Directed by Leo Birinsky, Paul Leni
Starring Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss
Produced by Neptune-Film AG
An unnamed writer wanders through a carnival looking for a booth 10 and a job. The owner of the wax figure exhibit there wants someone to write a compelling backstory for three of his mannequins: Harun al Raschid, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper. The writer sits and begins crafting the tale of Harun al Raschid, a caliph in Baghdad.
The caliph lives in a majestic castle. At the base of one of the walls, a baker and his wife live in squalor. One day, the caliph, already frustrated at losing a chess match to his vizier, takes out his anger upon the baker because of the smoke entering the castle from the poor man's oven. The vizier is dispatched to take the baker's head, but is distracted by the beauty of the man's wife. The advisor reports back to his king that there is a beautiful woman leaving outside the castle. Curious, the caliph dons a disguise to investigate that night. Meanwhile, the baker feeling jealous and guilty that he cannot provide more, breaks into the castle to steal the ornate wishing ring on the caliph's right hand. How? By chopping the arm off (which matches the wax figure who is missing an arm). Will the baker succeed in making off with the jewel? And can he keep his wife despite the attention of the caliph?
In the second tale, Ivan the Terrible loves torturing his victims. In particular, he enjoys watching his poisoned prisoners die as the grains of sand move through an hourglass that counts down the last seconds of their life. Ivan admires the skill of his poison mixer, but fears that the man may inscribe Ivan's own name on one of his hourglasses. He dispatches his guards to imprison the poison maker, but not before the man writes on an hourglass. Meanwhile, a noble reminds Ivan of a promise to attend his daughter's wedding. The paranoid czar first objects to leaving the palace and opening himself to attack, but then agrees if he can switch places with the noble. They trade clothes and soon the czar's fears are realized when archers kill the disguised nobleman.
The czar arrives at the wedding with the corpse and seems surprised that the guests are not thrilled that the bride's father is dead. First, he demands that the guests drink and dance. Then, he decides to take the bride for himself and sends the groom to be tortured. Upon arriving back at the palace, Ivan discovers an hourglass with his name written on it. As the sand slips through it, Ivan trembles in fear, then realizes he can live if he just turns the hourglass over. Was the leader poisoned? And will the prospect drive him mad before he dies?
The writer sits to right the third tale, but starts dozing off. He looks up and sees that the Jack the Ripper figure has disappeared. Suddenly, the writer and the museum owner's daughter are being chased through the surreal carnival by the living embodiment of a killer. The couple find themselves cornered by the infamous murderer. Will they survive the attack? Or was it all just a dream?
Regular readers of the site know that I love my genre flicks. And in Waxworks we have not one, but three genre stories touching on everything from comedy to horror and from fantasy to suspense, mixed with a healthy dash of Caligari-style German expressionism.
With all that going for it, I liked the film a lot, but didn't love it.
Let's start with the good. The middle episode revolving around Ivan the Terrible had a great deal of suspense, but also some dark humor. The tale itself is a Tolstoy-Edgar Allen Poe mashup. The czar's paranoia is sold by Conrad Veidt's wide, darting eyes. And the saying "just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you" proves true as assassins attack the czar immediately upon exiting the palace.
The humor for me came into play with the czar's clueless approach to the wedding. He does not understand how the death of some random noble could put a damper on the proceedings. The czar survived! And he graced you all with his presence at the wedding! More drinking! Get the band playing! More dancing! Who care that the bride's father's corpse is literally left on the steps outside the hall?
When Veidt goes full on crazy at the end, it works. His belief that continually turning the hourglass will keep him alive isn't so much a descent into madness as much as the last step in what has been a long journey.
The first tale is twice as long, but feels like it contains half the story. It's lighter and more comedic than the other tales, but it is also full of long takes of characters looking at each other. It definitely could have been edited down. That said, (SPOILERS) the reveal at the end that the figure in the bed was a wax figure was both surprising and fit the framing device of the armless wax mannequin. As I was expecting the caliph to lose his arm, this was a nice misdirection that played into the comedic tone of the story. I also loved the stunt near the end that sees the baker leap from the palace tower onto a tree. It was a creative and thrilling escape.
This tale is also a bit risqué in the context of the era (though not to a modern audience). One of the first scenes between the baker and his wife sees him pounding a dough and her watching from the window. They repeatedly cut back and forth between the two of them. I think the look on their faces qualifies not as subtext but as supertext. Later, the two embrace, her with a dress hanging off the shoulder and him wrapping his arms around her body. It's sensuous in a way that contrasts starkly with the polite kisses we usually see in movies of the era.
The last tale ends up being the best and worst of the anthology. It has the best set-up and throws a curveball at us based on what's come before. After setting up the convention of the writer telling a tale, it's a pleasant surprise for the wax figure to come to life. That said, I did not care for the execution. The characters are all filmed in a way that makes them transparent. I do not know if that was a conscious choice or simply the result of superimposing several images, but the effect is to make the characters appear ghost-like. I never for a moment thought I was viewing reality so when the episode is revealed to be a dream, it is less a surprise than a forgone conclusion. Beyond that, the episode is barely five minutes in a film with an 84 minute running time. It is well done and suspenseful, but I would have spent more time with Jack the Ripper and less with the caliph.
The framing device is an effective way of telling the tale, but the ending makes no sense. The writer (I wouldn't call him "our hero" as he hasn't done anything except write some stories) ends up embracing and kissing the daughter of the exhibit owner. The two actors play the couple in each of the three tales, but that cannot explain how they fell in love over their storytelling. The movie does not provide any sense that much time has passed. They have no on-screen relationship. The kiss just does not feel earned.
The acting here is top notch, particularly amongst the central figures. Emil Jannings, Veidt and Werner Krauss are a dream team of German actors and it shows on the screen. Jannings is funny, Veidt is manic and Krauss is menacing. All perfectly inhabit the larger than life characters they portray.
The other star here is the production design. The first two stories have elaborate sets that were designed by Paul Leni. There are visual cues that hit perfectly. The palace walls that seem ready to crash upon the baker's abode. The M.C. Escher stairs as the baker flees the palace guard. The angled windows of the czar's torture chamber. It all owes a great deal to the design from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but it all works here.
As I say above, Waxworks is a very good, but not great outing. There were some slow moments, but plenty of thrills, laughs and suspense. It could have been amazing with some tighter editing in the caliph's tale and some further expansion of the suspenseful Jack the Ripper tale. Still, it's worth a look.
***1/2 out of *****
NOTE: The original script had a fourth wax figure representing Rinaldo Rinaldini. Rinaldini would have been played by William Dieterle who plays the writer in the movie. Though it was cut, you can still see the figure of Rinaldini with the tall hat in the opening. Rinaldini was a nobleman bandit in Corsica in the 1700s (thanks Google!).
Photo from Film Sufi
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