Mystery of the Wax Museum backdrop
Mystery of the Wax Museum poster

MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM

1933 US HMDB
February 18, 1933

A wax sculptor opens a new museum years after he is severely injured during a fire that destroyed his original collection. The disappearance of both people and corpses coincides with this grand reopening and leads a reporter to start investigating.

Directors

Michael Curtiz

Cast

Lionel Atwill, Glenda Farrell, Allen Vincent, Fay Wray, Frank McHugh, Edwin Maxwell, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gavin Gordon, Matthew Betz, Bull Anderson
Horror Commedia Mistero

REVIEWS (1)

MC

Marco Castellini

London: a sculptor sets up a huge wax museum that, just before the inauguration, is completely destroyed by a fire. Miraculously escaped from the accident, the sculptor moves to America to continue his work, but this time, to make his statues even more realistic, he begins to kill and then cover the bodies of his victims with melted wax. It will be up to a police inspector, with the help of a journalist, to stop the madman. A decent horror movie from the 1930s that, however, rather evidently, suffers from the passage of time, risking to be cloying and slow to the modern viewer. If the idea of the film fascinates you (the mad sculptor who uses human bodies as a base for his statues), I recommend "IL Mulino delle donne di pietra" by Ferroni.