9:07 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've watched Mys[/b] now countless times on my DVD and H[/b] only once. I have Price in many others films, so it isn't like there is all that much to miss with that film. I want classic Price, I grab another film. But Mys[/b] is such a wonderful film for so many reasons. To be honest with you, the thing that kept me going back to it over and over again when I first got it was Glenda! I tell ya, I love her in that movie, and only wish that she had done more films. I can't find any stills or publicity pics with her anywhere, and in that one film she landed as one of my favorites. I have been a little surprised to read on many sites (and reviews) that she was and is an actual distraction for many people. If ya ask me, on New Years Eve, 1933, that was the lady I would have wanted to be partying with!
Wolfman Joe	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#19	[-]
May 5 05 12:55 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	One thing about MYSTERY (and for that matter, HOUSE) that has always bothered me was that both villians' burned faces were shown in the film long before the final unmasking. I'd always read about how both films featured terrifying climactic unmasking scenes, but when the wax is battered away... you've already seen it! Why this odd choice? It hamstrings what could have been truly great moments in 30's and 50's horror.
TomWeaver999	Re: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)	#20	[-]
May 5 05 1:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Maybe they couldn't figure out a way to have a "monster" character throughout the movie, as they no doubt wanted, AND be able to hold off on letting the audience get their first look at his face 'til the end.
	Remove this ad

<< Previous Topic Next Topic >>

Add Reply

Yuku free message boards

MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)

MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ('33)