Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) is a sculptor of immaculate wax sculptures of historical figures, living in London. Apparently, immaculate sculptures of historical figures don’t draw a crowd. Hence, his investor decides that the only way to get his money back is to burn the gallery to the ground and collect on the insurance. When Igor balks, the investor lights the match with him inside it.

Flash forward 12 years and we’re in New York City. Intrepid reporter Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) is about to be sacked from her job unless she can come up with a story, and that fast. Being that it is New Year’s Eve she hits up her cop friends to see if there are any interesting crimes to write about. Turns out George Winton (Gavin Gordon) a rich socialite is being held for questioning over the death of his girlfriend Joan. Her death was originally deemed a suicide, but new evidence indicates it may have been murder.

By the time she gets there the body of Joan, which was slated for an autopsy, has been stolen. She learns that other bodies have mysteriously disappeared as well.

About this time our old friend Igor shows up in New York preparing to open a new wax museum. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how these two things connect.

After the success of Doctor X, director Michael Curtiz teamed up once again with stars Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray (she plays the girlfriend of someone who works at the wax museum – but she’s mostly there to scream).

Like Doctor X it also used a two-color Technicolor system (and was the last film to use that system from Warner Bros.) giving it an interesting green hue.

The plot is very silly. Though Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray get top billing it is Glenda Farrell that steals the show. Her reporter is a fast-talking, wise-cracking dame. The best scenes all involve her and her editor (Frank McHue) who toss one-liners at each other as if they were in a screwball comedy instead of a horror-mystery.

The set design is fantastic, especially the wax museum in New York. The showroom is beautifully balanced, but it is the basement areas where the work is done that come in looking like something out of Frankenstein’s castle. The wax sculptures themselves look wonderful, even if a great many of them are actually real-life actors standing still.

Once considered a lost film Mystery of the Wax Museum has been lovingly restored (with a generation donation from George Lucas) and it looks fantastic. It isn’t a great film by any means, but it is a fun one, and historically important.