Mystery of the Wax Museum

Mystery of the Wax Museum is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery-horror film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, and Frank McHugh. It was produced and released by Warner Bros. and filmed in two-color Technicolor; Doctor X and Mystery of the Wax Museum were the last two dramatic fiction films made using this process. Plot In London in 1921, sculptor Ivan Igor operates a wax museum that is in financial trouble. One night, he gives a private tour to a friend, Dr. Rasmussen, and an art critic, Mr. Galatalin, showing them statues of Joan of Arc, Voltaire, and his favorite, Marie Antoinette. Impressed, Galatalin offers to submit Igor's work to the Royal Academy after he returns from a trip to Egypt. He and Rasmussen then leave. Igor's partner, Joe Worth, who is frustrated Igor will not create macabre exhibits like those that draw crowds to their competitors, proposes they burn their museum down to collect a £10,000 insurance policy. Though Igor refuses to consider this, Worth starts a fire, and the men fight while the wax masterworks melt. When Igor passes out, Worth leaves him to die in the conflagration, but he awakens. Twelve years later, both Igor and Worth are in New York City, where a monstrous figure has been stealing bodies from the morgue. Reporter Florence Dempsey, on the verge of being fired by her impatient editor, Jim, for not bringing in any worthwhile news, gets a tip that George Winton, the son of a powerful industrialist, is being held in connection with the death of his model ex-girlfriend, Joan Gale. Florence goes to watch the autopsy, but the body cannot be found, and then visits Winton in jail, believing his protestations of innocence. Meanwhile, Igor prepares to open a new wax museum. Due to injuries sustained in the fire, he uses a wheelchair and must rely on assistants to create his new sculptures. One of those assistants, Ralph, is engaged to Florence's roommate, Charlotte Duncan, but Florence does not approve of the match because Ralph is a starving artist. While visiting the museum, Florence notices an uncanny resemblance between the wax figure of Joan of Arc and Joan Gale. At the same time, Igor spots Charlotte and, saying she looks just like his Marie Antoinette, asks if she will pose for him sometime.