Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

jarrodmcdonald-1 Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and Glenda Farrell encounter strange goings-on in two-strip Technicolor. Due to the technology, the blending of green and blue actually gives the story a more appropriately sinister look. But it is all very anachronistic. In several scenes, we are met with Miss Farrell acting more like a depression-era news hound than a reporter from an earlier era. Miss Wray also seems to act and look a little too contemporary. But she is very good, though given less screen time than her female costar (despite Wray having higher billing). Director Michael Curtiz often cuts to medium shots of the characters. He seems to realize that the true ambiance of this story does not depend on dramatic close-ups, but rather emanates from the characters and their space filled with bizarre energy. This does not necessarily involve an overdressed set, which is something that does bog down the remake.

binapiraeus Since Warner Brothers' big venture of making the first two-color talkie a horror movie, "Doctor X', had been very successful, it was only logical that the first THREE-color movie, with the colors further developed and more natural, would also be a horror film - and they also went with the slogan 'never change a winning team': again, Michael Curtiz, one of Hollywood's most able directors ever, took on the direction, and cute, pretty Fay Wray and gentle, but somehow sinister-looking Lionel Atwill played the leads. And there also was a curious reporter again - but the female edition this time: Glenda Farrell, who would prove lots of times (most notably as 'Torchy Blane') that she was just IDEAL for the role of the fresh girl reporter! It all begins in London in 1921: uniquely gifted, but also quite eccentric Ivan Igor has created a wonderful House of Wax - which unfortunately is doing pretty badly financially, because he only depicts historical figures like Voltaire, Joan of Arc and Marie Antoinette instead of murderous anti-heroes like Jack the Ripper that the other Houses of Wax expose, making lots of profit from the curiosity of the visitors. So, his partner, a complete ignorant of real art, proposes to 'just' set the whole place on fire in order to collect the fire insurance - and he actually does. Horrified, Igor watches his beloved masterpieces melting and tries to save them; but they're all destroyed - and his hands forever crippled...12 years later, in New York, Igor opens a new Wax Museum; with the help of young artists, since he himself is unable to work anymore - he clearly disapproves of his assistants' 'talents'; and yet, the first great pieces, his Joan of Arc and his Voltaire, are extraordinary works of art again... And at the same time, bodies are being stolen from the morgue, which makes cheeky reporter Florence suspicious - especially since one of them resembled Joan of Arc very much, and another one Voltaire...So she starts sniffing around in the museum, with the help of her friend Charlotte, whose boyfriend is one of Igor's assistants - and when Igor sees Charlotte for the first time, he immediately sees her in his mind's eye as his lost favorite 'Marie Antoinette'...This unforgettable movie, apart from the color-technical innovation that practically led straight to the movies that we are used to nowadays, has literally got EVERYTHING: an unusual, creepy story (which would be imitated quite some times later on), a PERFECT cast and crew, a most 'real' kind of horror (not scientific this time, as in "Doctor X", but dealing with the sometimes narrow borders between genius and insanity, even leading to criminality...) - and, as a contrast, a most lively, realistic and funny depiction of the crazy world of reporters and newsrooms! And besides that, it can be clearly identified as a pre-Code movie, with features like Igor's drug-addicted helper and Florence's quite open talking about men (a year later, the film would never have been granted a seal...) - "Mystery of the Wax Museum" is certainly one of the greatest, most perfect and most memorable of ALL classic Hollywood movies.

dougdoepke Good horror flick. I was surprised at how good the color was for 1933. I don't know about the early "two strip" process, but it certainly worked here. Atwill's his usual demented self, this time turning people into wax mannequins for his "museum". Like King Kong of the same year, he's got his eye on Fay Wray. Poor Wray, she always seems to attract the wrong kind of guy. Good thing she's got motor-mouth Glenda Farrell as a chum to stir the pot with the cops. Seems like Atwill's got a policy of hiring the deformed, which may be charitable, but is sort of scary for everyone else.What a great wax tub set WB popped for. The catwalks are a marvel of placement and design making those scenes real eye-catchers. To me, Farrell's light comedy is a matter of taste in a horror movie, but at least it's not clownish. And how did they get their mannequins to pose like blocks of marble for an extended camera period. Apparently they used real people since wax figures melted under the stage lights. Strikes me that remaining stock-still is maybe harder than delivering a bunch of dialog. I hope they got triple pay as a result. Anyway, the movie belongs to the great line-up of 30's horror flicks, maybe not first-rank but close to it, especially when we see the real Igor (pronounced eye-gore). Ugh!

sddavis63 This movie was remade 20 years later as "House of Wax," with Vincent Price in the role of the wax artist played in this original by Lionel Atwill. Interestingly - because (a) I don't usually care that much for remakes, and (b) I'm not big on Vincent Price - I thought the remake was the stronger of the two movies. Many won't agree with me on that, of course, but "House of Wax" was one of Price's better performances, and I found this version somewhat lacking in both atmosphere and suspense. The story is the same with only a few adjustments, but I felt it was pulled off better in '53.The cast didn't really blow me away. The most interesting thing about the cast was probably the opportunity to see Fay Wray in a movie other than "King Kong." But as Charlotte, her role was - similar to "Kong" - not a substantive acting performance. She looked both beautiful and vulnerable, so you hope she's going to be OK (and she does get to do a Fay Wray scream toward the end!), but I didn't find her performance particularly powerful. And, of course, she wasn't the lead actress. That would have been Glenda Farrell as Florence, the hard-nosed female reporter for the New York Express newspaper. Farrell was probably the strongest member of the cast. She pulled off the role well, and was quite believable for the most part.A major problem with this movie was the last scene. The ending of a movie (which I won't give away, although it's not all that important to the overall story) has to somehow connect to the rest of the movie - otherwise it just leaves me scratching my head. I was left scratching my head after this was over. I thought the writers made a very poor decision in coming up with a final scene that seemed both forced (between the actors) and artificial (between the characters.) I won't say more, except to say that it left me dry, which is not the way you should be left after watching a movie. (5/10)