Review of Waxworks

Clocking in at 83 minutes, this silent film directed by Paul Leni & Leo Birinsky might be quite possibly the first feature-length anthology type movie. It's not considered much as a horror movie like later other wax figures films were made out to be. The story is certainly not like 1933's 'Mystery of the Wax Museum', 1953 'House of Wax' nor the 1988 film with the same name where people disappear and end up as wax-coated corpses. Instead the film written by Henrik Galeen tells the story a young nameless poet (William Dieterle) hired to write a series of stories about the waxworks exhibits of the Caliph of Baghdad Harun al-Rashid (Emil Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt) and Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss) in order to boost business at a carnival sideshow wax museum. As he writes, the film segues into the stories the young man has dreamt up with. The first being a comedic fantasy about a young baker Assad also played by William Dieterle having to steal the Caliph's ring, in order to get out of poverty. This 40 mins tale is told mediocre at best. Not only was the story pacing dragging in some areas. It was also uneven with its tone. The color tinting doesn't match the visuals that much. While I do know green means adventurous, it also makes the set look like it's shot in the jungle. I got Flintstone vibes because of that. I felt that yellow or orange would better fit the desert location rather than the opening inside of the wax museum carnival moments. That should had been black and white. Also, I don't know if I should be laughing at people wanting to murder each other by cutting limps while attempted adultery is going on. I felt more to giggle at the outlandish silly costumes that everybody was wearing; especially Jannings. The ending was a huge cop out with semi unfaithful nagging wife Maimune (Olga Belajeff) getting her wish. I kinda wanted a climax where they found other means to get out of poverty than having to steal and murder and the Caliph being oddly being alright with both. I felt that the story could had use the baking premise more to gain the leader trust through his stomach. It could make more sense that this ending. After all, he still could kill the theft and take his wife. Despite that, Janning seems to be having the time of his life with this role. However, it doesn't save the sequence from becoming a silly pantomime even if the German expressionist rounded bee hive clay houses sets are quite beautiful. Regardless a lot of people have said that this segment of the picture was the inspiration for the Douglas Fairbanks' film, 1924 'Thief of Bagdad'. However, that is impossible since Fairbanks movie premiered in February while 'Waxworks' did not receive its German release until November of the same year. It wasn't even released in America until 1926. It's more likely that Leni's film was influenced by 1921 Rudolph Valentino 'The Sheik'. Better yet, from Robert Wiene's 1920 film 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'. You see mostly in the second part. If the backgrounds for the first sequence rounded felt open and dreamlike. The Russian set is shape and cram. Near nightmarish. The wildly nonrealistic, geometrically absurd angles, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows and objects match the mood of madness, insanity & betrayal as Ivan try to control his fate forever turning the hour glass after surviving an assassination attempt at a wedding. Conrad Veidt gives a harrowing, anemic performance here. This by far is the best moments of the film both in acting and visuals even if it went a little too long with 37 minutes. No wonder why Russian director Sergei Eisenstein would later use Veidt's model for his own historical drama rendition of the Czar in 1946. As for the Jack the Ripper sequence, the mind-bending array of distorted lens, shadow lighting effects and double exposures were all cool to see here. Yet I was disappointing that the sequence of him coming to live to haunted the poet didn't get that much screen time. 5 minutes in fact. The film's script by Henrik Galeen was even more shortened by Leni as it also drops the fourth tale in the anthology about a fictional robber Rinaldo Rinaldini who was to be played also by William Dieterle. I get why, it wouldn't match the semi historical fantasy figures tone of the movie. However, why did Leni leave that character in the beginning of the film and then turn the last character into Spring Heeled Jack if they weren't going for that. After all, Krauss's appearance doesn't even match the descriptions of the devilish folklore entity despite looking scary. I think there was a loss of cultures translations here between the German and English filmmakers. The anthology film is not so coherent. Overall: Once described as a lost movie, 'Waxworks' is now available on the internet for free. Some of them are rather beat up with grain, but still quite accepted. Nevertheless, if you really want a satisfactory print of the movie. Try the Kino version. It has the corrected original color tinted and speed. As for soundtracks. That DVD has an absolutely delightful piano score from Jon C. Mirsalis that captures the mood of the film exceedingly well. While vocalist Mike Patton of Faith No More fame had a very trippy weird live score for the silent film in other copies. I will stick to Mirsalis. In the end, this dark and intriguing stylistic exercise is still one of the most interesting films to come out of Germany's silent film industry. It also marks Leni's last film made in Europe before he fled from the Nazis to the United States before dying of blood poisoning in 1929. It's watchable, but not quite essential viewing.