I don’t know why I opted to watch this movie. It’s leaving HBO Max at the end of the month, and it was short at 77 minutes. Horror movies set in and around wax museums usually go with something where the max statues are or were people. This particular movie, if it goes that route, isn’t a particularly well-known movie as far as I can tell. But I was curious, and something about old horror films of the 30s and 40s, when they had to get by exclusively on atmosphere since special make-up effects are often so-so at best and also the only thing the movie is likely to have. Blood, gore, and the like would be left up to the imagination. So, yeah, I decided to check this one out.
Also, it was in color. Like, it was originally in color, not someone colorized it later. It’s not great color, but it’s color.
In London in 1921, brilliant sculptor Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) is getting some private acclaim for his work. His primary medium is wax, and his small museum has some sculptures that, personally, I think might have been live actors in some instances. However, Igor’s work is more of an artistic bent, so while he gets accolades from art lovers, his cigar-chomping business partner Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell) is upset because no one actually comes to see such figures as Joan of Arc and Marie Antoinette when other wax museums go with the likes of Jack the Ripper and other horrible true crime scenarios. Since Igor thinks that sort of thing is tawdry, Worth opts to set the place on fire for the insurance money. Igor fights back, but Worth has already started a fire, the clothes on the wax statues catch quickly, and Igor’s work soon begins to melt away. Worth leaves, but Igor doesn’t get out in time.
Twelve years later in New York, a wheelchair bound Igor, complete with mangled hands, is trying again. His two assistants do most of the work, but one of those men has a fiancee in the form of the elegant Charlotte Duncan (King Kong‘s Fay Wray), and she bears a strong resemblance to the long melted Marie Antoinette that was the pride of Igor’s collection. Factor in as well there have been some mysterious disappearances, starting with the body of a socialite from the local morgue. Charlotte’s roommate Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) is working to keep her job. She’s a newspaper writer, but many of her stories haven’t been panning out. She opts to look into the socialite’s death, particularly involving that woman’s wealthy feckless ex (Gavin Gordon), currently in lock-up under suspicion for the woman’s death. He didn’t do it, but there is this misshapen man running around the city collecting bodies from the looks of things. Florence needs a story, and she’ll get to the bottom of all this even if it kills her.
OK, let’s get the obvious out of the way first: the title pretty much tells you that what is probably happening, and the disappearances are almost certainly connected to the wax museum. How Igor survived the fire in the first scene more or less intact is never revealed, so he probably didn’t. So, the ultimate culprit behind everything isn’t really in doubt. The fun here comes from Florence’s attempts to solve the case. She doesn’t know the wax museum is involved in anything, but she keeps finding clues, to say nothing of the fact the last big exposé she did for the paper was for an allegedly corrupt judge who likewise seems to have disappeared. That’s the sort of thing that hurts her credibility. She’s a fast-talking ball of spunk, and she does uncover crimes during the course of the movie. She just never uncovers the crimes she thinks she’s uncovering until the end. One case where she gets the cops to look into a mysterious box she is sure has a corpse in it ends with the discovery of bootleg liquor. I also loved the way she tossed off insults at people like her editor Jim (Frank McHugh), among others. She calls him a “soap bubble” at one point. Was that a real insult people used commonly in 1933? I don’t know. If it is, that’s fine. If it isn’t, wow, that’s a good one.
Ultimately, this one isn’t that surprising over who did it and why it is happening. It’s more about whether or not Florence can save the day before Charlotte meets a bad end as the new Marie Antoinette. Considering her name appearing second in the credits and a bit larger than most, I am surprised Wray’s role was more incidental compared to Dempsey’s Florence. But as a nice way to spend a little over an hour, even if the solution to the mystery is hardly a surprise, I had a bit of fun with this one. Maybe not the most memorable of 30s films, but a fairly fun one all the same.
Grade: B-
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